Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Dahiana Jenkins, Damien Jenkins
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR00061A
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00:11 Welcome to Celebrating Life in Recovery, I'm Cheri your host
00:13 What if you don't even want to get well? 00:16 What if I think it is lame? What if I don't even think 00:18 about recovery and it is not something I even desire? 00:20 If that is you, then this is your program. 00:23 If that is someone in your family this is your program. 00:25 Come join us! 00:54 Welcome back! 00:55 You know I love this season, our topic, because our topic 01:01 is when is the moment you are more solid in your recovery. 01:06 Is that a good way to put it? 01:08 Where I know that I have actually got it. 01:12 Some people say that has got to be the moment 01:14 when you realize you are powerless. 01:16 The moment to stop fighting all that, when your whole family 01:19 has said over the years that your a mess. 01:21 You think I am so not a mess. 01:23 Then that day you think, well maybe. 01:25 You know I am sitting in jail. 01:26 I've been arrested for the fourth time, I'm strung out, 01:29 my liver is failing, it is at that moment? 01:31 I don't think it is, because I think it is an important moment. 01:34 When I finally say I am a mess. 01:36 I can figure out how to do this. 01:39 Is it the moment when you say, I think there is a God? 01:43 I think He can restore me to sanity, because for me that 01:48 was huge, I couldn't even think anymore. 01:52 I was so depressed and disgusted with myself. 01:54 I had seen so much junk, I had been 10 years on the streets, 01:57 and all that junk, is it the moment that I say 02:00 there is a God? 02:01 He said He is going to restore me to sanity? 02:03 I'm like Amen! I love that! 02:05 Is at that moment? I don't think so. 02:07 I don't think that's it. 02:08 Then somebody says is it the moment I start looking at my 02:11 self and see all this stuff? Not just the addictions. 02:15 But I see the lying, I see the insecurities, I see the fact 02:18 that I never learned to trust. 02:19 I see the fact that I was raised by parents that never loved each 02:23 other, so I had never even seen what it feels like or looks like 02:27 to have people love each other around me. 02:29 Is at that moment? 02:30 I don't think so, even though that is important because on 02:33 that moment I understand my need for a Savior, because I don't 02:36 have anything in and of myself. 02:39 Just to look at my own stuff if it is not that moment. 02:43 This season we are talking about the moment I'm talking about 02:47 I think is the biggest thing, is when all of a sudden I think 02:51 man, alright, God can You do it for me? 02:55 That's the moment that separates somebody that is starting to 03:00 recovery to somebody that is starting to get it. 03:03 It is when I say there is nothing in me, there is nothing 03:06 in me that can come up with even a direction. 03:09 I don't even know what to start with. 03:11 Do I start with my heroine addiction? 03:13 Do I start with my not trusting? Do I start with my lying? 03:17 What do I start with? 03:18 God, you know what was funny, why don't you start by 03:22 doing the laundry? 03:23 Like what? So I didn't even know where to start. 03:26 I didn't think it was important. 03:28 Do the laundry, can't we hire somebody for the laundry? 03:30 I've got serious stuff to work on. 03:32 He is like no, do your everyday stuff. 03:34 So when we finally get to a point where we say to God 03:37 I don't even know where to start I'm going to give it all to You. 03:40 God says, we are not even going to look at your old stuff, 03:44 we are going to look at who God is. 03:47 I am like, well isn't this stuff important? 03:52 He is like this stuff has always been pretty ugly. 03:55 Let me show you something better and that is when recovery 04:00 truly starts happening. 04:01 It is an exciting time. 04:03 I am going to show you some of that today through a 04:06 testimony that will bless you. 04:08 It blessed me, so I want to introduce you to our guest 04:11 Damien, and I want to say for one thank you for being on 04:15 the program and I love what God is doing in your life. 04:19 I mean it is so amazing how God just works behind the scenes 04:24 when we don't realize it. I am really thankful that you 04:27 have us here and I just pray that whatever I can share 04:30 will just inspire and encourage and uplift those who have really 04:35 gone through my life, a life such as mine. 04:39 You brought some friends with you? 04:40 Oh yeah! So I just want to say 04:42 throughout the time you guys came from New Jersey. 