Miracle at the Garage

“My dad said he would never come visit me, and my mom only came once. It was my grandmother who came to get me, and gave me a place to stay. From beginning to end I guess I had been dealing drugs for the better part of 20 years actually. It all started by me taking my friends to go places to go buy drugs, and I realized that they could buy from me easier. So after driving others for a long time to go buy their drugs, I saw the opportunity there, and so I had a clientele base already for me to sell to. I had a reputation as a tough guy, and a fighter, and I also had a hard time with any relationships during this time. “I met my wife when we were teenagers. I knew her since she was 12 and I was 17, I think. She had liked me ever since then. I would be at her bus stop and she would see me. Her family ended up moving across the street from me while I was here. We have been married now for 10 years, but have been together for about 18 years come this February 2012. She knew about everything. Her parents told her all of the things that I was doing even though I was denying all of it. “Now I had left my wife for a short time during my drug dealing days. I never really was there for her in the beginning. I stayed gone most of the time, and I had even become part owner of a strip club in Newport News. I really got even worse at this time. The drugs were taking their toll on me. Even though I was a dealer, I was just as bad of an addict. Everything I did was surrounded by the drugs; the money came from there, the high, the strip clubs, my life. I had tried to buy all of my friendships, and relationships. I found that I could purchase everything. I moved out of the house, leaving my wife because I kept hurting her and I didn’t know why. I had a hard time believing you could love someone and hurt them too. Now I know the reason why, and it was because I had no idea what love really was. We all hurt God; though we say we love Him. I realize that we can love each other and still hurt them sometimes. I left home and was living somewhere else. I came back one night to visit the kids and we talked, and she asked me if I had really given us 100%, and though I said yes, that question stuck with me for a while. I left there thinking about that question and it had played into my head for the next couple of months as well. During that time, I had stopped selling drugs, which is the first time in about 15 years that I had quit selling. This was about 5 years ago. “I noticed I had a lot of time on my hands now and was thinking about the fact that maybe she was right and I had not given 100% to our marriage. I decided to go back and give it 100%. So I came home, leaving a good paying job to do so. After about 10 months without work, the bills were beginning to pile up. I needed some quick money and the only thing I knew how to do was to sell drugs. I made the decision to go back to the only life I knew. On my way to Suffolk to start selling drugs again, I turned down the wrong road and something drew me into a church parking lot, where I intended to just turn around. It ended up being the right road, and my life did turn around, it changed forever that day. “Something had driven me to go this direction and I actually stopped in a parking space. I just sat there and turned the truck off and started having a conversation with God right there. I thought I was going crazy. I did not understand at first what was going on, but I knew it was Him. I had never heard from Him like this before. That is when I said, ‘God, if you are real then kill me or change me.’ He answered my prayers and did both. Instantly He killed the old Anthony and changed me forever.”