In 1975 Samuel was 3 and didn't know if he would be a preacher or a garbage man. He loved both. In 1995 he graduated from college with a degree in business and married the love of his life. In 1998 he had 2 young children, 18 months and 4 1/2 months and ... was in Heaven. Like so many before us and after us we got that phone call that changed our lives forever.
It's hard to describe Sam's journey and what he ultimately chose to be. The day before I had him was a Sunday and the message was about Hannah and her crying out to the Lord for a child. God granted her request and she had Samuel. So when I went into labor early Monday morning my husband and I decided that if we had a boy we would name him Samuel. We didn't realize at that point that we were in a cult. (I will give more detail about this later.) I even considered if I should have the “Preacher” raise him like Hannah did her Samuel. People don’t do that in these times, so the closest I could come was to constantly ask for counsel on how to raise him. I was unaware that the counsel I received was misguided.
As soon as Samuel was old enough to walk and started talking he was drawn to trying to preach by pounding on a toy stove (his pulpit) and yell. Words like “sin” were predominant in his vocabulary. He did love to sing also, and even lead singing from his pulpit and copied what he had seen and heard at church. When he was 7 he came home from school and cried that he didn't want to be a “goat” he wanted to be a “sheep,” from the message the day before at church. He prayed to receive Christ that evening. I had read him Bible stories since he was an infant and he knew them very well. He had a very tender conscience and was very caring. We were told to raise him the way the pastor thought we should and he strongly believed in don't spare the rod.
When he was 11 the pastor died and so he was spared from the legalistic rules of the cult from that time forward. We stayed in the church until he was 17 because we thought since the leader had died things would change. Unfortunately, though they did start to change, they began going back to legalistic critical beliefs.
Samuel graduated from high school but was really hurt and disillusioned by the cult and not having a familiar place of worship. He often attended church at the new place we found but he never felt a close connection with people his age. Most had grown up in that church and they had their friendship bonds made. He started college and seldom went to church except occasionally with us.
His junior year in college he met the girl who would become his wife. She inspired him to finish college the following year (he was on the 5 year plan), and to go to church with her on a regular basis. He had struggled with college but made the Dean’s List his senior year. He graduated that May and they were married in August. His major was sales with a minor in communications. His desire was to be a sports writer but he took a job in sales to support his wife-to-be. We weren't really surprised since his great-grandfather, grandfather and father were all sales people. He was good at it, but he did have a talent for writing and maybe at some point he would have pursued that. That little boy who was torn between a preacher or a garbage man was grown up and had a different view on his life. I will never know if the “cult church” experience was why, or if he would have chosen a different path anyway. It is a question I have given to God and trust Him that He had a plan for Sam, to do him good and not evil. Jeremiah 29:11.
I have had to trust God with how he was raised and why God allowed that for all 3 of our children at the time. Samuel had two older sisters who were very much scarred by being in the cult.
I know I will see Samuel in Heaven and I'm sad that he was hurt by the events of his childhood. I'm thankful he and his wife had 2 beautiful children, Justin and Madeline before he went to Heaven. They are now grown up, graduated from the same college Samuel and their Mother graduated from and working in their chosen professions. Justin is a salesman (no surprise) and Madeline is a nurse in ICU at a hospital in town and will get married in October to wonderful young man.
A little about the cult ... It was a split from a Baptist Church and seemed to start out as a place for people wanting to hear the whole counsel of God. We were like frogs in the pot of cold water over a fire. The “leader” gradually rationalized his control over us and when anyone disagreed and left he used scripture to say they were apostates and were never one of us. We were told to shun them. This included, for many of us, our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters and friends who had come because we had invited them to hear the word of God preached. Our family had minimal contact with both sides of our families and so our kids had minimal contact with their grandparents for years. After the leader died from a heart attack, I read an article in a Christian Magazine about churches on the fringe. The Pastor said I was wasting my time reading Moody Monthly when I could be serving. Our eyes were opened to the legalistic and unbiblical ways we had been brainwashed to believe and we confronted the new leader about what we had learned. He was the son-in-law of the first leader and at first he seemed to want to tear down the walls of legalism. He was in seminary at a well known college but his wife and mother-in-law convinced him he had enough schooling and once he quit and was under the influence of the old ways, things began to go back the way they had been before. We contacted the writer of the article and shared our story and we were part of a book he wrote called Churches that Abuse. One of our daughters has a chapter in his followup book, Recovering from Churches that Abuse. They are both by Dr. Ronald Enroth. It is by faith that we believe that God will restore the years the locusts have eaten, Joel 2:25a.
We have all had different struggles and situations in our lives, and like all who have had a child or loved one suddenly die, or perhaps have suffered with a disease for years or their whole lives, we make a choice to trust God or become bitter and blame God. If you are searching for an answer, the best answer is in the Bible, John 3:16 is a good place to start. If you don't understand, like I didn't until I was 19, please contact anyone on this website and we will be honored to talk to you and pray with you. God will truly walk through everything in your life. He loves us so much.
Barb