If you had ever told me that one day I would be an evangelist who couldn’t stop talking about Jesus and what He had done in my life, I would have definitely laughed at you and told you that you were crazy.

I’ll be 43 on May 15th of this year—which is just two days away—and right now, in 2026, I look back and see how crazy, hectic, and traumatic my life was. It was full of drama, abuse, confusion, and pain, and I had accepted that this was just what life was supposed to be for me. After suffering abuse from two men in my life, and being diagnosed as ADHD, ADD, and bipolar, and being on all kinds of medicines as a kid, I just completely lost myself and stayed lost for a very long time.

Because all I ever knew was hurt, pain, and suffering, I felt like that’s what I was supposed to show people. I joined a gang at 12 years old and began to shed blood at 13. I put in work at a very young age, spending a lot of my life in and out of institutions, facilities, and juvenile places until I was old enough to go to prison at 18.

I rose through the ranks in gang life and developed a very big name for having a violent reputation where I’m from. I enjoyed being mean—I enjoyed being a gangster and having people fear me. I wanted to be a gangster my whole life. I looked up to gangsters. I loved gangster movies, mafia movies, with drugs, violence, and women—I idolized these things.

I had a very loving mother and very loving women in my family, who tried their best to be there for me and all of us kids. But I come from a very diverse family. We’ve always struggled with addiction, incarceration, prostitution, violence— you name it. I come from a big family. At one time, we were very close-knit and tight, but things change as people get older.

In the end, the gang life was my god. It was my first love and everything I ever wanted—I didn’t think or want to do anything else. Sure, I hated getting locked up, but who really wants to do time? Most people just want to do what they want without consequences, and I was no different. I was a white gangster in Tennessee with a pretty big name, and to me that meant something.

Long story short: I spent my whole life putting in work for the gang life, only to be betrayed by it, accepted back in, betrayed again, and finally I reached a place where I was so broken, so hurt, so lost, and so addicted that I just wanted to die. That led to me being locked up and facing the rest of my life in prison—140 years, to be exact. At the time, I had only been out of prison for about a year after serving a 24-year sentence.

Through heartbreak and heartache, I became addicted and lost myself in a way I never knew I could. I became everything I ever despised. On top of that, I found out I had an incurable eye disease that was causing me to go blind. I was just hopeless. Back in 2019, when they indicted me on a 13-count drug charge and told me I’d never get out, I started to pray and cry out to Jesus. For two years, I prayed and cried until I finally heard from Him. I was baptized with the Holy Ghost, and my life changed radically, in an instant. I’ll never forget how it felt to be set free from who I used to be, and who I thought I would always be.

I still faced the rest of my life in prison, but now I knew my purpose was to serve God for the rest of my days. Two weeks later, my baby brother was killed in prison. Had it not been for my faith, I would have lost myself. I kept pursuing Jesus, no matter what. While in Wilson County Jail, I went through five lawyers and spent almost three years in jail pretrial, fighting for my life. Through obedience and perseverance, I just kept pushing through. A week before my trial, I received a 12-year sentence at 30%. By the grace of God, He not only set me free, but set me free indeed.

I went on to do a combined almost five more years in jail and prison. I’ve now been out two years. I’m remarried, a first-time father, and an ordained minister/evangelist. I travel all over Tennessee, living homeless in each county for a week at a time, suffering with people and meeting them where they are. I speak in juvenile halls, jails, and rehabs. I just had a book come out called Smoke Screens by Jeremy Caldwell. I’ve watched God take me and set me on platforms I could never have imagined.

My life is not perfect; it’s not easy. I still battle like everyone else, but no matter how much I mess up or struggle, I keep God at the center of my life. My mission is to share my testimony with as many people as possible, hoping and praying that it encourages them, wherever they are, to submit to Jesus.