Testimonies of a Found One

In 2005, I had just stolen my drug dealers rental vehicle and driven to Wisconsin. I was on a downward spiral, tweaking on methamphetamine. For some reason on this trip I had purchased a couple of music CDs from Walmart (with stolen money). I put the CD in the player and soon learned it was a worship CD. Over and over in my state of delusion and delirium I listened to one song in particular called “Shout to the Lord”. I was moved in this car to tears as I sang along with this woman of God, tears running down my face. Keep in mind this was not my music, for I had spent the last 10+ years in the club scene where I consumed large quantities of of drugs and listened to EDM. This was a very peculiar thing happening in this car.

A couple of days later I was arrested in put in jail in Kenosha, Wisconsin. When I was admitted to the jail I tried everything in my power to not be put in general population. I had already served a time in jail in Cook County jail in Chicago. I told them of my HIV+ status and showed them all of the open MRSA sores all over my body. They concluded that I was contagious and stuck me in an isolation cell.

In all reality I was expediently headed toward death. Literally on deaths doorstep, with my immune system severely jeopardized. I had been chasing one high to another while prostituting to get my next fix. I was devoid of any true decency, homeless, and held within the grasp of intravenous drug addiction. I had explored the darkest corners of sexual perversion . I was also a liar, a thief, and a manipulator. I had severed myself from family so that I could live this way. I was not raised in a home that approved of my lifestyle. Often times they had no idea where I was or even if I was alive.

Quite literally I was living in the darker regions of humanity without God.

It is from this jail cell that I believe my life began to change.

I had never been in a jail cell like this before. It seemed I went through three cells just to get to this one. It is here that I began to get sober. I was so isolated in this cell. I tried thinking of every escape, even at one time drinking toilet water to make myself sicker. Maybe if I died it would just be over.

After several days of discomfort I began to think on the days of my youth. I had been baptized when I was a teenager. At that time, I really didn’t understand what I was doing. I began to think about God. It is here that I first cried out, “God if you get me out of here, I will serve you”. I even took that a step further to say something along the lines of “I’m tired of this life, I’m tired of the drugs, I’m tired of the sex. I want to be with someone, I don’t care if it’s male or female, that will be with me the rest of my days without all of those things”. I am not sure how heartfelt that was, just an inkling of honesty there as I look back on it, because I sure was desperate to get out of there.

Within a few days I was out of jail and headed back to Chicago. I did not change a thing. I went back to the drugs and prostituting, jumping from one couch to another.

But there did seem to be an unusual change after this. I began to get even more paranoid. I was running from the law in Chicago. Someone was always following me whereever I went. The paranoia was crippling. Literally every place that I went I saw people following me. And this really annoying thing would happen in all of my paranoia, I would be singing the chorus to “Love lifted me”. Talk about annoying while trying to maintain a high. It was not a song I grew up on. But it relentlessly came out of my mouth.

One night the paranoia got the best of me and I decided I could not do this anymore. I knew a man by the name of Chuck Renslow. He owned a local bathhouse and bar and was a very prominent man in Chicago. I knew he might be able to help me again, so I headed his direction. Would you know that as I was walking to his house, as I crossed one street I was sure I saw one of the cops that was looking for me directing traffic. I had to get Chuck’s house. Would I make it before I before I would get arrested?