October 7, 2010
My name is Darrian Howard, I am 19 and I’m from Social Circle, Georgia. My life before Christ was rough. I grew up with a single mom along with my brother and sister. I was raised in an extremely rough environment – lots of drug dealers, drug addicts, gun shots at night, house parties, really corrupt. I received my first charge when I was nine for stealing this man’s wallet. After then, I became very skilled in stealing, especially in stores. At the age of 14, I was introduced to marijuana. I started smoking it a lot. I had become fairly addicted to it and I just had to have it. I had become really skilled in boosting from years of stealing so I could support my habit. I was introduced to alcohol at 15 because it was so easy for me to get it. I soon became an alcoholic.
From then my life started to get worse and worse. I was in the county jail within a week of my 17th birthday. At age 17, I started selling crack cocaine. I had stolen a truck and a motorcycle. A part of a violent gang, I stole car parts and tons of cell phones from Walmart. In 2009, I started my year off in jail for underage alcohol consumption and disorderly conduct. I got out on bail, and I was so caught up moving around boosting that I missed my court date! While being out, I had also received a citation for shoplifting. I was going to turn myself in on the citation date. I went and my warrant hadn’t shown up, so I was given probation. A few months later, I received a loitering charge. I had to go to court for that while waiting for my warrant to show up also.
So I was walking around selling pot one night, and I was thinking over my whole life. I was an alcoholic – I dropped out of school – I was about to do some time – I had come to a dead end
and just lost hope. I was in complete desperation! So I looked up and I said “God, if you are real, save my life. I want to do right, but I don’t know how.” I was very sincere when I called out to Him. The day after, someone stole my drug money, so I couldn’t get any more to sell. A day or two later, another drug dealer ratted me out to the police. They searched my Mom’s place but found nothing. I was drunk, so I was locked up. I had two more charges stacked on. While in the police car, I was crying out to God, literally wailing in total anguish for God to save me. I went to jail like most people and picked up a Bible, but I wanted something more than just religion, denomination or church – I wanted to know – was God real and did He still do the miracles that are written in the Bible? I was in jail a month reading the Bible a lot, doing all I could to please Him, following His promises, trying to be obedient. My faith in God started rising just reading. Things started to make sense. I felt so much peace, love, and joy that after a while it didn’t matter to me that I was in jail. I had a cool relationship with God – He had already changed my life while I was in jail. I felt like a new man.
My court date came up and there seemed to be no way I was going to get out. So I wanted to be obedient to God and have faith to see if He does what He says He does. So the judge called me up, and he only saw two charges, disorderly conduct and underage alcohol consumption. He immediately charged me with six months, but through prayer and scripture and faith in God, I wasn’t discouraged at all. I said to myself looking at him, “God is greater than man and I asked Him – could I get out,” with no doubt that God would come through. My probation officer told him that those weren’t the only charges that I had – I had another folder of five more charges, plus revoking my probation twice. The chances of me doing only 60 days were almost zero, let alone getting out the same day. So the judge sat and read the charges for a moment and just looked at me really crazy and hesitated and said, “Darrian Howard, how would you like to get out today?” He said that he was going to dismiss my current probation and fines and give me one year of non-reporting probation on the count that I left the the city for a year. I was so overwhelmed and happy to know that God was real and that He does what He says He does that I couldn’t help but tell everyone that I had seen!
I prayed hard that God would send me to a place where I could learn more about Him, a place that I would never fall away from Him. So I was really patient and I knew that He was going to do it. So about a week after getting out of jail, not knowing where I was going to go, I went to this new Christian arcade that came to our town, and I gave my testimony to about 200 kids – some knew who I was. While I was there, I told the owner’s wife I had to leave town, and I had nowhere to go, and she gave me a weird look and asked me if I could go to Texas the next day, would I go? I told her that I had no money to get there. Two days later, Pastor Pete called me up and said he had no money to get me there but to pack in faith, so thirty minutes later, he called me back and said, “God just moved for you quick. I don’t know who but someone just sponsored you a ticket to come out here.” I left the next day. I could see God’s hand in everything that I had experienced, beginning when I called out to Him in desperation. He not only changed my worldly life, He has given me a brand new eternal life in heaven. I wouldn’t know who or where I would be if it wasn’t for Jesus Christ saving my life. To Him alone goes all the glory.
