I Tried Everything—Until I Tried God

My grandmother raised me, and she was the only person who really showed me love. She taught me respect, how to read, how to count money, and how to think about my future. I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be a counselor so I could help people and tell them about life. But my father taught me something completely different. He showed me how to steal, how to rob, how to survive in the streets. He brought me into that life. So I had my grandmother teaching me one way, and my father teaching me another—and I followed the streets.

By the time I was 16, I was on my own. I was in gangs, breaking and entering, carrying guns, getting high, and in and out of institutions. They told me I would never have my right state of mind back because I smoked too much—that I wouldn’t be able to focus on life. There was so much pain in my family, too. My mother’s husband used to molest me and my sisters, and my mother carried deep trauma from watching three of her siblings get stabbed in front of her. She struggled with mental illness, and there wasn’t a safe place for me to process anything I was going through.

I never felt a mother’s love. I never felt a father’s love. The only love I knew was from my grandmother. And when she got sick, everything inside of me started to fall apart. I had so much anger. I hated my mother. I hated my father. At one point, I even wanted to kill them. That’s how much pain I was carrying, and I didn’t have anyone I could talk to about it.

I got pregnant from a man who was abusing me. When I told him I didn’t want to keep doing this, he picked me up and threw me on my head—while I was pregnant. I ended up getting an abortion, and after that, I just kept going deeper into the same lifestyle—drugs, stealing, surviving. I went into rehab, got put out, and went right back to getting high. That was my life.

There was something empty inside me. I just didn’t have the words for it yet.

The day everything changed, I didn’t go to church looking for God—I went because we needed money. The girl I was with said her brother was a deacon at a church, and she said we could get money from him. But when we got there, she didn’t even want to go in. And right then, the Lord brought back to my mind what I had prayed: “You asked Me to send you to a church.” I was tired of my lifestyle, and I was ready to try something new. So I went in by myself and sat in the back.

All I heard was, “Does anybody want to be saved?” And I said yes!

I raised my hand, but when I tried to get up, I couldn’t move right. It felt like I was being held back. I was crying out, “Help me, help me.” I know now that I was full of demons, and God was delivering me right there in that church. They were trying to get me to the altar, and it felt like something was pulling me back—but God didn’t leave me there. 

I got baptized on December 15, 1996. And when I came out of that water, I was free.

Everything I had in my system—heroin, crack, weed—God took it away. I didn’t have withdrawals. I didn’t have the shakes. I didn’t have anything. He delivered me completely. Even the anger I had toward my parents—it was gone. God took that away from me too. I remember asking Him, “Why did I have to go through all of this?” And God said, “Because I know you’ll tell people.”

And that’s exactly what I do.

I’m not perfect, but I’ve been living for God ever since. I did go back to my old ways for a season, and when I went back, it was worse. But in 2008, I came back to the Lord, and I’ve been with Him ever since. Now I don’t even have a desire to go back. I’ve seen too much, and I’ve lost too many people—my uncle, my sister, my cousin—to drugs like fentanyl. I know where that road leads.

Now my life is about telling people about Jesus. That’s my path. I believe that’s part of my path in God’s mission. I’m an evangelist. If I start a conversation with a stranger, believe me, I’m going to tell them about God. Not forceful, but I’m going to find a way to get it in there, because I know what it’s like to feel empty, and I know that only Jesus can fill that void.

God has been so faithful to me. I don’t have a lot, but what I have, I share. And what I need, God puts people in my life to help me. It’s all about trust—trusting God to be faithful. In 2020, God even healed my back. I had bone-on-bone pain, and He healed me with no medicine. That’s why I praise Him the way I do. I know what He’s brought me out of.

What I know about God now is this: He accepts you just the way you are. You don’t have to clean yourself up first. You don’t have to have money. You don’t have to perform. You just have to be sincere. God is a gentleman—He’s not going to pressure you. You have to want Him. You need to have the desire.

But if you do—if you get on your knees and ask Him from your heart—He will answer you.

I tried everything else. None of it worked. It was all temporary. When it was over, I still had the same problems. But with God, even when life is hard, I still have joy.

If you’ve tried everything else, try getting on your knees. It won’t cost you anything. Just tell God from your heart what you want Him to bring you out of. All you have to do is trust Him.

If He did it for me, He’ll do it for you.