04:45 You drove and apparently got lost, drove for hours and hours 04:48 and hours and throughout the program we are going 04:51 to meet them. 04:52 But first of all I want to actually start out with. 04:56 You looks fabulous, like you have always been together. 05:00 But that is not the truth, so talk about where you came from 05:04 and how did you meet God? 05:08 Then what did you think about what I just said? 05:11 Well I think I will go from the beginning then. 05:14 I believe that will explain more thoroughly how I feel about 05:20 what you said earlier. 05:21 I grew up in the South Bronx. 05:23 I would have never guessed that. 05:25 In New York City. 05:28 Your accent is just so New York. 05:29 I can't get rid of it, I have tried. 05:32 It wasn't the best place to grow up around. 05:36 It a was a very cracked infested building, a lot of cocaine 05:40 involved, a lot of drug dealers. 05:42 Nevertheless, my family were not very religious. 05:46 They tried the best that they could to give me the life that 05:49 they had, but my father had come from a background of 05:53 of very intense bigotry and racism from the south. 05:55 That rubbed off on me and I could not help but obtain a lot 06:02 of sentiments towards different creeds of people. 06:06 Such as Caucasians, and others who he had felt, done him wrong. 06:11 What is really interesting to me when you say that, because 06:15 I can just picture the environment because you got 06:17 in an environment that is really rough anyway. 06:20 Then at home you have this underlying racism because of 06:24 what happened to him. 06:25 So it just turned his heart. 06:28 It turned it, he was not, he was there financially, but he wasn't 06:33 the air for the father figure I needed and that is when the 06:38 environment was able to take me and mold me. 06:42 I allowed it to do that. 06:43 From elementary school up I just was involved in so many fights. 06:47 I had such an anger problem, a strong wrath with people. 06:52 I got into fights every single day a my life. 06:54 Let me just say for people that don't know, because that there 06:58 is some people that have no idea what it feels like to grow 07:01 up there, do you know what I mean? 07:04 You really can't color that for them. 07:06 I just have to say that there was one time I decided I was 07:10 going to go into a Ministry in a place that was a lot of 07:14 dealers, every home was run down I mean every place I turned 07:19 was run down, so I just walked around a little bit, and these 07:23 little kids, I am sure like you, tiny little kids from 7, 8, 9, 07:27 years old, were tough. 07:29 They look at you like, what's up? 07:32 Do you know what I mean? There was not kids playing. 07:35 There was not any of that, they were already playing each other 07:38 really early. Yeah exactly! 07:39 Yeah, you will find that a lot in the ghettos of the cities 07:44 because you are living every single day as though you have to 07:48 defend yourself, you can be robbed, you can be shot, 07:51 you can be raped, a woman or a man. 07:53 So you have that mentality. 07:55 No matter what age? No matter what age. 07:57 No matter what age you have that mentality that today 07:59 could be your last day. 08:01 My brother was living in a gang infested place in Long Beach 08:05 California and his daughter was held up by gunpoint 08:08 at 8 years old for her Girl Scout money. 08:10 Wow! 08:12 So, but I think a lot of times when somebody says I am from 08:16 this rough background, I just want to grab them and say 08:19 you have to say what it is like because people don't know. 08:23 So their empathy for these kids aren't there. 08:27 Right now I just think that somebody has to love on the 08:30 kids because there is no chance for them because everything 08:33 they know is telling them you better harden up. That's right! 08:36 That goes into another step of my life where because of 08:41 the environment my sisters husband felt the need that I 08:45 should be fit to endure this type of environment so he would, 08:50 in his mind for my greater good, locked me in a room, and he 08:56 being 20 years old, and I am 12, would just start beating me up. 09:01 He was fighting me and I could not defend myself 09:04 but just take it. 09:05 This when I weeks after weeks, after weeks, after weeks. 09:08 In his mind he is toughening me up, but what he is really 09:12 doing is... So that you will survive? 09:13 So that I will survive, but what he was really doing was killing 09:17 any good emotion that I would have or that I had 09:22 prior to that moment. 09:24 I just had a very hard heart. 09:26 I was almost insensitive to pain because of it. 09:31 I mean, he was not holding back. 09:33 He was just laying it on me. 09:34 Laying it on me and this really turned me out as far 09:39 as my mindset. 