Here’s the 25 cent tour on how Jesus turned my life around.
I think each day, God turns my life around depending on the choices I make. I went into foster care when I was around 5. By 6 I was in a Catholic orphanage (I just got some paperwork from the orphanage, a nice nun that I remember was praying for me, so I do believe that a righteous person’s prayers are answered, when they are prayed with love, kindness and tears). By 8, I was bounced between other foster homes and my Mom’s home.
By fourth grade, I was asked by a judge (with Mom and Dad present) who I wanted to live with. I choose Dad, while my older brother chose Mom. We were both placed in my Dad’s in the spring of 4th grade.
By the end of 8th grade, my brother was place in a boys home and I decided to run away. I won’t go into details, but the streets aren’t a good place for a 12 year old. I spent my 13th birthday in juvenile only to be release and before 30 days had passed, I was back in, but this time for a year and a half. About a month or so before I was release, I got out for Christmas eve and had to return Christmas night. Two weeks later, I got busted from the fingerprints for burglary.. That got me another year and again, a month or so before my release, I escaped which added another 6 months.
When I got out, I got involved with the wrong crowd again. In juvenile, I accepted God and was baptized, but outside of the institution, it was only a matter of time before the life around me consumed me and I was living a life of sin. I finally ended up on Santa Monica blvd selling dime bags to make my motel bill each day and a scrap to eat.
With the birth of my first child, I knew I had to get right with God. I started praying again and going to church. I even dedicated my daughter to God and made a commitment to make my life right with God. A few months later, my daughter passed away and I turned in the wrong direction.
Three children later, my marriage ended in a terrible divorce and we lost all three kids to foster care. It was the most horrifying experience of my life. Three years after the ordeal (and staying single) I got into Scientology to find out the ‘whys’ in my life… and the ‘whys’ pointed me back to God. Amazing, how a cult could bring one back to God huh?
Today, I am married to a wonderful Christian woman and we have a child together who is an inspiration to me each and every day and I also have two step children that live with us whom I care very much for and treat as my own.
Each step of my life I’ve been presented with choice and when I turned the wrong way, the Lord was there to correct me and turn me in the right direction. I’ve been told with my background that I should be in the nut house, but I seemed to have escaped that fate. My brother who took the brunt of our childhood didn’t come out of it without wounds either, but he too is doing well and defying the odds.
I do not, can not take the praise for where I am at today, but I can look to God and thank Him each and every day for saving me, and continuing to save me by continually turning my around, and pointing me in the right direction.
The journey has been long and it’s been hard, but it’s been everything that I’ve ever needed... It has only been the later few years that I’ve really learned to appreciate what God’s done in my life. I suspect that as the years progress, I’ll get turned around here or there, and I know that God will be with me, and I have learned that he will never forsake me.
