Please take a minute to hear a love story about our merciful God.
As a kid I remember my father drinking a lot and beating my mother and forcing her into prostitution. I would hate the men she would bring home. When I was about 6 or 7 my father started to give me beer and take me to the bars. The women would say how cute I was and give me money that my father took to buy drinks.
At 10 years old my mother settled down a bit and got married to my stepfather who was also an alcoholic and very physically and verbally abusive. At one point I wanted to kill him. I was tired of his abuse of my mother and me. I always felt helpless because I could not defend her. I felt sorry for her. One night my stepfather got drunk and put a shotgun to my head. He told me that he was going to blow my brains out because I was no good and worthless like my father.
In school I had trouble focusing. I was always worried about who I had to fight after s going on at home. By the time I was in junior high I was drinking and sniffing glue all the time. I was also introduced to marijuana.
I started living in the streets with my little brother. I had learned how to steal and con to survive. I ran away from home because my mother had two more kids with my stepfather and I felt left out. I started getting arrested a lot and would tell the people to keep me because I did not want to go home. But they would take me back and I would take off again. At this time my drug addiction was getting worse and my crimes were getting more serious. As a result, I was put away for a year at a county home school when I was 15. During this time my father’s liver shut down from drinking and he passed away.
I was released from the home school when I was 17 and went back home to my mother’s house and back to drugs and alcohol. Then something special happened to me. I met this young lady in a nightclub when I was only 17 and I fell in love with her. I did all I could to destroy this relationship. I started to abuse her. I could not receive the love she was giving me. (She is now my wife and we have two children, a true gift from God.)
At the age of 19, I started to shoot heroin and cocaine. To support this habit I needed lots of money. As a result I was in and out of the county jail and workhouse.
At 28, I experienced my first imprisonment. I really needed to sit down and get a grip on life. I had lost my family due to my addiction. Prison gave me a chance to look at where I had been, and where I wanted to go. I found out I was very angry and bitter at myself and society and I was determined to just take what I wanted.
I was in prison about 16 months and got out in February 1988. I went straight to the bar. I remember hitting a woman in the head with a beer bottle. I woke up in the hospital 2 days later. I was told that I had been shot by a Minneapolis police officer. I had only been out of prison 2 days when this incident occurred. Later I found out that I had stolen a car. This was the worst point in my life, I had lost so much blood they did not think I would make it and I was not sure I wanted to keep fighting. I was tired, I felt myself fall deep into a black hole. I did not know God, but God had a plan, and I made it through. It took me a year to walk again.
As soon as I was healthy, I went back to drugs and alcohol, committing crime and using women to support my lifestyle. After 3 more terms in prison I was really getting tired. Drugs, alcohol, and women were no longer numbing the pain.
1995 was my last incarceration. I was really feeling empty on the inside. I always felt uncertain of who I was or where I fit in. I would see the volunteers go into the chapel and they seemed to have a peace about them. I went back to my cell and asked God why I was so different from other people, and why I had never been happy. All of my life I had to fight and run.
I asked God to take my life. I was tired and I wanted PEACE. I began to read the scriptures
and it said Jesus loved me. I began to weep uncontrollably. For the first time, I felt loved. 
This same God that changed my life can change yours. Take a few minutes to ask Christ into your heart.
May God bless you and keep you!
- Marcell Garretson