09:40 I really hated and a lot of people and I didn't 09:43 understand why. 09:45 And could take pain, so it is like somebody says I'm going 09:50 to beat you up, so what? 09:51 Right! So you walked out with that. 09:55 Bravado, it's like so what? Oh yeah, it was almost like 09:58 the incredible hulk, be angrier he got, the stronger he got. 10:02 So the more, I use to look for fights because it was 10:07 in addiction for me to feel that adrenaline rush, the challenge. 10:10 If somebody bigger than me, taller than me, it didn't matter 10:14 It didn't matter at all. 10:15 Because you have been through that already. 10:16 Because I have been through that I have been particularly trained 10:19 for that, unconditionally, conditioned to be fit for this 10:24 type a fight, you know? 10:25 In the process of time I had became a gang infestation, 10:29 like you mentioned, in a lot of the cities, I was encountered 10:33 by some of these gangs. 10:34 I was robbed at a very young age, I was only 12 years old. 10:37 By knifepoint, and that had been a turning point in my life 10:41 because I felt that I was defenseless, I couldn't do 10:45 anything my life was in another person's hand. 10:47 I could do anything about it. 10:49 So I have made a vow that night that I would never 10:52 be a victim again. 10:53 But at the same time again, I make sure that what happened 10:58 was that I would make other people the victim. 11:00 Right, everybody else was going to pay. 11:02 They was going to pay for that. 11:03 I became 10 times worse than the gang member the did that to me. 11:08 I began to rob people. 11:10 Just mug people, just rob people and steal from them. 11:14 Just leave them there. 11:16 You know, laughing, I had no need, I was financially well off 11:19 my household we were not poor. 11:21 We were on welfare, but I did it because I wanted to. 11:27 Because I wanted to. Right! 11:28 Things got so bad that I eventually... 11:32 You know part of the wanting to is that I want to prove to 11:35 somebody that I am not afraid, I'm not someone you can just 11:39 push around. 11:40 There is that, really in that environment, that's the gig. 11:43 I have to prove to you that you cannot do this to me. 11:46 You can't. 11:47 Because if I don't prove that I'm going to be stepped on 11:50 every single hour, every hour, every minute, every time I walk 11:54 out the door. That's right! 11:55 So it is really interesting to me is sometimes I just want to 12:00 just grab and holler and just say in some places these kids 12:05 are doing the only thing that makes sense to them. 12:08 Unless somebody changes it, this is their life. 12:11 That's it, that is all we have. 12:13 Because of that I did not make it past, through high school 12:17 very well, I got let back twice, in the ninth grade. 12:20 I got involved with a lot of the gangs and my mom felt that 12:25 it was necessary to move out of that environment. 12:29 Just to save you? Just to save me. 12:31 I'm not going to lose my son here? Right! 12:34 She had to do it, she sacrificed a lot because she worked in the 12:38 Bronx so she felt we should move to New Jersey. 12:40 She felt that would be safer for me. 12:43 What in turn happened was I became a bigger threat over 12:47 there and I continued to do even more things. 12:50 I started robbing people at the high school in New Jersey. 12:53 I also began to sell drugs over there as well on the streets. 12:57 I got intermingled with the kids over there who were very similar 13:00 to where I grew up at. 13:02 So it seem like when she did it but to no avail. Right! 13:05 The seeds were already in my heart. 13:07 So you are going to attract the people you need to attract? 13:10 I'm going to attract, I'm not only going to attract, I'm going 13:13 to influence because this was now my life now. 13:16 This was who I am, because I was trained to be like this. 13:20 I felt I had no choice. 13:24 I didn't have any opportunity to make that choice, 13:28 because it was forced on me. Right! 13:30 Without that father figure that we talked about earlier, 13:33 there was no one to really guide me into what was right. 13:37 I did not grow up in a religious background, so I had no church 13:40 to go to, so this is my life and I loved it. 13:43 It is amazing to me when I read some of the statistics on how 13:46 many people are growing up without fathers. 13:49 I mean it's huge. Oh yeah! Oh yeah! 13:51 How bout with your friends? 13:53 Most of them have fathers? Oh no! No fathers! 13:55 Absolutely, not one of them. 13:57 No fathers. 13:58 When you say that I knows somebody will probably listen 14:02 and say that cannot be true, but that is true. 14:04 No fathers. 14:05 In some of the areas I went to I meet no fathers. 