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I started my hustle at an early age as you will see as my story unfolds in this book. I've done enough wrong to have been dead or be in prison for a lifetime. I am not sharing my life with you to celebrate nor to glorify a criminal life, but rather to tell you that God is a God of second chance.
When a person is in jail, he/she feels that he/she is the only one doing the time. Well, if the truth be told, your family is doing time along wity you, because they suffer too. They feel the hurt, the pain, and the embarassment - they may never share their feelings with you, but believe me, they have many pinned emotions inside.
For the readers who are on the path that leads to destruction, I hope you find a catalyst that will motivate you to change before its's too late. When crime has been a way of life for you and hustling is all that you have known for survival - a roof over your family's head and the food on their tables - I feel you.
Changing your lifestyle is not easy, nor is a hustler's life easy. It takes believing in yourself, believing in God, and the strength to say goodbye to the old friends who once influenced and now entice you to continue a life of hustling. One day you will get tired of the emptiness that you feel when you are in touch with yourself away from the crowd - tired of the suffering, pain, and fear the you see in the eyes of your wife, your children, and your mother, and then you will plead within your sould for change and for someone to rescue you.
Let me share with you what took place in my life that caused me to want to change forever!
Two time during my marriage, I witnessed my wife, of thirty-three years, crying, and each time it happened was when I came home, and she was in the restroom, balling her eyes out. When I approached her and asked her what was wrong, she informed me that she had received a phone call and some jive-ass detective wanted to know if I owned a jaguar car.
So I asked my wife why this would cause her to cry. She looked at me through red, swollen eyes and said to me in a trembling voice, "Daddy, I just don't want those folks taking you away from me anymore." That hurt me more than anything that I had ever witnessed.
At that point, I made a promise to God. I said, "God, if you make this thing go away, I will stop all of my hustling." I made a vow that I would go staight the rest of my life, and I can truly say from that point on, I've watched so many doors open for me.
I just want to let you know that I have been hustling all my life up until the point that I mad this promise to God - at the age of 72. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't easy - you must stay focused. The old devil is relentless; he came after me in full force. You can't give up. God is more powerful than the devil's arms are too short to box with God.
So I just want to say this, hoping that it might help some young brothers - hoping that they might avoid some of these dreadful pitfalls that the old devil is laying out there for us.
