I Was Sentenced 20 Years for Murder, But then Jesus Did this…

So I said, "That's how I'm gonna do it. I rigged myself so that way it could stay unlocked." And I remember the day like it was yesterday. Everybody was out for breakfast, and they were moving around, going in the line, going to get their food. And when everybody went back in their cells, it's time for it to close. But my cell was rigged a certain way so that way it will close but won't lock. And then, when it all of a sudden made his last rounds, I was going to leave out and hang myself. I had everything ready, prepared. I was sitting on my bunk, and I started just contemplating, seeing it in my head.

There was, there was something inside was just like, not convinced. I didn't even have nothing on my mind. I just felt inside like, "There has to be another way." I don't even know where that came from at the time, man. But I promise, the moment I said that, I heard the voice of God in my cell said, "Try me."

Life before Jesus, I would probably say that in maybe two words. I would say, "Not Jesus." Um, I say that because growing up in Washington D.C. neighborhood, it was called Paradise. Right? Funny name to name a project neighborhood called Paradise. Growing up in that neighborhood, you have a lot of crime, violence, drugs. Um, no gangs. Like in D.C., it's more like neighborhoods. So like, whatever neighborhood or street you was from, that was kind of like your, your thing, what you represented. But it still come with the same, you know, nonsense, the same drama, the same vicious mentality, crabs in a basket, right?

Um, I had my mom, my dad, my two sisters, and we actually went to church though. But it's funny, the reason why I say like, "Not, not Jesus," because we went to church, but I knew nothing about Jesus, like, nothing. Um, my mom played Kirk Franklin a lot. And it was weird because I remember one time he had this nice song, and I liked it a lot. That when I was like preparing drugs and stuff to sell on the corners, I was like, "I want to hear that song." So I was like, bagging drugs to Kirk Franklin. So it was really confusing to know like, "Okay, my parents are in church, we're going to church at a young age, but I don't know what to do with this life." I didn't even consider it a lifestyle. It was just like, "You go to church. Churches in your neighborhood. All right. This is where people go when they want to feel better and get ready for the week." That's what I thought church was. I didn't have a desire for God, a desire for church. I didn't have a desire for anything spiritual.

All I knew was when I come outside, it's hundreds of people in my neighborhood. Because I'm from a project. The difference between projects and different streets is that you have even gates that surround you, that enclose you in, right? Or there's different buildings that make up like one neighborhood. So it's not like streets with cars passing by. It's like everybody that lives here come outside. So it can be 200 people outside at one giving time. So I knew when I come outside, that's what I see. I see money, I see my nice cars, I see clothes, fancy clothes. I also see just the like people, quote unquote, loving each other and being family. Because in my house, the structure for family wasn't as strong as now. I know it could have been, right? So when I go outside, they happen to see you outside. It's nothing like being in the house getting ready, like maybe brushing your teeth, and then you get a knock on the door, and it's your friends like, "You coming outside?" They already beat you outside. Like, that feels good. That somebody wanting to hang with you, right? That's what I kind of gravitated to.

Because in my house, we had struggles. When I struggles, my dad was the only one working. My mom has complications, right? So she couldn't work a lot. Um, she's have hearing complications, so she couldn't get certain jobs. Me and my sisters, we're around the same age, we're young, so of course we're not working. My dad was struggling. It was a lot. I actually look back now and I honor him for the hard work that he had to put in. But back then, as a kid, you just look at it like, "You don't have nothing." You look at your parents like they're not doing anything for you. You see other kids, and we all live in the same community, right? But why do they have and I don't have?

So in my house, nobody really cared for each other that much or show that they did, right? It was always about my dad trying to survive, my mom trying to be content with her situation, my sisters trying to make it out here as females, and me. Now I'm in the streets, and that's how I live my life growing up.

I began, you know, doing street things around 12 years old. I started selling drugs at 12. I remember a time when I went to someone's house, and he literally sold the drugs to me at 12 and thought nothing of it. And from that day moving forward, I was a drug dealer. And people would literally buy drugs from adults, people, moms. It was some of my friends' parents who would buy drugs from me. Some of them knew, some of them didn't know. So when that what happened, I didn't feel like power, but I felt like, like, man, I can take this and build upon it and and have something of my own. Because when you grow up in an environment that's like kind of rocky and shaky, you want something for yourself. You want something you can call your own. You want something that nobody can take from you, that you can make for yourself and survive.

