by Henry Edwards

Created on: November 08, 2009   Last Updated: November 09, 2009

My Experience With the Word of Faith Denomination

Disclaimer. Before you criticize me and judge me as a hypocrite or sinner, know this! I am both. I have had plenty of bad church experiences or "Hurts" since I was six and a half years old. I remember walking to church, 85th street Baptist Church in east lake (Birmingham, Al) with my family because we did not have a car. My parents were around the age of 37 or 38 and lived very modest (down right poor) if the truth be known. My father was dying of a brain tumor, yet he walked with the rest of us to church.

Before you conjure up images of a wholesome God fearing man, he was not, At least not until his recent conversion to Christianity. Prior to that he was a Chief Petty Officer in the United States Navy who had just returned home from Vietnam. He was pretty much in the religious category of an atheist. My mother was raised Methodist and pretty much turned to the Baptist faith. I was the middle child of their three boys. I watched and observed my father, who was my childhood hero and pretty much still is; turn from a very Hollywood type handsome looking Sailor who wore a great looking uniform to work, to a man who became bald headed, very thin, and very weak.

I remember the constant trips to the hospital he took when an ambulance came to our house to take him. I also remember the anger I felt when the neighbors would stand on their porches and watch with pity and fascination. They were watching the man of the house die and I was too young to grasp what the obvious should have told me. Instead, my mother and her gift of words simply and bluntly told me when he was gone. I still think it was the loudest telephone ring I ever heard and when she answered the phone that was in the living room by saying Hello, then yes, then hanging up the phone she said. Your Daddy is dead!

I remember the image that came to my mind was an empty turtle shell. A teacher had told me the turtle was dead while I was looking at it. That was what death meant to me, an empty shell. The irony is that I felt empty instantly. I could not breathe for almost a full minute I was so heart broken and sad. I did not cry and I did not understand why I did not cry because I had never hurt so deeply in my soul. I do not remember the first of thousands of cries I had from missing my father.

During the months of my father dying with a brain tumor I remember the church people bringing a hospital bed and setting it up in my parent's room for my dad to lie

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