Pastor Claudette Whyte … from pain to ministry
Published:Thursday | June 18, 2015 | 12:14 PM
DAYS AFTER accepting the Lord as her Saviour, Claudette Whyte almost threw in the towel and gave up!
She was accused of stealing her best friend's first week's pay and, what was worse was that the suspicion was communicated to the entire church without her knowing about it.
"She told the Church and while I was happily leading service, I had no clue everyone was looking at me as a thief," Whyte reminisced.
She eventually found out what was going on when her little sister stopped at a store and overheard the accusatory words.
"We were friends. I visited her every day. We cooked and ate together. She begged my sister not to tell me what she heard, but after my sister watched me getting dressed every day to go to my friend's house, she could not keep what she heard," Whyte said.
divine intervention
That broke her heart and, after taking it to the deacon of the church and realising she was the only one in dark on what she supposedly did, Whyte said she went home, knelt on her Bible and asked God to reveal what really happened to the money.
I remember saying, "God, if you nuh find the sister money, me done go church, and me just start. And I got up. I stopped praying, stopped reading the Bible and waited. I felt vengeance in my heart for the Church," she related.
The mystery was solved the following week when the sister went back to a supermarket and the envelope was given to her with the words that she had left it on the counter. No apology was made, and although the temptation was strong to change churches, Whyte said she stayed put.
That, as well as some other painful experiences, have now formed the basis for the upcoming July 5 release of her book, Destiny Through Pain.
Whyte told Family and Religion that she is hoping the painful experiences she has been through will help others to come through their difficult seasons as well.
She said she initially never had any intention of writing a book, but she got the idea one day while reflecting on her life and, wanted to remember every detail of it - where God brought her from and what He did for her.
"My book is real-life story. Sharing some real stuff that you go through will help someone in that same ditch. My book is not to tell you how saved you are, but to tell you how I crossed over," she said.
Born and raised in Hanover, Whyte is also a recording gospel artiste with three gospel albums and a few singles. She has ministered in song across the Caribbean as well as in Florida.
As a female pastor, she says her biggest challenge is being talked down to and told that women should not be leaders.