So I thought that being a drug dealer, all right, was like I was gonna make a name for myself. Because in D.C., you got all these big drug dealers, right? I mean, you could turn on YouTube and just type in drug dealers from D.C., and you'd see all types of drug dealers. And I thought in my mind that one day I will be someone that somebody look up to or look up and see his lifestyle could be. Because that's how I felt. It's weird when you can feel like you're good at doing something bad, like you're good at it. And lo and behold, living that lifestyle for what I would say from 12 to 22, 10 years straight, it caught up to me, right? I try to do as much as I can to make a name for myself. I had all of my friends. I literally taught them like how to sell drugs, right?

I remember one time I went on my to my best friend's window. Um, he lived on the first floor, and I had to like reach my hand up through the like black gate on the window. Because it's like, I block gates on it because I'm in the projects. And when you're in a bad neighborhood, those gates are there because like, you're in a bad neighborhood, and somebody can just climb into your window, right? So they put those black steel gates around your window. So I had to stick my hand through there and kind of tap on this window, and I was like, "Hey, you trying to make some money? I'm selling drugs now. Like, get, come with me." And I bought him on the team, and all my other friends, and we selling drugs. But we're selling drugs, you gotta now protect what's yours. Because you have other people that don't like what you're doing. You got other people that's looking at you, seeing you one way down, and now you got money, and they like, they want to take what you have. So we had to start carrying guns.

So I was carrying a gun from 12 years old. A 12-year-old carrying a gun around. I'm sneaking guns in school. I'm riding with guns on the bus, like at 12 years old. I can't imagine now at 12, like seeing a 12-year-old walking and seeing him, and he has a gun on him. I couldn't imagine that. But that's what I was doing, trying to protect what was mines. And when you're carrying guns, you either get locked up with it, or you have to use it. And in my case, there was a situation where I used it. I used a gun to take somebody's life at 22 years old.

I look back now and I regret that situation with everything that that I have in me. I see so many ways it could have went, but it happened. I understand now that everybody has a decision to make. You're not forced to do anything, you know? In those times and in those moments where you feel like, "I just have to do this," I wish somebody would have told me, "No, you don't. No, you don't. There's always options, right? There's always options." Depending on your environment, it'll speak to you and tell you like how to think, how to react. And back then, I didn't choose the right environment to be around, and it led me to take someone's life.

I remember a time when I was locked up and I was talking about my situation to someone, and they looked at me and said, "That's not normal." And I thought that was a weird response to me telling them my story. I was like, "What do you mean, that's not normal?" He's like, "You're telling it as if like you had to do it, like it's normal, like it's the normal reaction to something." And it was like, "People just don't walk around with guns. It's not a normal thing to do." Well, and, and it hit me, and I was like, "It's not, it's not the norm." It kind of woke me up in that moment.

But now I'm locked up, and I'm faced with a life sentence for first-degree murder. And I'm sitting in that cell, man. In reality struck as soon as those mechanical doors started moving by themselves, and it's making like a clinging sound, like, and then they go boom, it slams to let you know, but you can't produce open, you can't wiggle your way out of this. You're here. And I was sitting there like, "Wow, I'm here. I'm faced with a decision in my life where I thought I was taking control. Now I don't have no control. No control in my life." I thought that the thing that I was doing with my life was what needed to be done. But now I'm here facing my life, and I have no control.

And I'm sitting there pondering. Prison is so loud. It's so loud in jail. Just imagine 120 people, at least one person talking to somebody. That's 60 conversations going on at one time. It's so chaotic. It's hard to think. It's hard to like, like relax. It's just loud noise all day. So I'm sitting there trying to think, trying to ponder on my life, but it's so much confusion around. I'm sitting on my bunk, and I'm like, "How did I end up in this situation? How did my life get here?" When I simply thought that where I grew up and the things that was happening, this is, this is what I need to do. But now I'm faced with this decision.

And the thing is, you know, you special, or you know, like, like God is singling you out when you're the only one that usually go down for things that other people are seem like they're getting away with. But in that moment, I wasn't thinking like that. I was trying to get out of there. Because in my neighborhood, people find a way out. Thinking back then, the way my mind was, when you locked up for like murder or a violent charge that involves someone losing their life, you know, they say that that's the hardest thing to convict someone of. So my mind was like, "I can get out of this."

