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#225. Love City: 13 College Rejections, Then The YES

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Photo by Jeff Rogers Photography

I spent my early growing-up years in Georgia, then we moved to a small town in Missouri when I was 12. I didn’t grow up in the church, but my grandmother was a spiritual giant. She always talked to us about how much God loved us. I got baptized at a Vacation Bible School that my grandmother took me to when I was eight, but didn’t really interact with the church until I was around 13 years old. I went to church with my best friend in middle school. Her parents were youth pastors. As I was getting older, I started doing mission trips. We built houses and cleaned up communities. I am one of seven children. I was really the only person in my immediate family who went to church. 

In high school I was very school-oriented and involved in church. I went to a tiny midwestern farm town high school. I was class president for a couple of years. I did theater, show choir, academic team. I graduated with a 4.0 grade point average. Everyone told me I would be able to continue my education anywhere I wanted and would get scholarship. I applied to 13 schools and got into none! I was even rejected by the community college. It was so disappointing. I had spent so much time working hard in school. 

I graduated in 2016 and went on a mission trip in Colorado that summer. During that trip, I was praying a lot about what to do because I didn’t get into school. There was a speaker from iGo Global. The speaker said some people are called to go and some people are called to stay. I felt a distinct calling to go on mission. Everything in my life had led to that. I knew I wanted to do whatever the Lord wanted me to do with my life. 

When I got home from Colorado, I talked to my youth pastor, and she said to look into Ozark Bible College. I applied and was immediately accepted. I started in January after I graduated high school. My family didn’t help with the money, and it is a pretty expensive school, so I worked to earn money toward my tuition. Two days before school started, I was going to turn my paperwork in and the academic dean randomly stopped by the secretary’s desk. When he saw my paperwork, he offered me a scholarship that paid half my tuition for four years. 

My third year at Ozark Bible College, I came on a service trip with a team of college students to Love City in Louisville, Kentucky, during spring break. The founders of Love City offered me a three-month summer internship, which I accepted. Four weeks into the internship, they offered me a full-time position. After graduating with a mission degree in intercultural studies in May 2020, I moved to Louisville to be on full time staff at Love City. 

The Lord is patient. I am a big planner and the most important way the Lord has worked in my life is uprooting my plans and showing me the way (His way). The 13 college rejections were disappointing (and surprising), but God had a better plan for me, a plan that He is revealing to me even now. Going to Bible College helped me fulfill my dream of becoming a missionary, and God connected me with the founders of Love City, a place where I now live and love to serve. 

I am most thankful that the Lord just keeps showing up, even when I don’t know what He is doing! Over and over, His hand has provided for me and guided me. Even the big changes in my life, have all worked out very well. I have learned that God may uproot your plans, but He will never disappoint you. 

I therefore, a prisoner for theLord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:1-3).

#224. Love City: Believing It But Not Living It

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Photo by Jeff Rogers Photography

I grew up attending a nondenominational evangelical church from birth to fifth grade. But, I basically lost interest after elementary school. My parents could tell I was drifting. They are wonderful, observant, good parents in every way possible, and they saw that I was not into the church we were attending. They thought if we changed churches, and went where one of my friends was going, I would get more into it there.

So, that’s what we did. We moved to a mega church where I knew one person. I was glad because I was thinking I’d just blend in with the crowd. A lot of people at that time intentionally poured into me. In that season, I got this misconception of what I thought ministry/life lived for God looked like. I thought I wanted to be a youth pastor, or something like that, until I was a sophomore in high school. 

At that point, I was one of the more organized kids in my youth group, so I was tasked with finding a place for 80 kids to volunteer (that is what a “small group” at a mega church looked like in 2016). Love City, in the Portland neighborhood of Louisville, was the only ministry willing to accept a group of youth volunteers that large.

I met Shawn and Inga (founders of Love City) at age 15. They have been mentors and have provided me with lots of opportunities. So my involvement with Love City has changed over the years. Throughout high school, I used to help with their weekly fish fry and hang out with Shawn. We got to know each other pretty well. He kept pouring into me as I worked with the ministry.

During high school, I was also a soccer player and had put a lot of my identity into that. Soccer was the main reason I went to the high school I did. It was preparation, as I intended to play soccer in college, but I got burned out on it — to the point that I would see a soccer field and get sick to my stomach. Once that happened, I lost part of my identity, so I tried to fill it with other things. 

I started using recreational drugs of any type. I regularly used them sophomore to senior year of high school, even while I was in church or working at Love City. Two very distinct lives very well hidden from one another.

My drug life was hidden from church. But, church life was not hidden from drugs. I remember being high and telling people about Jesus! My senior year, I decided to go to Johnson University, a private Christian school in Knoxville, Tennessee. Two weeks before leaving for college, a friend had invited me to a big music event in Chicago. I thought “one last blowout” — then I will leave all that behind and go to Bible college.

While in Chicago, I ended up overdosing on acid and woke up in the hospital — no phone, no idea where I was, hallucinating — I was so confused. My parents came to pick me up from the hospital around 1 a.m., and they just came in with the most world class parenting approach of grace and forgiveness. Then when we got home, my parents, Shawn and Inga (who were my spiritual parents), and I met together. That was another huge blanket of love around and for me!

I decided to go ahead and go to Bible college in Knoxville. In that first year away from home, I did a lot of thinking and had a lot of revelations: If I say I believe this stuff — even to the point I am saying it when I’m intoxicated, yet if I am not living it — it doesn’t matter. Kind of like the parable of the two sons in Matthew 21:28–32.

This is an ‘all in’ or ‘nothing’ type of thing — this is a lifestyle thing. That year away, I realized I do believe these things. It felt like I needed to reconstruct everything. So I dug into prayer and scripture, I asked tough questions to people I trusted, and I started rebuilding my faith. At the end of that year, I had a faith that I owned and was actually mine.

I came home that summer to do an internship at Love City. I started getting to know the kids in the Portland neighborhood and enjoyed working with them. My plans of returning to Knoxville quickly changed when, two weeks before I was supposed to go back to Johnson, one of the youth role models in the community, a 15-year-old boy, was shot and killed. It was then that I knew I didn’t want to be someone rotating in and out of their lives — I wanted to be here year-round and constantly. So, I decided to continue my studies online rather than on campus, so I could be at Love City.

The COVID pandemic has changed the way we do things at Love City. I was moved into a role of teaching interns and apprentices what it looks like to love God and love people.

Personally, I have been learning a lot about nature — and about the Father — through creation. We are meant to be at peace. To look up at the sky and see its beauty; then look around at human beings and see the same beauty in them as well!

A significant scripture for me is Proverbs 16:9 “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lordestablishes their steps.”

#223. Love City: Radically Transformed

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Photo by Jeff Rogers Photography

I was raised in the church for first 12 years of my life. When I was born, there was no dad in the picture for the first five years. A guy got my mom pregnant but was not a part of my life. I grew up in my grandparent’s house with four of my cousins, two uncles, aunt, mother, and grandparents. I loved family — family was my life. I didn’t really have other friends, just my family. 

At age five, my mom met a man at Southeast Christian Retreat Center and they got married. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but there was a falling out between my mom and my grandparents, so we got kicked out. I can’t remember — either we left or got kicked out, but it tore me up. It devastated me. It was such a transition going from living in community with family to living in complete isolation. The man my mom married adopted me at age five, as soon as they got married. So I had a new last name, a new man I’m supposed to call “Dad,” a new school, and a new family. I had a new life.

That’s when I started to act out and rebel. We call it the Bible, but I’ve come to find out that it is a 66-book love letter from God to me. Scripture uses the metaphor of a wild animal to describe how I was acting. If a wild animal gets angry, it will devour  people and things around it/tear them apart.

