Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
—Proverbs 13:12
I can still remember the audition today. Not the nitty-gritty, just the roller coaster of feelings. And the smell and heat of the South in April. In Detroit in April, the sun is still sleeping, and the ground is still covered in snow.
For the audition, CeCe sang an original and upbeat song that my brother Marvin wrote called “The Giver of Life.” I thought that was the wrong song for her to choose. But she sang it anyway.
I thought this whole thing out. White Christians? Hmm. The “right” song would be a traditional hymn. I had the perfect song: “He Looked Beyond All My Faults (Amazing Grace)” by Dottie Rambo.
Dottie Rambo was a white singer/songwriter from Kentucky; she’d been around a long time and written thousands of songs. They weren’t chump songs either. They were hugely popular Christian songs in the white American church, such as “We Shall Behold Him” and “I Go to the Rock.” I thought this Pineville crowd would certainly know her stuff. I thought it was a good plan to sing a familiar, well-loved song.
It was a nerve-racking experience. After our auditions, I wanted to find out right away whether I’d—we’d—made it. But things didn’t unfold in that way.
I’d love to opine on the particulars of that audition. But I can remember only bits and pieces. Maybe it all washed away on the bus ride back home. Here’s what I do remember.
The audition was not well attended. Jim and Tammy weren’t there. And there wasn’t a large crowd of onlookers. The audition space was a simple boxy kind of a room with a keyboard and keyboard player.
“Are you ready?” they asked.
You answered. You sang your song.
“Thank you. There’s the door.”
Poof, you were done. In and out.
No one applauded you when you finished. No three judges with star-studded pasts in the music business stood in front of you waiting to critique you or run you out of the room. Just your sister and your momma waiting to take you home on a dingy Greyhound bus the next morning.
I also vaguely remember the other hopefuls—people like me, hoping for a break. About twenty people from across the country descended upon Pineville to make their voices heard. Twenty people, for six available slots. CeCe and I were the only chocolate drops.
Howard thought we did well. I think he might have used the term “wonderfully.” Or maybe that’s what I wanted to believe he said. Either way, very soon we’d find out if he was correct.
I remember walking around the PTL campus and pinching myself at the thought that I was—we were—inside one of the biggest television networks (at that time). We ate a catered meal right on site! We stayed overnight at some cheap hotel, although back then it felt like high-class, because a Holiday Inn was the Ritz to me.
When I close my eyes and try to remember the trip, it’s like looking through the window of the Greyhound bus: a blur of trees, sky, and open fields, with some singing thrown in.
The next morning, we hopped back on the Greyhound, and it ran us back the many miles to Detroit. On the ride back home, I prayed hard: “This is it, God. This is it. Make it happen, Lord.” In my mind, the trip made me feel as though I’d arrived in Hollywood. I had finally reached a place that possessed the potential for my gift to be heard by multitudes. The audition was my gateway to stardom—that’s what I kept telling myself.
When we returned home, our whole family was curious about the trip and the audition. We told the story, which I’m sure was more dramatic and colorful than the one I just described to you. Everyone seemed genuinely hopeful for us. I was eager to hear the great news that we’d both made the show.
In my mind unfolded all the dreams a young eighteen-year-old has about stardom and fame. The excitement of moving out of the state, of traveling and doing music, just like my brothers were doing. That was the dream.
Then, on a normal kind of day, the call came.
There was good news and bad news.
They loved CeCe, but they didn’t like me that much.
They wanted CeCe, and they passed on me.
That day was the first time I felt that God didn’t have ears.
The news introduced a new scenario, one I’m not sure even Mom and Dad had discussed. CeCe was going to travel back down to Pineville, North Carolina, and live there and perform on The PTL Club by her soon-to-be sixteen-year-old self?
“I’m not going to let my baby girl go down there by herself,” Daddy said.
What happened next surprised me, even as the words leapt from my mouth. “Daddy,” I said, “just let her have this opportunity, and I’ll go down with her, and I’ll find a job. I’ll work in a grocery store or something.”
I can’t really explain why I was thinking that. But that’s the truth of it. And for some strange reason, Daddy agreed. But even though Mom and Dad decided, to everyone’s surprise—especially mine and CeCe’s—that this move was going to happen, it wasn’t without reservations.
My brothers were livid. Marvin and Ronald were angry that my father said yes. When I talk to Marvin about it today, he remembers being excited for us and wanting us to succeed. So perhaps what I remember as anger really is just their disbelief that Dad allowed us to go. Dad didn’t allow them to do much of anything on their own. And they were the older boys. So the question for them was, “How can you be so strict with us, and then allow our fifteen-year-old sister to move to another state?”
Dad quickly reminded them that he was the father, and he made the final decision.
We all had to settle in and realize that this was a miracle—God was definitely working His plan. It might not sound like an act of God to you, but in my household, this was on par with God speaking to Moses from the burning bush. I’m not sure that made our house a holy ground, but it kind of felt like it.
Even though I spoke up and suggested they let CeCe go, I still felt as though I’d gotten the short end of the stick. Maybe I’d gone crazy on that bus ride.
Mom and Dad picked up on my dejection, and their strength and encouragement helped me endure. I knew in that painful moment, because of their example throughout my life, that I was going to be OK. What a blessing it was to have two parents in the house. Even though my mom and dad had their issues, they were there for us, and for each other. Both parents play a role. And when one is absent, there’s a void you can’t fill; I get that. And that void contributes to the difficulty in growing into your total potential. When things are incomplete around you, it’s hard to be whole. I was fortunate that my parents gave me the opportunity to be a whole person.
They said, “BeBe, you can sing. It’s going to be OK.”
They’ve always been my number one advocates, Mom especially. My siblings knew she had a soft spot for me. And I’ll take that soft spot over most anything this world has to offer. I was grateful then, as I am now, at how loving Mom and Dad were to me and have always been in tough situations. They encouraged us all, and loved us all, and they did it with firm words, and tough love, and God’s Word ready on their lips.
Even though they encouraged me, it was still tough to watch one of my closest siblings get excited and prepare to do the very thing I’d set my heart on.
Dad said to me, “Benjamin, you have everything inside of you that you need to make it in this world. Don’t sit here and wait for something to happen. Go, work, sing. See what God does with your willingness to serve and work hard.”
It was here that the words to the lyrics that I’d write decades later began to take shape:
Born for this
Destined for greatness
Am I prepared for this
You’re strength for my weakness
I know life’s not always easy
Question if it’s worth the risk
But deep inside something whispers
Yes, you were born for this
But at the time, I could only wonder, “Born for what? Born to watch other people achieve their dreams?”
The tough news, and the even tougher living scenario that I myself had suggested, taught me a hard but good lesson. When man says no, that’s never the final word. My faith taught me that if God is for me, who can be against me? A negative situation can be a pause or something God uses to get you going, to inspire you to keep going. In that career moment for me, Jim and Tammy put a pause on my singing career, but they didn’t end it.
With my life lesson in tow, I still had to face reality.
* * *
I remember us packing, getting a moving truck, and filling it up with stuff, even though we didn’t own much since we were still living in our parents’ house.
This was God’s will for me. He’d just parted the Red Sea. I was on my way to the promised land, and it just happened to be Pineville, North Carolina.