14:07 If there is a father he usually a deadbeat and not involved 14:11 with his kids. 14:12 He lives with another woman in and out of jail. 14:16 There's nothing tangible there, there's nothing that you can see 14:22 some love there, there's no guidance. 14:23 There's no guidance, what became our guidance was the music. 14:26 Hip-hop, rap music, they became the people we looked up to. 14:30 They are the ones who's examples we follow. 14:35 That's how we became the way we were. 14:38 We became influenced by them. 14:40 By these men, they had no fathers either, yet they were 14:43 saying some thing that made sense to us. 14:45 We wanted to follow that because they seem like they made it. 14:50 They went through what we went through. 14:52 I have seen that over and over with the music in what surprised 14:57 me a lot about that is that when you have that much anger 15:01 and folks are singing about their anger, then you really 15:05 can relate to that. 15:06 It is like you are singing about anger and getting not victimized 15:10 in all at stuff, and I could crank that up. 15:12 Just be right there with them. 15:14 That's right! That's right! Especially with the music 15:17 it appeals right to the emotions so it is dealing, it is almost 15:21 like drug addict in the sense that what you are going through 15:26 you want to experience or hear that somebody else went through 15:30 it and at the same time it is not really saying not to do it, 15:35 it is glorifying it. 15:36 It is say there is nothing wrong with the way you are. 15:40 You are okay, just keep doing what you're doing and soon 15:44 enough you'll make it like I did. 15:46 Through crime, through injustice through illegal affairs you 15:50 are going to advance in life. 15:53 So it is never really telling you to get past that. 15:55 It's not telling you to forsake those things and say look 15:58 we were messed up when we were younger and we had no fathers. 16:01 This life wasn't good, they are not saying that at all. 16:05 They are say this is your way out. 16:06 This is the way out. 16:07 This is how you are going to make it. 16:09 So with that the encouragement you have is that the music, 16:14 the encouragement that you have is that you are not being 16:17 victimized anymore because I have made it and I am selling 16:21 the drugs now and if you get in my face I will take you out. 16:24 So you are going in that direction, and I can feel that 16:28 even when you're talking I could feel that. 16:30 So I'm thinking how does God, how does God get through 16:33 to someone that has all those things against you? 16:37 How do you even see? Because God must of been foolish to you. 16:40 Christians must be weak to you? 16:43 In my life it was always talked about but never exemplified 16:49 in anybody that I could see. 16:51 So it was more than foolishness it was pathetic, it was pitiful. 16:55 It was weak because in the streets you have to be strong. 16:58 You have to be tough, you can't lay down for anybody. 17:00 You're not turning the other cheek? 17:02 You are not turning the other cheek, in fact as the song said 17:04 If you turn the other cheek I'm going to break your chin. 17:07 If you do turn the other cheek with these things in our minds 17:10 how does God reach somebody like that? 17:15 Well in my case, my experience I was very involved in history 17:19 governmental affairs. Isn't that funny? 17:23 Because when you think about it everything you just said you 17:26 like history, what are you talking about? 17:28 You know here's the interesting thing, this is the interesting 17:31 thing about people who do grow up in the streets, 17:33 they recognized one thing that was very important. 17:34 That was education. 17:37 Education because you had to be smart. 17:39 Selling drugs you have to have mathematics, you will get 17:42 cheated out your money, you do not know supply and demand. 17:45 You do not know how to save up, do not know how to deal this 17:47 and deal that so you have to have some kind of education. 17:52 We always believed in that, apparently the music emphasized 17:57 education along with the crime. 17:58 Isn't that funny, I never thought of that. 18:00 But you do have to know about money and about transactions. 18:05 Oh yeah, it is very necessary, so in the sense I always... 18:08 Did I tell you I love you? I think you are so amazing. 18:12 And every time you hear your testimony, I just think you 18:15 are amazing because I know where you been through. 18:19 I know that child, and that child was hard-core. 18:23 Now you are looking at history and how things 18:27 happened over time. 18:29 Yes I believe that if you do not follow history you will repeat 18:32 it and especially with the long history, I'm African American. 18:36 So we have a very negative history especially starting from 18:41 the United States of 400 years of slavery. 