In the same way, when I couldn’t express my feelings, it would come out as rage. I was feeling something but couldn’t express it or understand it, so I would act out. I never found healing because I could never identify the problem or release it. So, I ended up living for other people’s acceptance. I knew who I was in community with family, but after losing that I didn’t know who I was. I kept going to Sunday school and all my friends got baptized. I wanted to also, so I began doing what everyone else was doing. I believed who Jesus was and what He did, but what I didn’t understand was what comes after deciding to follow Jesus.

So, when I started to live for other people’s acceptance, I also started to die from their rejection. In middle school I got bullied, so in high school I was chomping at the bit to fit in with the cool kid crowd. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to fit in, but there was always something in me that was tugging at me not to do “that thing.”

At 17 years old, I got kicked out of my parent’s house for being disrespectful and rebellious. I graduated high school and was glad I got kicked out. I wanted to take on the world. My selfish ambition started a ripple effect, not just in my life but also in the lives of other people.

I had a girlfriend for about three years, but I also had this pain inside that I didn’t know how to deal with. So I turned to money, sex, and drugs to turn off my mind, because I had to numb the pain that was in my heart.

I got a theft charge for stealing from UPS and got fired from Ford for failing a drug test. I would spend all my money on drugs, then my girlfriend would get me a meal at the end of the day — even though she knew I was doing drugs. I would repay her by punching holes in the wall when I was mad. I felt like a piece of trash — God didn’t make me to be a monster. My girlfriend would cry and I felt like trash.

I remember that I had a glass prism with Jesus in it and, in a rage, I threw it through a glass table. I had a Bible that was gifted me when I was baptized but, one day we argued and I threw it in the garbage. I never got it back out.

Finally, I ended up on painkillers and cocaine because nothing else would numb the pain. I got in a fight with a good friend, which was the straw that broke the camel’s back. No words were exchanged — we just got up and started brawling. My parents let me move back in when I was 19 but then I got in a fistfight with my dad, so I got kicked out again. It was a never-ending cycle of self-destruction. But it was not just destroying me. I was inflicting pain on other people.

I wanted to change, but knew I would have to get away. One day I called my cousin and told him what was going on. He was about to move to Mississippi. He said if I wanted to clean up my life, I could go with him. So that is what I did. I developed a work ethic and got my driver’s license back (which I had lost because of a DUI charge). It was good timing to get away from the toxic environment I had been in.

Unfortunately, my cousin and I had a falling out, so my girlfriend came to Mississippi to get me and took me back to Kentucky.

The Lord has reminded me of Matthew 23:27 where Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, telling them that they are like whitewashed tombs. There was this beautiful picture on the outside, which gives you the impression that what is on the inside is even better. But Jesus said that what is inside is actually rotten, decaying, and dying. When I came back, I “looked good” on the outside, but on the inside I was still the same monster. I had never sought healing for the pain that was on the inside.

I was still a monster to my girlfriend. I talked badly to her and I was disrespectful. She kicked me out one day, so I moved in with a friend. I got a job at Planet Fitness, but the background check came back and I got fired. I had another interview, but that fell through. 

I found myself overcome with such a burden of shame. I called my mom and apologized, and she accepted my apology. I didn’t deserve her grace but she forgave me. My dad was still bitter and wasn’t ready to reconcile. So I ended up meeting my mom and little sister at McDonald’s to grab breakfast after three years of not seeing them. My little sister had become a young woman, and it tore me apart.

At this point the last resort was the military. I went to enlist and they said as long as I didn’t have a murder charge or drug trafficking charge, I could apply. Twice before the military had not worked out, so this was the third time going to enlist. I wanted to be a Marine but ended up with the Army recruiter. They said they would let me know in a month. 

While I waited, I stayed in contact with mom and my little sister. One day I was running laps with my mom and told her that I would love to have a relationship with my family before I deployed. She was OK, but she said I had to ask my father. I was genuine with my dad and expressed how sorry I was and that though I couldn’t take away the pain I had caused, if he was open, I wanted a relationship. I ended up moving in with them while I waited to hear back from military. My dad suggested I get with one of his friends and see if he could use help roofing. A couple days later I was working again.

The military option fell through, but in the midst of the waiting, I had to praise God. I had a Bible app on my phone and was reading a devotional plan called the “Battlefield of the Mind” by Joyce Meyer. Every day was about the Holy Spirit cutting off all the junk I was carrying.

I could tell at this point I was just tired of it. Enough. I saw the wake of destruction which spurred the realization to not just “desire change” but to “need change.” There comes that point when you stop crying out just when you need Him. Instead you just genuinely want Him.

There is a difference between desiring and yearning. I had always desired change, but now I knew I needed God for change. I was yearning for Him. There is a supernatural God who loves me in a supernatural way. I knew transformation would come if I believed in Him.

If what He says in His Word is real, I’m going to know it, because that is how deeply I am going to seek Him. So I got a notebook and started writing — prayers, thoughts, and hopes.

One of the first incredible things God did in my life was that in my weakness I was able to look down at this notebook and read between the lines. There were words that were an exact depiction of what I was feeling in my heart. I was finally learning to express what I was feeling. God just did it all. That began the healing process! It also began to bring joy! I began to find out who I am because I was learning whose I am.

My dad started to see me change. I was seriously seeking. He showed me a book and I started reading it, though I can’t even remember the title. I was reading and just started weeping — the floodgates opened. I was compelled to get on my knees and I just started talking to God. There are three things I remember about that moment:

  1. I told God I was tired of hating.
  2. I told God I was tired of being ashamed.
  3. I told God, I’ve got to find out who You created me to be — because it is not this monster that I have been my whole life.

I got up from the floor and I knew something was going to change. I can’t even explain it. God was telling me: You’re going to change because I am with you!

I’ve heard this quote: “The cross beckons the man who is sick of himself.” That was me! The cycle of shame had formed an anchor in my life.

Scripture says in John 8:36, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” I accepted His freedom that day.

After that experience, I asked my boss, who was also a member of our church, to get me plugged in to a group at the church. I got into a men’s group and the first question they asked was “How is your personal relationship with Jesus?” That made me ask if I have a personal relationship, and if I do, what is it like? It was a small group where we could be genuine and authentic.

They were also big on obedience discipleship. Jesus said, if you love me you will follow my commands. He says loving me empowers you to obey me, just like a child.

In their song, What if I Stumble, DC TALK makes this statement: 

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.

That was me! So I recommitted my life to Jesus in February 2019 and was rebaptized in April 2019.

This joy (fruit of the spirit) that started to come to life brought freedom! Now I want everybody to want that! Jesus is about mercy and selflessness. And that realization drove me to the frontlines to see others set free! My whole life I sought meaning and purpose without ever including God. In less than one year, I didn’t care about anything but knowing that I am His. It is hard to fully explain the change that has occurred in me. My parents told me recently that they always anticipated getting a call asking them to identify my body. That’s the path I was headed down, that the kind of life I had chosen to live. Understanding God’s love and grace radically transformed my life.

The one who has been forgiven much loves much (Luke 7:47). I have found this to be true in my life, when I finally understood God’s grace. Jesus on the cross was God telling me that He loves me. If I was worth dying for, He’s worth living for! 

I started visiting the residents of a halfway house and one of the guys invited me to a Bible study at a place called Victory House. I would go with a friend named Tom, and he invited me to live my life on mission. I remember we were leaving one night and I told Tom, “As long as my heart is beating, I’ll see you tomorrow.” That seemed like such a random comment I couldn’t even explain why I said it, but the next morning I found myself dying to play a song I used to listen to as a child. And one of the verses says “As long as my heart is beating, where You lead me I will follow, where You lead me I give my life away” That was it! I was sold out to Jesus and as long as my heart is beating, I will follow!

