A TESTIMONY OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICE

 

Everyone calls me Lucky. When I was growing up, my loving parents always taught me right from wrong. I went to church and Sunday school. I played football at the recreation park near my home, and I enjoyed every bit of it. I loved going to church, but somewhere along the way, I stepped off the straight and narrow path and started to hang out late. I stopped going to school everyday. My grades in school dropped, and I did just enough to get by in school.

 

In about the 10th grade, I started drinking and smoking weed. After that, I started selling drugs in high school. Oh, by the way, my father is a Baptist minister and my mother was a substance abuse counselor. I went against everything my parents had taught me growing up. I stopped playing ball, and I stopped going to church. I turned my will and my life over to the streets…

 

I tried to stop using so many times, so many ways, but this time, I stayed in jail for four months. Every other time, my mother and father would get me out of jail and get a good lawyer for me. This time was different. My bond was so high that they could not get me out. So, I stayed and prayed to the God I knew could do anything but fail. In my darkest days and nights, God still blessed me. He blessed me over and over again. Well, after my bond was reduced to a price my parents could afford, with the help of Riverview Baptist Church and my Pastor, I got out on bond…

 

After going to church every night, I still needed more. God sent a man to me on the job I was working on. He started working there and he would leave every day and go to a 12 step program—AA and NA. One day he told me, without asking me anything about myself, “Young blood you don’t have to live like that.” I started going with him to AA and NA every day. By God’s Grace and with the church and the new people in my life, I stopped using by the time I went to Court. 

 

One Sunday, an older deacon got up in Sunday school and said “Our brother will be going to Court this week, and we want him to know that we are with him.” He said God had spoken to him, and God wanted everybody from prayer service on Wednesdays and Sunday School class to write something short for the Court on the church bulletin or any piece of paper they had at the time. He prayed over the pieces of paper and put the notes in an envelope and sent it to my lawyer. My lawyer gave the big yellow envelope to the Judge. The notes told how much they loved me, how they hoped that he would please find it in his heart to spare my life and give me another chance. The judge read some of the notes out in Court. Then he said, “You better not let these people down. If you do, you better hope you don’t come by me!  Keep the peace, be on good behavior and stay clean. Keep doing what you are doing. You can go.” I almost passed out in the Court room. I knew God loved me.

 

That’s been 13 years ago. I have been drug free for 13 years. I’ve been a Deacon at that same church—Riverview Baptist Church for about six years. I am on the bus ministry. I work for the church. I’ll do anything for my church!  My testimony is that if I can do it, anyone can.

 

BY CORNELL ROANE, DEACON, RIVERVIEW BAPTIST CHURCH, RICHMOND, VA

MEMBER OF THE GOVERNING BOARD, EXODUS FOUNDATION.ORG