Today's Featured Biography

 
Phil Berchtold

THE BRASS RING - My Testimony

By Phil Berchtold March 22, 2010

I was born in Boston in 1950 into a dysfunctional family and moved to Sharon, Massachusetts in 1954. The stability and affluence of this quaint town inspired me to a better life.

Outside my family I found peace and joy in Sharon. The clean lake, the woods behind my house, the nature trails at Moose Hill, all provided a fun and safe environment. I remember when I was five, my mother sent me to Sharon Heights Shopping Center for baby bottles. I got lost, spent the money on candy and stayed in front of Morse’s Food Mart all afternoon. It was a different day in 1955.

Being the poor kid on the block, I always felt on the outside looking in. My peers had nice shoes where the soles of my shoes flapped as I walked. I was embarrassed by my family, my status, my life, and I determined to change it all. I managed to be the first of my seven siblings to attend college and I was excited that I was escaping the chains of what appeared to be my destiny of defeat.

I wanted a chance at the Brass Ring.

It didn’t take long for me to succumb to the college party scene. The desire for some joy in my life overrode my better judgment and I dropped out of three colleges. My twenties became a blur of parties and drinking to drown out my failures, during which I smashed up five cars. As I told the inmates at the James River Correctional Facility when my family sang for them recently, “I’d be right there with you if it weren’t for God’s mercy.”

A few months before my thirtieth birthday I got the job of my life and met Clareann. Immediately I was drawn to her beauty and her God. She introduced me to Jesus Christ in a way I had never known, and I said, “This is the God for me!” I repented of my sins, asked Him into my life, and married Clareann on Valentine’s Day 1982.

They say love is blind, and that was me. The fact that Clareann had seven young daughters was not an issue. Some thought I was deaf, dumb AND blind! But I always wanted marriage and children, so I felt blessed to get the whole package at once. The girls were very loving and well behaved and immediately accepted me.

In Clareann I had found my soul-mate, and leaving bachelorhood for toddlers and teens didn’t faze me. Her husband had just left her, and I was to be her knight in shining armor. I had found the love of my life, and once again, hope had rekindled to reach for the Brass Ring.

Although I had become a “New creature in Christ” the habits of my unfortunate upbringing did not just disappear, and The Miracle Worker had no problem with that! In our Home Church we worship God, read the Bible, and “Confess our sins and pray for one another that we may be healed” (1 Peter 3), and I have been healed physically and emotionally in 28 years of our fellowship.

In 1989 the girls wanted a change so I left my job as Sales Manager at Wise Potato Chips and we all moved to California. Six years later I adopted all seven sisters, five of whom remain in my home to this day.

My new job in the Foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains became our Home Church Ministry and what amounted to a girls boarding house. During this time we purchased a home recording studio. When I fell in love with Clareann, I also fell in love with her music. It was anointed of God, touching the soul, and her voice rivaled that of Linda Rondstat, my favorite singer. She had taught the girls to sing and we recorded CDs of her original songs now numbering 1,500.

To keep us happy, the girls (who are all in the medical field) sent us out to explore exotic and interesting places to vacation, a family favorite being Israel. It’s been a joy to hear them break out in song all over the world, especially in Romania where our youngest daughter has lived for seven years. In visiting her (for the ninth time in May) we’ve been able to help Romania’s poor and abandoned babies.

After 12 years in California, we moved to Pennsylvania, then to Virginia in 2006. We feel very blessed to live here in a 7 bedroom home where the world can now hear our music on our website at www.seventhheavenmusic.net.

Little Clare came into our lives in 2007 and no one is more excited to be a Papa to this beautiful child than I am. Born premature (25 weeks) at 1.5 pounds, she was neglected in the NICU for six months, had 17 medical diagnoses, and a feeding tube. We praise God that she is now a healthy, happy 3 year old. Adopted July 24, 2008, Clare is the joy of everyone she meets.

While we are all a work in progress, I can now say I not only got the Brass Ring, but I got the Golden “Crown of Life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him” (James 1).

And I pray you will encounter the same “God of Love” as me, for “With God all things are possible.”

VIEW ALL BIOGRAPHIES