#222. Jesus, My Best Friend

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Howdy, it’s an honor and privilege to get to tell my story. This is the story of how I met my best friend. 

I was raised morally right. I was taught not to steal or lie and to be good to other people. But I wasn’t raised in church. One morning I got up to go to school and kissed my mom goodbye, as I always did. I was 15 years old. I remember it just like it was yesterday. When I came home from school my dad was waiting for me. I could tell there was something wrong. He told me my mom had gotten sick during the day. He took her to the hospital and she died. Losing my mom just devastated me, and my whole world changed. 

It wasn’t too much longer, just a few months, and my dad passed away. I had just turned 16. I was out in the world and on my own. I didn’t know anything about all the things of the world but there I was. It wasn’t too long after that I started hanging around the wrong kind of people and crowd, started smoking pot, drinking and taking pills. I just got on the wrong road. By the time I was 19, I had wrecked my life. I didn’t care about anything. I wound up in trouble. I stood before the judge, and he took that little hammer and he gave me a year and a half. I thought “Ahhh, that wouldn’t be no problem.”  And just to be honest, I didn’t really care if the sun came up or not. I’d had all of life I wanted. But after I was in there a while, I got to see what it’s like to be told when you can eat, what you can eat. I didn’t have freedom. I didn’t understand what it meant to be free, until my freedom was taken away. I went from being the baddest to the saddest fella in there. 

One day in February, a fella came by to visit and started talking about a man called Jesus. He told me that Jesus died for my sins, and He would forgive me of all the wrong I had done. He said Jesus would be the best friend I’d ever had. I thought, “Man, I don’t have any friends.” I heard a voice say, “Try me.” I thought about that. About that time I heard it again, “Try me.” I thought, “What have I got to lose?” I knew I had done wrong. I bowed my head and asked Jesus to forgive me. And it was just like that, like the snap of a finger, the weight of the world lifted off me. I could have run five miles if they had opened the door. 

I didn’t know anything about church or nothing like that, but I did remember my mommy telling me about Jesus when I was a little boy. She described it as he lived up in the sky, what was a little 5 or 6 year old boy gonna think, if he lived up there he’d probably fall down. (Chuckled) By her telling me that, it gave me the faith to believe what the man was saying about Jesus. Then I heard the voice saying, “Try me.” And I did. I haven’t been the same since. I’ve got a reason to live. I love working with young people because I almost didn’t make it as a young person. I guess that’s what motivates me, plus I believe that’s what the Lord wants me to do. 

Being saved over 35 years ago is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I’m still saved and happier now than I’ve ever been. I’m on my way to heaven. I’ve got the greatest gift ever offered, and all I had to do was ask. I’ve heard preachers, preach about how King David said, “Taste and see that the Lordis good” (Psalm 34:8). Just try Jesus. You don’t know what you are missing. I have tried for over 30 years to explain how good salvation is. I once heard an old preacher say that if the whole world could comprehend and realize what it is like to be saved, there would be no cars on the road, no airplanes in the sky, nothing would be going on because everyone would be on their knees getting saved.  Now that’s how great it is to be saved!

If you don’t believe me, give Jesus a try and I love you guys.

#221. A Second Chance

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Photo by Jeff Rogers Photography

After dealing with a spirit of rejection all my life, I made the worst decision I could have possibly made. It was Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2011. My wife and I had been divorced for three years, and I had been dating another woman for about seven months. Everything was going well in our relationship. We had even talked about getting married, but that night she called to tell me she wanted to break up. Once again, the rejection hit me — this time full force. I just couldn’t take it any more.

I hung up the phone and immediately began to plan my suicide. I called my mom but never said what I was going to do. Then I went to bed. The next morning (Thursday, Sept. 15) I got up and wrote a note for whomever. Then I dialed 911 and told the guy on the other end what I was going to do. He tried to talk me out of it, but I said that I’ve had enough and hung up.

I then went outside and sat on a stump with my pistol and waited. When I heard the police pull up, I put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger. Lying on the ground I was still conscious and could hear everything being said around me. One officer said it was a bad angle, and I probably wouldn’t make it. Then they picked me up and carried me to the ambulance. They laid me on my side and put my head on something hard. As they drove me to the hospital, I began to choke on the blood collecting in my throat. I tried to lift my head to cough but the attendant shoved my head down.

While going to the hospital the male attendant was telling jokes and laughing with a female attendant. He told her I was losing too much blood and wouldn’t live. When we arrived at the hospital, I lost consciousness.

I don’t know how many days I was unconscious, but when I began to wake up, I could see faces, though somewhat blurry, and hear voices, but I was unable to talk.  Eventually my vision cleared up and I could talk again. My mother and sister were there, along with some friends from the church I attended.  

Three weeks to the day that I arrived, I went home, though very weak, as they did not allow me to eat anything.  Not even a drink of water.  

When I started dating that woman, early on I remember saying to myself, “If this woman breaks up with me, I’ll kill myself.” I did not realize that what I had done was make an inner vow, which opened the door for the enemy to come in. I had never heard of an inner vow until I was home and recovering. I heard a man on TV explaining what it was.

The same year I tried to end my life, my ex-wife and I were remarried on Christmas Eve. My miraculous, full recovery and marriage has given me a new appreciation for life. I also have experienced God’s love for me in ways I had never experienced before. 

I understand now that God was not rejecting me. It was the enemy rejecting me by using other people. This spiritual warfare had me convinced that I was not wanted and not loved by anyone. Those were lies and I bought into them.  

For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.(Ephesians 6:12)

#220. He Gives Strength to the Weariest of Souls

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Photo by Jeff Rogers Photography

As a child, we never went to church. My parents were born and raised in a coal mining community of West Virginia. They were both the product of poverty and religion gone mad. The foundation of their lives was built on a belief that true “religion” was about who could not get bitten when the rattlesnake was passed their way. Sometimes, I imagine that my parents viewed their entire life as a church service, just waiting to see which one of them would survive the poison.

I am the youngest of three substantially older siblings who were on their way “out the door” as I was “on my way in.” My parents were the owners of a donut shop, which meant they both worked from 5 p.m. until 5 a.m., so my siblings were burdened with the responsibility of caring for me and seeing that I was fed and entertained. I am certain that between my two sisters, this was not a responsibility they were happy about! So, from early on, I was left alone to entertain myself while my parents worked, slept or went out.

For my mother, daily drinking was a true way of life. A diagnosis of diabetes led her to become sober when I was about 12. Funny thing is that with that one decision to make her life “better,” it seemed as if ours became worse. Our house was never one that had a pattern. I lived in total chaos, not knowing what to expect on a daily basis, but that chaos was the only thing that I knew, and the comfort level of the craziness was, at times, the only normalcy I could hold on to. We went from weekly drinking binges to weekly AA meeting splurges, only to find that she was never ever satisfied with any of the outcomes. She was self-consumed. Eventually, I was the only one left at home, left behind to deal with her misery and anger. She had nothing of herself to give and she demanded so much from me.

When it came into my life, I’m not certain, but God gifted me with a keen sense and a creative mind, making it easy for me to be a leader. In the past, like my mother did, I have used that gift to my advantage. Not to glorify God as He intended, but to glorify myself and my behaviors. If I would have allowed God to open my eyes, I would have seen that satan had been invited into my life through the portal of nonchalance and unawareness.

Looking back over my life, I see how God protected me. Many times, in my childhood, I was in vulnerable and dangerous situations. For many years, I didn’t realize that God was my Protector, Provider and Defender. I had no clue until I heard about the Gospel. So, back then, I said it was “luck” that protected me.  I spent so many years running from everything that I knew to be “normal.” 

