Normally when your MoM uses the number 22 during this week in February it is to remind you that my birthday is on the 22nd. However, today there’s a bit of a different reason. It was on February 19, back in 2002 that I was released from incarceration. Yup, 22 years ago.

When I walked out of the exit at the Kern County Jail, the last thing that the guard said to me was “See you next week!” It was his glib way of telling me that he thought that I would succumb to the overwhelming recidivism rates that felons experience. It did not make me enthusiastic about what was to be my future. It did make me a bit more determined to prove him wrong.

The past 22 years have been a mixed bag of failure and success. I never reach all of the goals that I set for myself, but I do achieve a lot of them. If, on that sunny winter morning, you would have told me how my life would look now, I would laughed at you. I never thought I would work in ministry. I never thought I would write multiple books. I never thought that people would give me a building. It has been amazing.

The thing that I didn’t know back then was just how difficult it would be to live in my shoes. I didn’t know the levels of scorn, rejection, and disdain I would face. If I knew, I probably wouldn’t have thought that I could do it. I would have wanted to just give up. But I didn’t know the secret back then. I had no idea what kind of effort it would take to…

-Rise Up!!