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Forgiveness - My Story
Forgiveness.
Isn’t that what it’s really all about? Forgiving one another? I’m slowly
learning this. I’m slowing trying to put the past behind me. I’m slowly
trying to forget all that’s happened, but it’s so darn hard to do
sometimes. My story isn’t as dark or as bad as most of the ones that
I’ve been reading here. Mine’s just sad. Sad to the point where for many
years I was lied to by the ones who I thought who loved me and cared
about me. The main culprit was my Father, the others were the churches
that we belonged to.
For most of my life I spent it going to church and pretty much having
religion shoved down my throat whether I wanted it or not. I was too
young to really understand anything different so that’s where I’ll begin
my story. I was baptized and raised as a Catholic until I was about 12.
One day, my Dad went on a business trip to California. (we were living
in Colorado at the time) While he was in CA, he met of with his Dad who
told him about this “new way” of believing in Christ. When he came home,
he just expected us to all fall head over heel over this. He couldn’t
have been more wrong. I was raised Catholic, and all of a sudden
overnight you want me to start believing differently? Like I said, I was
too young to understand most of it, but from what I remember I didn’t
like. The church that we started going to was called “The Happy Church”
which was located in Denver, CO. I witnessed people running and shouting
in the aisles, speaking in some gibberish (which I later found out it
was called “tongues”) and the pastor of the church walking all over the
church seats during sermons. Nothing too traumatic happened there, but
it sure was a far cry from what I was used to. My quiet, Catholic life
was turned upside down. My Mother refused to go to these services (good
for Mom) but my brother and I were forced to by my Dad. I was miserable.
I dreaded Sunday mornings because I knew that I had to spend two hours
of my life listening to something that I didn’t understand.
That was just the beginning.
My father received notice that he was being transferred to Seattle, WA
so off we went. Life seemed to return to normal. My grandparents moved
up there from CA to be with us, and we resumed going to a Catholic
church. I was 14 when my Dad discovered a church called Christian Faith
Center. It was starting again. At first I refused to go, but my Dad
ended up bribing me. (Long story on that one but he more or less
promised me the world) So I ended up going. I did manage to make a few
friends while attending this place. I joined the youth group there, and
everything seemed fine. They told me about being something called “Born
Again” and that is the only true was to enter the kingdom of heaven. I
became Born Again. I was also told that I would also be given something
called “The Gift of Tongues”. I didn’t understand this, and no matter
how hard I tried I couldn’t speak it. The youth pastor kept telling me
to keep praying and god will give me this gift. Believe me, I prayed and
prayed for this “gift” but it never came to me. I continued attending
this church (in the meantime my parents ended up divorcing, and yes, it
was because of this church.) and I eventually ended up moving in with my
Dad after my parents divorce. Over the next several months, things began
to change there. They pressured us to give more and more money. The
pastor (who’s name is Casey Treat) preached on wealth and prosperity and
that god will make you rich. All you have to do is open up your wallets
and give. Since my parents divorced my Dad didn’t have a lot of money to
give, so he began digging into my college fund for it. He told me not to
worry that God will give us the money back, and much more. All we had to
do was to believe and pray. We did believe, and pray, and more of my
college money went to Casey and his church. My Dad would ask him when
would we start seeing this money come back to us? Casey told us if the
money wasn’t coming back to us, we were sinning in some way and that God
was angry. How could that be? What were we doing wrong? So Dad gave more
money to Casey to “prove” that he was a good Christian. In the meantime,
many more thing were happening there. To be accepted, you had to attend
the numerous classes that they had. My entire Sunday was spent going to
church. We’d wake up at 5:00AM to get to church by 6 for class #1. At 7
it was prayer time until 9. (That means you go into a little room and
pray in tongues for 2 hours. I still couldn’t speak in tongues and YES I
was highly looked down upon for it.) From 9 to 10 was fellowship (aka
coffee and doughnuts in the basement. The highlight of my day) from 10
to 12 was the main church service. We got a break from 12-2. At 2 was
another class until 4PM. 4-5 was another fellowship or you can go get
something to eat if you wanted to. Then another service was held from
5-7PM. From 7-9 was another class. I also learned that you HAD to attend
every one of these classes to be really accepted. If you didn’t you were
drilled on why you weren’t there. Of COURSE they kept telling you that
you’ll lose your salvation and that you’re a sinner if you weren’t seen
at class. Many things were taught to us at these so called classes. At
the woman’s class were taught that we had to be absolutely submissive to
our husbands when we got married and that if we weren’t married and if a
guy asked us out (and if he was a good Christian) we owed it to him to
date him. We were also taught that tampons were sinful and that if we
had cramps during out period that was god’s way of telling us that we
were sinners. I remember when we were trying to raise money for some of
the kids there to go to some on some mission to Africa. We did
everything that we could to raise the money. (car washes, bake sales) be
we just couldn’t raise enough. The youth pastor screamed at us that some
of us were sinning and he wanted to know who. God was angry at us and
someone was to blame. I felt as if all eyes were on me. Everyone knew
that I couldn’t speak in tongues. My duffle bag was searched on time
while I went on a bathroom break and they found tampons in there and a
few of my cassette tapes. I came back from the bathroom to discover all
of my personal belongings spread out onto the floor.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have our sinner.”
I was mortified. I watched as my cassette tapes were smashed up and
tossed into the trash (all I had were some Lionel Ritchie tapes) and my
tampons and other personal stuff thrown out. I was told that God was
angry at me and that’s why that he refused to give me the gift of
tongues and why we were not prospering in the lord. He once even asked
me if I was still a virgin. (at least he did that behind closed doors.)
In the mean time, Casey was still preaching wealth and prosperity in the
main services. None of that was happening to us. We gave and gave and
gave and still saw nothing. Finally after 3 years of going to this
church our money ran out. My college fund was depleted. Once again dad
went to Casey and questioned why hasn’t God repaid us? Where was the
money that was promised? Casey just laughed. “Were you actually
expecting money? Your payment is your salvation!”
That was the first time that I saw my Father cry. All this time we were
lied to. From that day on we left that church and never went back. We
moved away from there and tried to start a new life.
My Father never verbally apologized to me. I honestly think that the man
doesn’t know how to say that he’s sorry for all that happened to us. I
never told him about the time I was humiliated in from of my church
class. I was too embarrassed to. I use to just hate the man for putting
me through that. For breaking up he and my Mother’s marriage for that
Church. All that crap that he forced me to endure, he never once said
that he was sorry. Not once. Like I said, he never verbally expressed
it, but he has in other ways. My Dad is not like that any more. Now that
I’m older and I have my own child, he has become so sweet and caring. He
is so generous to me. He once put a roof on my back porch and never
asked for payment. He calls me all the time just to talk and see how my
family and I are doing. I do wish that someday he could tell me that
he’s sorry, but I know that he never will. I know that part of our lives
is gone and maybe this is his way of letting go. I wish it was that easy
for me.
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