All of that came to a complete halt when I became an incarcerated convict in the Arkansas Department of Corrections. It was then that I was able to stop running long enough to let God get a firm grasp on me. I had the opportunity to complete a Christian program based on Bible principles in prison. We were trained in scripture so that we could apply it to our lives when were released. The program was designed to be inmate-led. All of the participants in this program lived in one dorm, and there were two female inmates who predominantly taught our classes (character and scripture memorization). This program opened my eyes to the love that God offered me. I felt acceptance from God, acceptance of who I was becoming through His word. 

God took the time that I spent behind bars to mold my soul, to create in me a love that was unfailing, unbelievable and undeniable. He opened my eyes to peace and a firm foundation of trust and calmness. So much for “jailhouse Jesus,” huh? It is real and true and I am a living testimony of His grace. But, as I received the knowledge of God, I never received His grace through salvation before I came from behind the walls. There was great wisdom within the walls. I learned so much and gleaned so much of that knowledge, but I just never accepted Christ as my Savior. Instead, my time in prison was a time of building trust in Him. Since I had never had anyone to lean on in my life, it was difficult for me to develop trust, but I was learning.

Upon my release from prison, I was quickly thrown into the reality of life. The husband that I thought would be there with open arms had since found someone else. My household full of furniture that I thought I would have available to me had been given away months before to anyone who would come and get it. And, any thought of a past life that may have waited on me while I was away was just that, a thought. Visibly there was nothing left of my former life, and as I tell the ladies that I minister to today when I speak to them, “God will remove all hindrances from you when He changes you.” He knew that if anything from my past would have been waiting on me outside the gates, my heart would immediately run back to the place that He had just delivered me out of. Not the life I would have chosen, but with separation and knowledge, I could not have asked for a better blessing. With the hard reality of being alone and still not having committed my life to Christ, I turned back to the bottle. 

My mother passed away in 2000 and my father died in 2007, so loss was not a stranger to me. After I was released from prison in 2011, my sister, whom I had not had time to make amends with, died of a massive heart attack eight months after I was released. The loss of my beloved sister was the final blow to an otherwise broken soul. Then, the only reason that I lived was to drink until I died. Days turned into weeks, and each and every day for three months, I drank myself into unconsciousness. Secluded from life, I wasted everything that I had on the bottle. I would drink until I passed out, wake up again, curse God for keeping me alive, and drink again. I knew that the Master existed, I even led my own mother to Christ hours before she died, having the faith that He existed, but not accepting His love for me personally. Not yet.

It was the love of my dear friend (story #219) who would ask me to go to church for a revival service. It was her love for me that kept bringing her to my doorstep to check on me, often afraid of what she might find. It was her commitment to not letting me die alone that urged her to consistently reach out, as all the others had given up hope. In one moment of strength that, at that time, I saw as weakness, I allowed her to take me to church. In one moment of time, I surrendered to the call of the Master. At that altar, I prayed that He would take my life and He, in His audible voice told me this: “I have heard your prayers and I will answer them. If you take one more drink you will die, but you will not live with Me in Heaven.” Only God knew that I would leave that altar saved unto His Kingdom and delivered completely from the horror of alcohol.

So many things I needed to tell my loved ones. My children, still angry and wounded from my incarceration, were not even speaking to me. I had spent many nights on my knees asking God to change me into the woman that He wanted me to be and that He would reunite me with the boys. Two years of praying and crying, praying and crying. “Please bring about a change in me that is pleasing to my sons,” I would beg. After two years, God granted that request with my older son. He was the hard-headed military son who had originally demanded that I seek help. He is the one who found me after a two-week drunk and had to call the ambulance. He was the one who uttered the words “Mom, the ambulance is here and the whole neighborhood is watching. Now, am I going to have to carry you out like a drunk or are you going to walk out of here like a woman?” Those were some of the last words he said to me before I went to prison. He is the one who asked to see me first when I came home two years later. I can’t explain the conversation that we had at dinner. I can’t remember the words that I used to ask his forgiveness. But I do remember this phrase, “You’re my mom, and I will always love you.”

His brother, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as forgiving. He was not ready to see me, notbecause he was angry or hurt, he just didn’t need me in his life. He had a great career, a wonderful wife-to-be and a fulfilling relationship with God. I had never been there for him, so he went on about life as if I were not involved, and I wasn’t. But each week I would message him, just to tell him that I was thinking of him, that I was praying for him and that I loved him. Three years of prayer and petition and one day, a response. At 4 a.m. on a Monday morning in July 2014, I sent the usual message. “Son, I love you and I pray for you always.” And at 4:17 a.m., the reply, “Mom, it’s time we get together for dinner. Would you let me take you out Friday?” God hears a praying mom. He would take no apology or reasoning. He only wanted to start a relationship with his mother. He wanted nothing of the past and could only focus on our future together and his upcoming marriage in August. To my amazement, he and his bride-to-be handed me an invitation. The wedding was a few weeks away, and they both graciously involved me in some decisions of food and pictures on their big day. As I left my house on the wedding day and during the entire two-hour drive, I could only weep to God, thanking Him and asking Him to allow me to sit in the back so I could watch from a distance. I asked Him to honor one more request, that I just be able to see my son’s face as he took on the responsibility of leading his new household as a Godly husband to his wife. “Just let me sit in the back. Please do not let me get in the way,” I prayed out loud as I drove. But my God saw things differently. As the pictures were finished and the wedding was about to begin, I started to find a seat in the back row. “Mom, where are you going?” I heard. “Honey, I’m going to grab a seat so I can see you.” The next words were priceless…“Mom, you have to sit up front today. That’s where the moms go.” So, my oldest son took me by the arm and escorted me to the front row. So I could see. So I could feel what it was like to be forgiven. So I could be a part of this new life. So my faith in a loving God could be reaffirmed and I could share this story with those who need hope of answered prayers.

Wrecked by Grace . . . The Adult Child of a Demanding Mother. The Adult Child of an Alcoholic. The Adult Child. Convict. Convicted. Transformed. From a family tree of addicts to the aftermath of a life of bad decisions, the season of my life has to equate with fall. From the most hardened love demands of a mother to a love that is tender and forgiving that I have with my Heavenly Father, the leaves of my life have fallen in due time. Bits and pieces of me have been scattered throughout my life. Pieces of the real me. Pieces of joy and pain, laughter and tears. Pieces that seem to have the most majestic colors in the latest season of my life. Not the soft colors of spring, nor the stunning colors of summer. My life reflects the majestic warm colors of autumn, pleasant to gaze upon and sometimes a mere wonder that the leaves survived the harshest heat of past days.

One month after God delivered and saved me, my calling to correctional ministry began. I met a woman from our church who had a ministry team that went inside the Pine Bluff Area Office of the Arkansas Community Correction facility once a month to speak words of hope and testimony to the residents. At that time, the facility was open to all ex-offenders released at least 60 days who had been given permission from their parole office to travel outside the county.

From the moment that I went into the compound, I knew that God had opened a doorway for me to minister. I felt the pull of the Spirit and heard the words “This is the reason that you have lived behind the walls — so that you can be an image of hope to these ladies.” In the coming back, I knew that my life was coming full circle. I knew that God had allowed every bad decision, wrong turn and misguided step to place me in prison. He knew I would have faith enough in Him to tell my story to those who were still battling. I was taken out of the war and now, with God’s help, I am walking back into the battle to lend a hand to others.

I am thankful that I have the opportunity to go back into prisons and tell people that God is for them and not against them. His love reaches far, further than they have ever been. As strong as any addiction or stronghold that has them unable to move, He is more powerful and can give strength to even the weariest of souls.

