Not everybody can be famous, but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
As we became more famous, I started wondering if I had taken a wrong step somewhere. Yes, the concerts and the records were what I had always wanted, but sometimes we want things that aren’t good for us. I didn’t want to gain the whole world at the cost of my own soul. Did God really want me to pursue success like this? Was I still singing to make His name famous instead of my own? With that caution, I decided to retrace my steps.
One day, around 1984, after we had been away from PTL for a year or so, the phone rang at my home in Detroit, and it was a familiar voice from Pineville. This person made a request on behalf of Jim and Tammy Bakker: please come back to PTL. I was caught off guard. But I had to ask myself, “Is this the answer to my question?” The next phone call was to CeCe. And after long talks and prayer, we both decided and agreed to go back to Charlotte. We would still be able to continue building our careers as a duo outside of the network while still being a part of PTL.
All things pointed to Charlotte as a solid home base for CeCe and me again. With our careers on the upswing and feeling good about our decision to return to PTL, the phone rang again. With only weeks before CeCe and I would be leaving our homes in Detroit, the unexpected happened. The same person who called to share the request from Jim and Tammy for us to come back to Charlotte delivered the news that Jim had changed his mind. The offer was withdrawn. Just like that, with no other explanation. Goodbye.
We wondered what was going on. A week later we watched the news and, along with the rest of the world, witnessed the fall of Jim and Tammy and the PTL Network’s whole empire.
It was shocking and painful to watch people criticize Jim and Tammy. People Jim and Tammy had helped turned on them. People who once called Jim and Tammy their brother and sister in Christ were now calling them a cancer in the body of Christ—a cancer that needed to be cut out. I was stunned and overwhelmed with emotion. The betrayal was astonishing to me. From friends to enemies in the blink of an eye.
I experienced a lot of “You aren’t Christian enough,” or “You’re too Christian. “Is your music Gospel or R&B?” or “Are you from Detroit or Hollywood, and no, it can’t be both!” But my attempt to empathize felt pretty empty. Jim and Tammy were suffering much more than we had when it came to cruel words. Some I’d read in the papers were surprising but also intensely mean. And I knew we were much more stalwart than Tammy. I couldn’t imagine the effect that the PTL problems were having on Tammy’s view of herself. I knew her heart must have been under tremendous strain.
What did I do for my friends in that moment?
I prayed and cried and prayed some more for those two people who had been nothing but good to me. Sure, they might have made some mistakes in how they loved us when we were on the show, but I knew their hearts. I knew they cared and intended good. As I prayed and cried for them, I thought of my years on the show and all that I learned and experienced. It was good to reminisce. Together we had changed so many hearts, and that work was more meaningful than any number of record sales.
What hurt the most was not being able to help keep Jim and Tammy from the awful pain the world was serving. Truth mixed with untruth is unfair.
The withdrawn invitation started to make sense. Jim knew their world was about to crumble, and he didn’t want his African American children to be caught up in that web. He was protecting us just like a father does his children.
It was hard for us to watch, knowing our hurt was nothing like Jim and Tammy and their family’s hurt. I’m still shocked at how much they endured during that time—the constant attacks and betrayals were crushing. I prayed for them constantly, asking God to show mercy and grace. After Jim was sent to prison, our relationship was null and void.
We are still His children, when we’re right and when we’re wrong. The Bible often reminds us of His unfailing love. I believe that God is still married to the backslider and that mercy and grace follow us for all the days we have on planet Earth, even when we’re feeling helpless and vulnerable. No one likes that feeling—when the world stares down at you when once they looked up to you and wanted to hear what you had to say.
There were days I wondered if we could have helped by showing with our presence how these two people had hearts for the Lord and His children who were hurting around the world.