THE TESTIMONY OF

ROBERT HEATLEY

I am a 62-year-old Black man raised in the sixties and because of the times and the struggle, I come complete with the anger and rage the fallout left.  I was raised in the church, but I never knew God.  I thought I knew who He was, but it turns out I only knew what or how I portrayed Him in my own mind.

I was raised with a moral compass and the ability to know right from wrong.  That in the end just led me to prison with the dreaded L.W.O.P (Life Without the Possibility of Parole.)

I was trapped between two worlds.  The streets with the glamour and the money (fast money) and what I knew to be the right way.  Ultimately, I chose the streets since by then I had a family with mouths that needed to be filled and bills that needed to be paid. I was the one everyone came to with their problems, and I could not even solve my own.

I masked fear and guilt with the problem solving I was doing or thought I was doing.  God was not going to waste His time on me because of the way I saw it was that He only looked out for Jews and White people.  I was Black and for the most part, broke.  Then in the end of myself, I committed the ultimate crime against a person.  I killed a man and got sent to prison for the rest of my life.

My family gone, the money gone, and the life I knew gone.  I was left with the problems I had never dealt with for all my life—low self-esteem, fear, the lack of trust, and the inability to admit them even to myself.  In all earnest, I asked God to take care of my family.  I did not hear a voice from on high that sounded like a trumpet blowing or thunder; but at that moment, I realized that He was the one who had been taking care of them from day one!  They were a gift to me from Him.  He was and is the one who had been taking care of them.  Not me!  Today I trust only Him.  Today I give all that He gifted me, and I do all for Him.

That is my gift to Him.  That is my testimony.