God’s character is fully merciful and compassionately just. He does not waiver and He cannot be manipulated. That is the best part of the Grace of God. In reality, justice sets us free. Justice is the blend of the strong hand of the Lord because He loves us, the repentance that draws us closer to Him and the ability to forgive ourselves of the past through His strength.

And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. — Deuteronomy 8:2-3 NKJV

#219. Fully Grasping the Grace of God

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Photo by Briana Rapp

My biological dad was in the Vietnam war when I was born. I found him when I was 21. I had a relationship with him until I was 42, and then he passed away. I am so thankful for the years I had with my dad. 

My little brother’s biological father (my stepdad) started sexually, physically and mentally abusing me when I was five years old. He also abused my mother. He was an alcoholic. He later served time in prison for hitting and killing someone while drinking and driving. When he got out, he was homeless and lived several years on the streets, before he died of cancer. My stepdad’s friend also abused me.

With the abuse, I became numb to the things going on in my life. I learned to build walls of protection around myself at a very young age. Things that no child should have to endure or see, I endured and saw. Most abusers are very controlling. My stepdad was no exception. He had to control everything I did. For example, once while I was riding my bike across a bridge near our home, he told me if I ever went across a bridge again, he would kill me. 

When I was 12, my best friend and I took a Dial-A-Ride car to a park. We fed the ducks and had a wonderful day. We were going to sell pop bottles to get the money for a Dial-A-Ride car back home. But no one would buy the bottles. We had to walk home. When we came to the bridge, I told my friend that I couldn’t walk over the bridge because, if I got caught, my stepdad would kill me. I told her I would meet her on the other side. But she insisted that she go with me under the bridge. So we walked under the bridge together. We had to swim across the water, and the current swept us away. I got rescued and she did not. My friend drowned. This happened in June. 

Beatings from my stepdad were a normal occurrence for my mom and me. My mom, little brother and I had a plan to meet at a certain spot outside of our house when my stepdad began beating us. Whoever could escape, would run to this spot and wait for the others to meet there. In August after my friend died, my stepdad went after my mom. She got out of the house and he went after me. At this point, I was ready for him to kill me. I was done. My little brother was four years old and, and until this point, he had never touched my brother. I had always tried to protect him. For some reason this time my little brother jumped on his back to protect me. He slung my little brother across the room and I remember his head bouncing off the wall. I said, “Run, John, run.” My little brother got out of the house. I told my stepdad to kill me. He didn’t — he did what he needed to do, and then I got loose. That was the first time he touched my brother. I knew it wouldn’t be the last. We went to our babysitter’s house to spend the night. My brother and I stayed at her house for two days. I told my mom I wasn’t going home. I called a family member in Arkansas and got a bus ticket for my brother and me to travel to Arkansas to move in with family. I told my mom she could stay or go with us, but we were leaving. She came with a loaded down pickup truck. We moved to Arkansas and never looked back. 

Moving allowed me to escape my abusers, but it was the beginning of my own destruction. My abusers were drug addicts and alcoholics, and I was determined never to go down that road. By the grace of God I didn’t, but the enemy (the devil) continued to pursue me. I was living in spiritual warfare all the time. 

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12). 

There is a real army of evil out there. We have the resources to defeat the enemy, but we have to know Jesus and have His power in our lives. 

I had been sexually active since I was five, so I was sexually active after we moved to Arkansas at a young age with much older men. I just wanted someone, anyone, to love me and want me, even if I had to control and manipulate others to get it. When I was 16, my mom announced that she was getting married again and moving three hours away. I rebelled and moved out. I got married at 17 and had a baby at 18. 

I had never heard the Word of God and didn’t know anything about God at this point in my life. But I will say, the whole time that I was going through the horrible abuse in my childhood I knew that there was someone with me. It was only as an adult that I learned that it was the Lord who had been with me. 

My husband and I started going to church when I was around 20 and I was baptized at 21. This was a time of spiritual awakening for me. I had some wonderful Christian women in my life who were trying to disciple me, but no one knew anything of my past — not even the man I married. We were married 12 years and had three babies; then our marriage fell apart. My world was turned upside down. I rebelled completely. I became a serious man hater. Desperate for love, I turned to a same sex relationship with my best friend. We moved in together with our children. That relationship lasted six years. The enemy had convinced me that there was nothing I was doing that wasn’t right in the eyes in God. 

I fell into a very serious gambling addiction during that six years. One bad decision led me to a whole road of destruction. I did some things I’m not proud of. I could have ended up homeless or dead. I went beyond going to casinos and Vegas to also having bookies. I would bet thousands and thousands of dollars at a time on sports (mainly football). If I lost, I didn’t have the money to pay. Quido was my bookie’s name and his brother was Zito. True story — I’m not making this up. Every weekend I bet thousands of dollars on multiple games, and every Wednesday they showed up at the bar where I was bartending and collected what I owed or paid me what they owed me. I was actually good at it. I was winning so much money I was buying my kids any and everything they wanted. We went on extravagant vacations, doing things I should have never done and really thinking I was somebody! Do you see how the enemy works? I had all the money I could ask for, and I was doing it without a man (because I wanted to show everyone I don’t need a man). In my eyes, I was ‘mom of the year’ because my kids had anything they could ask for. 

But, I had no peace; I had no joy. You can be happy but have no Joy. Happiness comes from our flesh, but true Joy comes from the Lord. My oldest son (because he was the one it affected the most) went down a road of drugs and alcohol. Praise God it was short-lived (just a few years) but it happened. This difficult season really brought me closer to God with a deeper prayer life and dependence on the Lord. Several things came out of this. I quit gambling. The other major change was in my relationship.

The lady I was in a relationship with had two children. I had three. She had a grandbaby that we were raising. The Lord just would not leave me alone from the time that baby was born. He let me know that I was not where I was supposed to be. The Holy Spirit just laid this heaviness on me, so I would get back into reading the Bible and start listening to His voice again. When I did, I knew what I needed to do. 

I went home one day and said, “This is what the Lord is telling me. I can’t be with you anymore.” I went through a depression because I was giving up the baby, who was by then was two years old and whom I had really bonded with. I never got to see that child again. It was hard, but the whole time the Lord was with me giving me His love, His mercy, His guidance, His assurance, His grace. He was leading me to where He was taking me. All He was asking for was my obedience, just to listen to His voice. 

When she left, I couldn’t afford the house. I put the house on the market and prayed that God would help me sell it. God really started showing me His faithfulness. I thought, “Wow, I have done all this stuff and He is still there, still faithful and answering my prayers.” 

My brother and his wife invited me to his church and I have been there almost 13 years. I remarried in 2009, and we are serving in the church and walking every day with the Lord. I also do prison ministry. Prior to COVID-19, I went into a women’s prison in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and led a discipleship class once a week. My children are all grown up and doing well. God has restored everything the enemy stole from me. 

The Lord is a gentleman, and He allows us to make our own choices. But our freedom to choose does not free us from the consequences of our choices. The Lord wants us whole and healthy, but we will never be whole and healthy until we understand and receive His grace over our lives. I wasted a lot of years — even as a Christian (hear me now) — with no peace or joy and full of bitterness because I couldn’t grasp God’s grace for what I had done and what other people had done to me. I could grasp it for others but not for me. For years I was on a spiritual rollercoaster trying to hold everything together. I couldn’t figure out why things were so dang hard! I kept pleading the Word of God over myself and other people in my life and nothing was changing. I kept giving it to the Lord and taking it back. Giving it to Him and taking it back. I couldn’t trust myself and I sure couldn’t trust anyone else —even God. Through it all I never quit praying, begging God to help me be able to withstand the storms of life without being shaken. 

