Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
—Luke 23:34
I might have been spreading my wings with my newfound freedom, but that new freedom came with a lot of new world-shattering realities.
Though I understood that CeCe and I were two of the few black people on a white Christian praise and worship program, it still took some getting used to. In Detroit, no one called me a Negro or colored. But in Charlotte, this was more common than I ever thought possible. And this was in the eighties! I thought we were past all that. But apparently my mom was right. The South was just slow—in more ways than one.
And though I like the idea of celebrating how different we are, and even laughing at some of the idiosyncrasies of white and black people, there are certainly negative and hurtful stereotypes, like every black man is a drug dealer or every black woman might work the corner.
Four black people were part of PTL at the time, including a wonderful, funny elderly black woman who attended the Sunday church services at the Barn on the grounds of PTL. She was always a burst of energy and encouragement to all, but especially to me and CeCe. I remember one Sunday as I approached her to chat for a moment, I noticed she wasn’t her perky self.
“Hello,” I said as I walked up to her. “Is everything OK? What’s wrong?”
Her reply will always bring confusion and laughter to my soul.
“Well,” she said, “on my way to church, as I was singing and praising the Lord for all His mighty works, out of the clear blue sky a car struck mine! Thankfully, although I was shaken up, I wasn’t physically harmed.
“Now, like all drivers do when this happens, I began to gather my insurance information and proceeded to get out of the car and handle the matter. But before I could do any of that, the car pulled off into the unknown.”
“A hit-and-run?” I asked in shock.
“Yes, Brother BeBe, it was a hit-and-run.”
I felt awful for her. I don’t know if there was a confused look on my face to cause her to encourage me not to worry, but what came out of her mouth next set me up for life!
“Don’t worry, brother,” she said. “When they pulled away, I started praying and asked God to cause whoever the individual was, that when he or she arrived at work Monday morning, they’d begin to speak in tongues!”
If you didn’t grow up in the kind of church I did, one that believed in all the gifts God had given to His church, speaking in unknown tongues is one of those gifts.
Think about it. A woman or man walks into their job Monday morning, says hello to everyone, and in the next breath causes everyone to stare, because that sentence she or he just blurted out, no one in the building can understand!
I’m glad some prayers God understands but does not answer for our benefit.
What I learned through my PTL experience, and the experience of others, is that we should pray for understanding and be willing to allow time to bring us the answers we want. Waiting for understanding can invite hurt. That process of waiting for understanding can turn into a waiting game of pain. But the alternative to waiting for understanding is lashing out in ignorance. And our world has enough of that already.
Jim and Tammy did things that I didn’t understand or agree with, but through patience and love I accepted and leaned on God’s understanding. Jim and Tammy said some things that made you say, “Umm…what?” But I can testify that the love of God was a big part of their hearts. Changing the way people viewed race was a mission for them at a crucial time on the PTL Network.
Jim and Tammy realized that change started with them. I believed Jim was going to be a catalyst for people to alter the way his audience thought about black people in general, not just on their show.
But part of me wrestled with confusion. One minute it felt as though Jim and Tammy wanted the world for us. And they did. But the next minute, it felt manipulative. It felt as though we were being used to set the show apart, to draw an audience.