James

I will never forget the summer of July 4, 1976. All of the children were playing in the front yard at the same time I went through the crawl space under the house and stole my father’s homebrew beer. I got so sick on the inside of the house. They could smell the alcohol being released from my body because of how much I had drunk.

Shame and depression showed up in my life. The shame had me hiding behind depression. I was looking for something to bring life to my spirit. As I became an adult, this became a cycle that I would repeat: I chose to use alcohol and marijuana daily.

Let’s not forget my mother and father were spiritual parents. As they prepared for church every week, I was becoming increasingly rebellious and began sneaking out of the house on Sundays. This all started after I became intoxicated for the first time years before. Later in life, I was introduced to crack cocaine at the age of 25, and I immediately started a life of jail time.

Year after year, I started realizing that God was calling me to preach the Gospel, which is the good news to all men and women. To this day, I am still a minister. The Bible says in Proverbs 24:16, “A just man falls seven times and rises up again, but the wicked shall fall into mischief.” Thankfully, I am still married to my beautiful wife of 13 years. She has been a constant and solid rock.

—James