The Lord never gave up on me. The Lord took me on a journey that brought me to a place where I have now fully grasped the Grace of God. Over and over He has lovingly poured His Grace out over me and taught me how to do the same for others. He has taught me:

  1. Although humans disappoint or disappear in this life, God never will.
  2. How to shut off all the voices, so I can hear His.
  3. How to have peace during the storm because He will never leave us or forsake us.
  4. My walk with Him is never going to look like someone else’s and someone else’s is never going to look like mine.
  5. He took away allmy fear of being alone and taught me that He is all I need. 

There are so many ways to describe God. I have experienced God’s love, mercy, grace, restoration, and kindness. He is all-powerful and never-changing. Never give up on God because He will never give up on you. 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:11–13

#218. God Cares About It All!

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I have three horses: Angel (see story #70), a mare named Darla, and a big beautiful gelding named Red. Apollo, my neighbor’s horse, also has joined my little herd, since he was all alone after his pasture buddy passed away.  

The morning of July 7, all four horses had been trimmed by my ferrier. They were all happy and healthy, or so it seemed. 

Darla has to wear a grazing muzzle during the day in “grass season,” due to “founder” (high sugar in the grass that could kill her without it, almost like diabetes). When I went to the barn about 7 p.m. to put Darla up for the night, I noticed Red was not with the others. 

I rode over the hill and found Red standing there looking like a swamp monster! He was soaking wet, covered in dirt, and had scuff marks on his head! I had no idea what had happened. My first thought was “something attacked him!” 

I noticed by our other barn, the dirt had been disturbed and the water trough had been knocked over. Then I knew he had been rolling around because of painful colic. As I began to attend to Red, he fell down. I quickly got him back up and called my husband, Mark. He brought me a syringe of Banamine (pain medicine for colic). We took turns walking Red for about four hours. He did have a bowel movement, but that didn’t seem to help him feel any better.

We called the veterinarian. The vet intubated Red with a gallon of mineral oil to check for a blockage. We did everything we could that Tuesday. My husband and I stayed home from work the next two days. We were determined to get him better. We had not eaten and took turns sleeping in short shifts. All our attention was focused on Red. 

We have an old backhoe here on the farm, which had not been used for about three years. The lights on it have not worked at all for at least 10 years! On Thursday morning, Mark said to me, “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I need to jump that backhoe to get it running . . . you know?” 

With a lump in my throat, I said “Yes, I understand,” knowing that Mark would need the backhoe to bury Red. Yet we continued to work with Red the rest of the day, keeping in close contact with the vet. Finally, around 4 p.m. Thursday, I realized the medicine and everything else we had been doing was not working. Red’s breathing was getting very labored. Even though he followed us around the round pen, he never laid down again.

This whole time I had been praying urgently to God to “save my big Red, please!” But, at that point, my prayers changed to, “If it’s time for him to go, even though he is only 16, please don’t let him suffer.” I prayed for God’s strength and guidance on what to do. 

The vet arrived about 4:30 p.m. He listened to Red’s belly and told us he couldn’t hear any “gut sounds.” He diagnosed Red as having a form of “gas colic,” which can be fatal. The vet said there was nothing we had done or could have done to cause or prevent this. He told me it was Red’s time. I knew he was right and didn’t want Red to have to suffer.

As we walked Red to the area where he would be put down, I was trying to be strong, but my pain was so intense! I felt like part of me was dying. I told him what a good boy he was and thanked him. I told him I would see him again one day. 

The vet was wonderful! He said to me, “When I administer this, I’ll take his lead line. Sometimes they go down easy and sometimes hard.” I just nodded. I was praying to God to give me the courage to do this and also to be with him when he passed. Mark said, “Maybe you don’t need to be here for this. Go back to the house.” I said, “No! I have to be here with him!” 

As the vet started the euthanasia, Red buckled and then fell over. As soon as he fell over, I turned away, walked off, and went to my knees. I cried as quietly as I could, I honestly thought my heart was literally breaking to pieces! Then I remembered the song “Ten Thousand Angels Cried.” The lyrics refers to God during Jesus’ crucifixion, “God turned his head away, He couldn’t stand the sight.” Remembering that song gave me the courage to get up and go back over to Red. I stroked his big beautiful face and told him it was okay to go. I told him how I loved him so very much. 

I am glad I could be with Red as he passed away peacefully. After he died, about 7:30 p.m., I went back to the house, because I didn’t want to be there when Mark buried him. When Mark got back to the house, he comforted me a long time as I cried. He said, “Let me tell you about that backhoe.” I said, “I don’t care about the stupid backhoe!” He said, “You will when I tell you this.” 

I listened as Mark told me what happened, “You know I told you I needed to jump the backhoe to get it going right? Well, something told me to just try to start it without jumping it, and when I did, it started right up! And every light on it worked!” 

A few days later when Mark went to move the backhoe from the area of Red’s grave, he had to jump it, and none of the lights worked. So once again, God cares about everything in our lives, even things we consider to be trivial or not worthy of bothering him about in prayer. God cares about it all! This was a reminder to have faith in Him, regardless of what we think we want, but trusting in Him for His plan for us. We know that His ways are not our ways. We can have peace because God loves each of us so very much! 

God was there for us that day; even though I didn’t get the result I wanted. God showed us through a backhoe (of all things) that He cares for us and is always there with us.

#217. Even The Trials Are Love

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Photo courtesy of Kenosha (Wis.) News, photographer Sean Krajacic

My family originates from Alabama. My father’s family had their own land, where they farmed for subsistence and food. As a child, he worked in the cornfields and peanut groves as soon as he was able to walk and talk. He said it would get so hot you could fry an egg on the red clay soil. Growing up in the south in those days was tough for any family, but especially for black people who farmed the land. You had the constant fear of white men taking whatever they wanted from your land. During this time, the religion of choice was the Baptist faith. Most of my family believed in God and prayer. Going to church was the order of the day for most black families. My dad had a strong faith in God and always expressed a need for prayer. My father was 6 foot, 2 inches tall and strong as a bull. He once caught a mule by its hind legs, as he tried to kick him. My mother was beautiful. Her intelligence always impressed me. 

My father is supposed to have fathered 26 children, but this may vary by three children. My dad had eight or nine children before he met my mom, and my mom had two before she met my dad. I was the first of the five children my mother and father had together. I was born in Waukegan, Illinois. My parents had moved there in 1958 to have a better life. I have had the pleasure to live with most of my stepbrothers and stepsisters at one time in my life. We shared the same bed and wore each other’s hand-me-downs. We shared food, like butter sandwiches and paper dog sandwiches (newspaper and a piece of meat), just to survive. My mother taught all of us to love each other in spite of our lack of necessities, which helped us become a tight-knit family. We were also taught the value of prayer and going to church as a family. My father and mother were really focused on the spiritual side and, since I can remember, God was always present in our family. My mother handled the discipline and she did a good job of putting the fear of God in us. She also stressed the value of education to us. In Waukegan, my father worked as a waiter, serving food to truckers. My mother worked cleaning for the well-to-do white folks in the suburbs. They would come home so discouraged every evening. When I was five years old, they decided to move with some of their friends to Kenosha because the jobs were supposed to be better there. 

I found out early that sports were my way to escape not being heard in my family. I excelled at basketball and other sports. When I played, I could escape the world for some time, and life didn’t seem so hard. At this time, I lived for one thing only. I wanted my father to show me that he loved me. My father loved coon hunting. I learned as much as I could about coon dogs, so my father would tell me I was the best young dog man in the racoon business. He didn’t seem to notice me at all though. And I have since found out that it is a condition that most men from the south had, in that men didn’t show love in the fashion that their children wanted. 

