My Testimony

By:  Anthony Calleros

            As a child I wasn’t the brightest, but I tried to always keep a smile.  The people that meant the most to me was my mom, grandma, and grandpa.  When my mom became a meth user, she completely stopped paying attention to me.  I thought that she didn’t love me anymore because she wasn’t that close to me like she used to be. 

            At the age of nine or 10 years old, I was introduced to meth and drinking by a friend at school.  His family were into gangs big-time.  I started to rebel, and we broke into the school to steal money or whatever we could take.  We stole bikes from the front of people’s houses to buy the drugs.  My mom and my stepdad were always fighting.  There were nights where we went to sleep without eating. 

            My mom, my sisters, and I would go back and forth to my grandma’s house.  I was there often and started hanging out with some boys there.  We would go to the store and steal, drink and get high.  At 12 years old, we were coming from the connection’s house when we were pulled over by two under-covers for jaywalking.  I tried to run but was caught.  I had two eight balls, a light bulb and some Navy pepper spray.  Once again, my grandpa got me out of a jam. 

            My grandpa and grandma decided to keep me because my role models weren’t raising me right.  One of the rules were going to church.  I didn’t like church because it was boring.  People were jumping around, clapping, and singing.  I didn’t know what was going on and I couldn’t wait to get out and take a blast. 

            When I was 15, my grandparents had enough of me, so my mom sent me to Oklahoma with her best friends.  They did the best to raise me.  At 17 years of age, I had a Camaro, a job, and a beautiful girlfriend who became my daughter’s mom.  Well the bull kept rolling my way and I found myself selling coca and pills, and I started drinking more. 

            During lunch break at work, I found myself unconscious in the lobby at Sam’s Club.  When I woke up, the workers and supervisors asking, “Are you okay?”  I had fallen and hit my head from popping too many zanies and drinking brandy.  Still I never went to God for help; He didn’t even exist to me.  It was all about living. 

            The year 2003 took a toll on me.  I lost my grandfather, and that hurt me the most.  I was 1600 miles away from home traveling back to California for a funeral that I was not prepared for.  Still I didn’t ask God for help. I was numb. I never made it back to Tulsa.  I left my job, my car, my family, and I was stuck stupid.  I then went and bought an ounce of meth and I was superman; I didn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone.  I forgot I had a life the month prior. I found myself arrested for drugs and stolen property.  That’s when I heard about Jesus.  Well, I tried it a couple of times, but it wasn’t my cup of coffee.  After getting released, my aunt and uncle let me live with them, but church was mandatory.  So, I went and started doing bible studies, but I was still using and kicking it with my friends.  I thought having a girlfriend would keep me in church, but that didn’t work out.  It was all about drugs.  In 2006, I picked up a 211 (robbery).  The crimes kept growing.  Then in 2008, I picked up Grand Theft.  Then in 2013, I was locked up, then released eight months and later back to prison for 32 months.  The games didn’t end.  My wife gave me another chance to mend our vows.  It lasted only six months.  I went right back to the same old person from having everything to becoming homeless, hotel to hotel. 

            In August of 2016, I found myself in the hospital with a head fracture.  The dope game had caught up to me as I was lying in the hospital bed and being read my rights for a 211 at an AM/PM gas station.  I was then booked at Robert Presley and from there I was sent to southwest jail. I was fighting a 25-to-life-term on my 3rd strike.  Everything was still a game.  My intentions were bad. 

            I was losing hope.  While my cellie (cellmate) and I were porters, I met a guy that shared the Word with me.  I told him, “Well I don’t know.  I don’t want to be lukewarm like the church.  One foot in and one foot out.”  So, God kept knocking on my heart until I finally surrendered.  I told my cellie that I was good.  I didn’t want this lifestyle anymore with this county, and all the crap that comes with it. Every night I read a verse out of my bible.  I remember one night I asked God, “If you are who you say you are, show me your love and I will follow you.”

            My court date came after going back and forth.  The deal was still 25-to-life.  My motion was denied by three district attorneys.  My attorney said, “We’ll have to push for a trial, but the chances of winning are slim with video evidence and witnesses.”  One of them being a friend as well, I thought.  As my lawyer was going to get the paperwork together, another D.A. walked in; and by the Grace of God, he accepted my Romero Motion.  I then signed a deal for 16 years.  The motion struck my 3rd strike.  It wasn’t supposed to have been granted because I had stayed out of prison for five years.  I was a habitual criminal.  But God loved me, and I’ll never let that go. 

            I was once a Gideon, but now I’m a brave solider of Christ.  We all go through issues and struggles in life, but Joshua 1:5-7 and Heb 12:5-7 and James 1:2-4.  Remember brothers, God never fails though we fail Him.  The world has nothing to offer, but God has everything to build you into a great man.  God bless you.

A. Calleros