18:42 So what my father said to me in my mind said, I cannot fail 18:47 to repeat that, I have to get past and advance 18:50 in education as well as my finances. 18:53 So I used to study a lot and was good at it. 18:56 A book was given to me by my brother-in-law. 19:00 The same one who beat me up, it would make me stronger, 19:04 and it was right up my field, it was talking a lot about how 19:09 our government was being, a lot of the world wars were staged. 19:15 They were planned for a particular purpose. 19:17 I am not going into the details but it made a lot of sense. 19:20 They named names, they had references, I looked them up 19:24 I wasn't just somebody who believed them, 19:26 I a skeptic about everything. 19:28 It was just saying there is things behind the scenes 19:30 that are happening that you may need to know about. 19:32 That we should know about and I am reading 19:34 it and saying whoa, this makes too much sense not to be true. 19:38 And it had nothing to do about religion, then the very 19:42 last chapter it showed Revelation and broke down how 19:46 everything in Revelation talked about a book, 19:50 a 6000 year old book, was talking about things that was 19:54 going on in our time right now. 19:57 My eyes, I could not believe it. 19:59 Were your eyes open when some body said, my eyes are open? 20:02 They were opened! 20:03 Wow! in a spiritual sense even? 20:06 In a spiritual sense and shocked sense, a fearful sense because 20:09 you recognize that will wow if these things are really taking 20:13 place and I am living like this, if these things are true and 20:17 the Bible say they are true, that means other parts the 20:19 Bible have to be true also. 20:21 That Jesus is real and He is coming. 20:22 He's coming, but He is coming for one class of people. 20:26 And I wasn't one of them, so there's a problem now. 20:30 He's not buying crack! 20:31 No He is not! and He is not trying to see that anger either. 20:36 So I have a problem, I realized I had a problem. 20:39 So I continued to Study and share with my friends the things 20:44 from this book, but I wasn't converted yet. 20:46 I wasn't converted, I was convicted. 20:48 And trying to say look at this, pay attention. 20:53 They thought I was crazy, crazy. They were saying what are you 20:57 smoking? I said oh. 20:59 You finally had lost your mind, I had lost it. 21:03 I lost it and they could not believe it, but I was intent on 21:06 proving it, because I believed history was right there. 21:09 As time progressed I knew I wanted to get better. 21:15 But I also started seeing other things in this Bible that I had 21:18 never seen before. Like? 21:20 Love! What does that mean? You know coming from where 21:25 you came from, what does that mean? 21:27 What does love mean? 21:28 I can't describe it, I mean it with the exact opposite 21:32 of what I had believed all my life. 21:36 I have lived all my life it was the complete anti-street 21:43 life that I had been accustomed to, 21:45 that somebody would lay down, someone from a high position, 21:51 speaking down to earth from a high position will come down to 21:55 my level, and die for someone who completely doesn't care 21:59 about them, and do that? 22:04 And it didn't make sense to me, I tossed it, I said what 22:06 is this garbage, I can't believe this. 22:09 I see Jesus is pathetic, why would He do this? 22:12 I look at Him as weak and impotent, and what is this? 22:16 But then it really clicked in my mind when I walked away, 22:19 I said is this love? 22:23 I never understood it, is this really what love is? 22:26 I've never really seen it. 22:27 I had never seen this. 22:29 I had never seen this, I had been so selfish all my life. 22:31 Only thinking about myself, I didn't think about anybody. 22:34 I would kill somebody and not think twice. 22:37 I was at that point, I would just do that. 22:40 And I said wow, this man would let Himself be killed 22:47 so that I can have a chance? 22:48 I don't even know Him and He would do this for me? 22:53 It makes you wonder if this is God? 23:00 It's huge, it's huge. 23:07 I want people to meet your wife and your friends and that stuff. 23:09 So we are going to go ahead and take a break. 23:11 I think how incredible for God to just say, you know what 23:15 I know that you do not understand, and I know you think 23:19 this is foolishness, but I want to tell you that it will change 23:23 everything for you to understand what love is about. 23:26 What does it feel like to feel safe? 23:29 To feel protected and you have a Father that says 23:31 I want to teach you all things. 23:33 Man, I can't wait to hear the rest of the story. 23:37 Stay with us, come right back! |
Revised 2014-12-17