Because of wanting attention from the other kids, and to have the things they had, I started shoplifting at a young age. I stole and hid items from my parents. It started with shoplifting and went downhill from there. My earliest recollection of getting caught stealing was nine years old. I made some really bad choices at a young age, which I had to pay a great deal for. I spent a lot of time in jail cells, suffering for the consequences of my foolishness and lack of personal responsibility. I have been through it all, from jail, to prison, to near death. I was enslaved to my own self. I experienced how it felt to lose my soul. In 1995, after 18 years of going in and out of jails, prisons, and treatment facilities, I came to the realization that I was tired of wasting my life. The pain of prison is different only when you realize you are at the end of your rope. Then, and only then, will you fight to change your circumstances. 

At the age of 35, beaten and broken, I was sitting in a prison cell facing more time than I ever faced at in my life – 40 years. While I was waiting on my new criminal charges to be completed, I remembered the things my parents had instilled in me. I remembered the importance of getting an education and getting a job. I remembered to get on my knees and pray to God for help and guidance to deal with my soul. I started praying and asking God for forgiveness. 

One day, my daughter, and my sister came to visit me in the Racine County Correctional Institute. My 12-year-old daughter asked me a profound question, “Daddy how come you cannot take care of me?” I hadn’t seen her in four years. For the life of me, I had no answer to give her. I could only muster up a pitiful answer of “I’m sorry.” When the visit was over, I went back to my jail cell and I prayed to God to give me the answer to the problem that my daughter had just asked me about. God answered my request. 

About three weeks later, I was walking around the prison yard praying to God, “What I am I going to do with this child of mine?” This voice came to me internally and said until I learned to take care of myself, I would never be able to take care of anyone else, especially my child. That prayer made me finally surrender my life and my will to God. I knew if I didn’t change, I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail or die without reaching my full potential as a man. After that, I never used alcohol or committed any crimes. That was my spiritual awakening. At a crossroads of my life, I decided to let God’s will become the driving force behind whatever life I had left. After I had the internal conversation with God in prison, I had people help me that weren’t supposed to help me in prison, such as officers, guards, and church members. 

While I was waiting for the criminal charges and facing 40 years, I started going Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I started going to church. I was seeking a change. I got brought back in to court and went before the judge. He was familiar with me. By law, I should had gotten all the 40 years because I had been in trouble all my life. He looked at me and said, “I see something different in you.” I said, “I do plead guilty. I know that I have to do some time but I’m done. This will be the last time you see me.” I don’t know why, but he believed me. He always told me every time he saw me thereafter that he saw something different in me. God had opened his eyes to the change in me. He gave me four years and ran it concurrent with what I was doing. I got sent back to the receiving part of the prison because it was a new sentence. They sent me to a camp and I stayed there for a year. I had to do the three years of probation and had no incidents. I was going to church and finding my way spiritually. I came home, got baptized and continued to journey through church and the things I needed to do to find myself. I had been studying the Bible in jail and was familiar with the Word of God. I went to a Pentecostal church where they preach in Jesus’ name. This is where I got married and became a trustee of the church. My pastor mentored me to develop me and help me use my skills to further the kingdom. He has allowed me to teach classes and speak from the pulpit.

When I was in prison, I was assessed by the Department of Corrections’ social workers with all the assessments and evaluation tools that the Wisconsin prison system can use to measure readiness to change and career development of prison offenders. Over time, these tests helped me to see what I was capable of accomplishing. I had taken enough tests to know that I would be a good counselor if I put my mind to the task of changing my life.

When I got out of prison, I worked at a community center. In 2000, I worked at a treatment facility doing counseling. In 2005, I opened my own facility. In 2012–13 I attended college to get my bachelor’s degree. From 2013–15, I attended school to get a master’s degree in management, organization and leadership; then kept going for the next 16 months to get a master’s degree in mental health and counseling. I have opened an agency called Moore and Associates, a private outpatient clinic focused on helping substance-abuse clients from the Department of Corrections. The other organization I have started is a nonprofit agency that is a full-service facility to address the issues that affect the Kenosha community, such as parenting, maleness and manhood, and domestic violence. I also have been blessed to start a professional basketball club where the mission is for players and staff to get a chance, or a second chance, to build or rebuild their opportunities to be a part of a professional basketball organization. My hope is that I will be able to help young men and women stay positive. I have cried many nights because of the pain I have caused and because I influenced young men to believe in things that appeared to be exciting in this life. What these young men were taught by me, and others like me, was pain and a way to self-oppress, such as jails, drugs, women, and being immature. 

I now want to be a voice to motivate and inspire young people to believe in the possibility of hope and to reach for a brighter tomorrow. I want to help them reach their full potential so that they will be able to teach their children a new way of living. I pray the seed of my dreams will help to end the pain of a generation.

I am now married and have two stepchildren whom I raised. My wife has played a major part of my journey. She had been in church all her life. I am thankful for her spiritual mentorship with my daughter. I have a good relationship with my daughter, who has four of her own children now. My going to college, encouraged her to go to college, and she actually challenged me grade-wise. It pushed her to excel. 

I have discovered this about God’s nature: In a word it is LOVE. Even the trials are love because they provide education that helps you to be a greater witness. It is possible to live a life of hope and change if you find the seed of God in yourself and allow it to grow. 


Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither — whatever they do prospers.

Psalms 1:1-3a

#216. Gurl Get Your Mind Right

by

Photo by Jeff Rogers Photography

I was born in Pittsburgh and raised in a middle-class family. My parents divorced when I was eight years old. My mom put me in dance classes when I was two years old. I took tap, ballet, jazz, tap solo, and baton — all at the same time. I became really good at it. My teacher told my mom I should audition for the play written by Gershwin, Porky and Bess. Out of 4,000 kids, I got the part. When I was eight, we moved to the country to live with my grandparents. I was no longer able to go to dance lessons. This was devastating to me. I loved dancing and believe that was God’s calling on my life. I was raised going to church every Sunday, but I don’t remember confessing and accepting Christ as my Savior. 

My mom remarried when I was 15. We moved back to the city. I moved from a predominately white school in the country to a predominately black school in the city. It was a culture shock. One night I went in a car with some of the guys from my high school. We ended up at a wooded park. They got out, but told me to stay in the car. I didn’t listen and when they saw me coming toward them, they grabbed my arm. They told me there were guys who were planning to rape me. They took me back to my house. God worked through those guys to save me. 

I was a thick girl. I thought I was fat. My mom was very critical. She made comments about my clothes making me look big. My mom was physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive. Nothing I ever did was right. If she and my stepfather got into an argument, she blamed me. He was the best stepdad a person could ever have. He tried to get my mom to be nicer to me. 

My senior year in 1976, I was a cheerleader and started dating a football player. He turned me on to weed, opium, hash, and cocaine. I started trying other drugs. I even snorted heroin once. It was God’s grace that protected me. I was promiscuous and slept with married men. 

I was excellent at typing and after graduation became a secretary in the nursing department at the University of Pittsburgh. I got my own apartment at 17, a two-room efficiency, paying $95 a month. I watched a movie of a baby being born when I worked in the nursing department and knew then I never wanted to have a baby. I was 23 when I had my first daughter, Brandi. I had seven abortions prior to that. Six with the same man who fathered my daughter and one with a boyfriend. I didn’t know any better. No one taught me. I had no self-worth. My pregnancy was a nightmare. The father told me that it wasn’t his baby and that I was fat. I had stopped doing the drugs during my pregnancy and replaced the drugs with food. I became addicted to food. In the last three months of my pregnancy, I gained 100 pounds. I was an emotional mess. 

