The Power of a Changed Life (Part II)

SOURCE:  "The Power of a Changed Life." Decision Magazine Vol 45, No 1, January 2004. pg 17-9
KEYWORDS:  inner-city, violence, grace, wisdom

Q: Your childhood was spent in a seriously deprived and difficult inner-city environment, yet you wound up attending Yale University.  That’s quite an accomplishment.

A:  I grew up in both Detroit and Boston.  It wasn’t a particularly pleasant situation.  There was never money for anything.  There were rats and roaches; sirens and gangs--particularly in Boston, when we lived right in the middle of the tenements.  Seeing people lying on the ground or dying was not uncommon.  Two of my cousins were killed.  I didn’t anticipate that I would live beyond the age of 25.

When I was 14, I tried to stab another youngster.  My knife blade struck his belt buckle and broke.  I locked myself in the bathroom and thought about that.  That day I started reading the Book of Proverbs, and I prayed a lot.  The Lord took my anger away from me, and I also began to gather insight into who God is and into the incredible power one could have from Him.  I had accepted Christ when I was eight years old  at a church service, but at that point I realized that by developing the potential that God had given me, I could live in any kind of environment and do anything.  The Lord had put that within me, as He puts it within each of us.