My life started out rough.  While in the hospital I was taken away from my parents, by child protective.  I spent the next 4 years in three different foster homes in Canandaigua.  At age 4 I was sat before a judge and asked if I wanted to live with my parents.  Any child at that age would say yes to that question.  I was then sent to live with my parents before age 5 I was witness to my father breaking my mothers nose.  My father had a real problem with beating women.  He never beat or even spanked me.  He got me high plenty of times before I went to school.  My mother spanked me as a young child but not really abused me.  My father and mother split when my father accidentally pulled hair out of my head. 
         We lived with my Grandparents for awhile then moved in with my mom’s new boyfriend.  The beatings started maybe a year later maybe longer I was young.  My mother sometimes beat me till I could barely stand.  When I was 13 I was arrested for the first time.  This was a way to get away from my mother.  It also started a new form of abuse in my life.
          Three 1/2 years I spent in D.F.Y.  They don't really let you be a kid so you are forced to grow up to fast. Some time during the time in there I decided I need to forgive my mother.  During all this God was always there I would pray study but never really surrendered control to Him.  When released I went to live with my grandparents.  They loved me let me be a kid again but I could not deal with authority at that time.  I got into drugs again Pot , beer, LSD, and sometimes cocaine.  I left my grandparents went to live on the other side of the state.  Did drugs every day.  I would steel anything I could sell or use.  I was arrested on 12 felony counts and some petty stuff did 2 years in county jail.  This time I spent a lot of time in the Word.  I got to know my Lord.  Still after release turned away to drugs a lot of coke.  In 1996 God took my need for coke away never touched it since.  I say God because there was no other major change in my life just lost the taste for it.  That's a big change from $600-800 dalliers a weekend.  I began to drink more a little while later.
           Then I met my son’s mother I quit everything.  Even smoking.  Turned 21 and she got pregnant.  It all went down hill from there I started drinking every day.  We split I had unwittingly given her up for drugs.  She went with my best friend.  I was destroyed I tried giving up drinking to get her back when that didn't work.  I drank 10 times as much. I met the love of my life in a bar.  We were drunk the first three months together.  She became pregnant so I was a one man drinking party again.  My daughter was born she is so beautiful. 
           One night I drank myself into a stupor.  I went to a party drunk out of my mind.  A man there had a problem with me started a fight with me.  I still to this day don't believe he lived God once again protected me.  Not without a cost I went to prison for 3 years for that. 
           The first year I spent all my time studying Gods Word.  Three or four hours a day.  Then I decided I needed to convert Muslim to Christianity.  I began to study there religion.  God moved me out of a comfortable prison into a less comfortable one.  I decided some how to become Muslim.  I really though it was the truth. The enemy really had me.  I followed this faith for four 1/2 years.  Even trying to make my wife Muslim.  Thank the Lord she never did.  2 years ago God aloud me to crash this triggered my return to my savior.  Still I didn't walk upright. Months ago God filled me with His Spirit so much I thought I would burst.  Now every day I try to surrender to Him.  God has been telling me since I was a child to come to His ministry.  I have always ran.  Now I need to let Him use me.  I was told awhile ago If you can avoid ministry to do it but, if you can't then you must.  God has made it a must to the point that if I don't surrender I can no longer use the gifts he gave me.  I have been a people person my whole life but, when I crashed I lost that.  
            Now that I am turning back to Him it is returning.  I must say in closing I have always feared the Lord enough to never consider suicide.  Some times I didn't want to live but the fire of hell would never allow me to take my life.  Another thing I have learned God may punish you in you life for the wrong things or not using what he gave you but he is also there to hold you in His arms while you endure your punishment.  Christ loves us all and, I love you all to.  I could never love the way he does.