My daughter’s father didn’t go to the hospital with me when I gave birth. He came around a few times to see Brandi, but he wasn’t really involved in our lives. I started smoking weed again. I got a job at Aetna insurance. Jim, a Christian gentleman from the Houston Aetna office, came to our Pittsburgh office and asked me to come to Houston. He said there was a position that I would be really good at. He said, “If you come to Houston, I will make you the supervisor and you will get a raise and you will get a bonus to cover your move if you show me what you showed me in Pittsburgh.” They offered me $10,000 more to do the same job in Houston. My daughter was only three when we left Pittsburgh. When we got off the plane in Houston, Jim and his wife, Tamara, met us. They drove us to our apartment complex and gave us a TV. We only had our clothes, a couple of towels and a clock radio.  My furniture was coming on a truck that was stopping in other states.  It took two weeks to get our furniture.

When you move to a new town you don’t ask people, “Who has weed?” One day as I walked through the apartment complex there was a big group of guys and one of the guys came to my door and asked, “Do you get high?” I told him I did. I sent my daughter to her room. I thought he had given me weed, but he had given me crack cocaine to smoke and I was hooked immediately. He told me where to get it. I started dating this guy and he would bring the crack over. I became more and more addicted. 

Jim did everything he promised. After one month, he made me a supervisor and gave me a $10,000 raise plus a bonus to cover my moving expenses. I was excelling at work, traveling to provide training and had been the employee of the month four times in the same year. But I didn’t have the money to afford my drug habit. So, I came up with an elaborate plan. I started forging names on checks at Aetna and cashing the checks. Eventually, I was out sick and one of the girls in my department figured out what I had been doing. My boss asked me to come into the conference room. A man with a briefcase said, “Have you ever cashed a check besides your paycheck?” I told the truth. He said, “I’m glad you told the truth.” Then he took the checks out of his briefcase and laid them across the table. He said, “We know what you did but don’t understand why you did it. Why? You had such a bright future.” I said, “I’m addicted to crack.” He said, “We thought it was drugs.” He asked me how much I had taken, and I told him I had a folder at home with all the checks. He asked me to bring it in. I brought the folder to him and he told me to go home and they would let me know what they were going to do. 

My friend John from work called me and said, “Where are you?” I was driving and said, “I’m just going to kill myself.” The devil was telling me to just let the wheel go. John said, “Just drive to my house.” Then Jim called me. He had told the leadership at work he was going to remain my friend. I believe God was intervening on my behalf through both of these men. Jim told me I needed to immediately go to treatment. I went. Jim and Tamara not only took care of Brandi for two weeks, they also went to my apartment and packed up everything and put it in storage. They sent my daughter back to Pittsburgh to my family. Aetna fired me, but because I cooperated with them, they didn’t press charges. The bank didn’t press charges either. Nobody came after me. God spared me. I should have gone to jail for what I had done. Jim came to that facility every day and brought me a Bible. I wouldn’t listen. I said, “Get that Bible away from me.” He said, “It’s the only thing that can help you.” My therapist told me I had to get to the root of why I was there. I felt like my parents had robbed me of who I should have been. I loved dancing. I should have been a choreographer. They took something from me that was near and dear to my heart. I also realized the resentment for my daughter’s father. I discovered all of those things in treatment. 

After 90 days, I got out. Aetna had kept me active on the payroll to pay for my treatment. This was another way that God provided for me. God saved me from killing myself through John and Jim. He saved me from myself. Jim and Tamara let me live with them with only two rules — stay sober and go to my meetings. They gave me a car and credit card. 

I went to church with Jim and Tamara but was still stuck. One night they were getting ready to go to Bible study and I was sitting on the couch and balling. My daughter was coming back from Pittsburgh and I knew that I was going to have to face her and make amends for all I had done,  including locking her in the house at night, while sleeping, so I could go out to get crack, putting her in danger. 

Jim and Tamara invited me to Bible study but I didn’t want to go. While they were gone, I was thinking about how to kill myself again because the thought of facing Brandi was overwhelming. When they came back, I was still crying. They got down on their knees and said, “There is only one way. You have to accept Jesus.” I asked, “Will it make this pain go away?” That night I confessed Romans 10:9 and everything changed. I started going to a Bible study group. I got an apartment. One year to the day of my sobriety, December 16, 1988, I got offered a job at Enron. This company was drug-free, and employees had to be drug-tested to work there, which was what I wanted.


Things were going well at Enron. I got promoted and got bonuses. The girl they put me with at Enron was a Christian and had me listening to a Christian radio station. I went to her house for Bible study. I was clean and sober but then I noticed people were getting things and recognition that I wanted. I figured out a way to cash travelers checks at work. They confronted me and I admitted it. They fired me but didn’t press charges. This time I couldn’t blame it on crack. I had to do self-inventory and say to myself, “Are you a thief? Do you just steal?” Even though I had accepted Jesus, I still didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus. 

When I found out I was pregnant with my second daughter, Courtney, I immediately went to have an abortion. I was single, overweight, depressed and scared to death because of my pregnancy with Brandi. I went to an abortion clinic. I knew I was right at 12 weeks. They lady said, “You are 13 weeks. We can’t do it. But you can go upstairs. They do it up to 26 weeks.” So, I went upstairs. I am sitting there with a sheet over my lap and the doctor is getting ready to examine me. I prayed, “God I know this is a sin, but I can’t have this baby. I can’t even afford to raise Brandi.” The doctor examined me and said he couldn’t do it. I asked him why. He said, “I don’t know. I just feel there is a risk with you.” God intervened . . . again.

When Courtney was born you would have thought she was a crack baby. She had a hernia, a tear in her liver, a hole in her spine, her heart was on the opposite side, her intestines were in knots, her neck muscles were messed up, and her head was tilted. She was transferred to the ICU at Texas Children’s hospital, where she stayed 90 days. She went home with a feeding tube. She had a special-needs caregiver. I was working at Enron when that was going on. God preserved me — my mind — through all of that. I had no family, but I did have Jim and Tamara. They were my family.

Some of Courtney’s problems have been healed, but she still has some health issues. God gave her a brilliant mind. He preserved her and He did the same thing for Brandi. Brandi is so imaginative and creative. I truly believe God protected her mind through my drug battle.

In 1999, I began attending a non-denominational church, New Light Christian Center. Dr. I.V. Hillard was having a Spiritual Millennium Warfare conference at this church. I went down for the altar call and experienced spiritual healing. I had finally found my church home. This church taught me so many things. I was delivered from addiction in 1988, and I never went back. Crack cocaine is euphoric-demonic and is spiritual warfare. I finally got to the root of my problem. I had been self-sabotaging. For so much of my life, I didn’t have a personal relationship with God. When this happened, my life was transformed. God called me to evangelism, to minister to women with low and no self-esteem, bound by addiction like I was. 

When I was pregnant with Brandi, I developed diabetes. As a result, I’ve had five toe amputations. I have diabetic retinopathy in my right eye. I have been in stage three kidney failure for 15 years, but God is sustaining me. I have been at death’s door many times, but God has protected me. God is faithful and loving. If we just seek Him, He will never turn His back on us or leave us. God did not give up on me. He kept pursuing me. He kept helping me get on the right track. God protected me and my daughters and provided and intervened for me so many times. I am so grateful for the people God placed in my life, for the revelations He has given me, for the healing He has provided. I am grateful for my two daughters who are amazing women. 

I transferred to Mooresville, North Carolina, to work in human resources with Lowe’s. I thought that my purpose of coming to North Carolina may have something to do with my ministry GurlGetYourMindRight which God gave me 10 years ago . My lease is up in August, and I plan to go back to Pittsburgh. I believe God wants me to go back home. There are women who are there who need life spoken to them. I really believe the ministry will take off there.  

Lastly, no matter what you go through in life, always remember “it’s just temporary” because we’ve already won! The ransom that was paid for us covered all our sins but we must continue to renew our minds and not be subject to this world.  To the ladies, who are still being controlled by men and this world…….GurlGetYourMindRight!

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.Matthew 6:33 NIV

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