And I was sitting on my bunk, just thinking, "How am I going to win in this situation? How am I going to get out of this?" Two things came to mind. I said, "I do not want to spend the rest of my life in prison. That's not an option. I am not going down. That is not the way that I thought my story was going to be. That is not how I thought people were going to talk about me and my name would be passed down through the streets." I was like, "No." And I didn't want to come back out and have to live the same way and potentially have to continue to do those type of things. I wasn't, I didn't want that either. Then I didn't want no one to take my life either.

So I said, "I know how I could win." I'll just take my own life. And I thought about it, and it made sense. It made sense not because I was going through a lot of pain or stress or pressure. It made sense because I still wanted to be in control, to the point where I was willing to take my own life just so I can still stay in control of my destiny. And I was convinced because that's what pride would do. Pride makes you convinced of things that you believe you can control. So I said, "Okay," talking to myself, I'm like, "This is it. I never thought that I'll get to this point, but this is it." I'm like, "Okay." And the type of person I was, if anything came to my mind to do, I never really second-guessed it. And I didn't care what nobody else thought about it. I didn't think about family. I didn't think about writing a note or leaving something behind for no loved one. I had a son at the time who was two. I didn't think about him. I just was like, "This is how I want my story to be." Strange because I look back now and I'm like, "How did I think that winning was taking my life?"

So it was in that moment I said, "I'm just going to plan it." I planned it. I figured out how I can rig myself to keep it unlocked so that I can run out on the top tier. Because in prison, some prisons, anywhere, or most of the majority have two tiers. You have a bottom tier where you have cells around, and in the middle, there's like tables where people eat. And then you have a top tier, it's cells around, right? With nothing in the middle, just a space. Usually, when you come in a prison, you have a solid port where there's a hallway and a door. So it's like the outside of the, the prison, tier that you're on, has an outside door. You come in, then you have to wait inside of a room, and then there's another door that you get buzzed in. So I said, "Okay, it'll take at least a minute or two for the guards to run to this tier, then they have to get buzzed in, then they have to wait for that door to close, and then get buzzed in another door." So I'm like, "I have some time to run out myself, run to the top tier, hang myself, and it'll be at least three, four minutes before they come to get me, if not longer." That's if they even want to come. Because the guard on the tier can't do anything because they have to maintain the tier for the rest of the inmates. They can't just run to one situation, have to call for help. So they literally will have to watch me hanging on the speaker, calling for help, and they might not even want to come.

So I said, "That's how I'm gonna do it. I rigged myself so that way it can stay unlocked." And I remember the day like it was yesterday. Everybody was out for breakfast, and they were moving around, going in the line, going to get their food. And when everybody, uh, went back in their cells, it's time for it to close. But my cell was rigged a certain way so that way it will close but won't lock. And then, when it all of a sudden made his last rounds, I was going to leave out and hang myself. I had everything ready, prepared. I was sitting on my bunk, and I started just contemplating it, seeing it in my head.

Because looking back now, I realized everything that you see, like what you see yourself doing, you're more than likely going to do it. If you see yourself doing it, if you can just, if you walk through it, you'll, and see yourself doing it, it's gonna happen. So I was picturing what it's going to feel like, what it's going to be like, and I was ready. I sat up on my bunk, a couple tears stopped rolling down my eyes. My cell buddy went to sleep. I said, "This is it."

But then immediately, something was inside of me. I started thinking about like people. I started thinking about my son. I started thinking about life. And in that moment, I said, "Man, it has to be another way." This was literally the first time I ever decided to change my mind or something that I wanted to do. But I felt like there was a, something inside was just like, not convinced. I didn't even have nothing on my mind. I just felt inside like, "There has to be another way." I don't even know where that came from at the time, man. But I promise, the moment I said that, I heard the voice of God in my cell said, "Try me."

And it wasn't like spooky or like the movies, or like I had to look up and try to figure out like, "Where's this voice coming from?" No. It went from me saying, "Okay, this is about to happen," to sitting up saying, "Wait, it has to be another way," to hearing God's voice say, "Try me." I knew. I knew that it was God. It's like inside of me, I just knew it. It was a knowing. Like I didn't say, "Who is that?" Right? I was just like, "I know." It was like this voice was so familiar, like I just knew it. And it brought so much freedom and joy to me in that moment. I'm thinking about, I can see it. Like I can see the day, and I can see myself just literally transitioning from crying, it's about to take my life, to hearing God's voice and just immediately feeling loved. And my very next words were, "You want me? You want me?" Said, "You want my life?" And right after that, I said, "You can have it."

I just started talking to like, God, talking to Jesus, like, "You can have it. You can have it. You can have my life. You can have it if you want it. You can have it." And then I started making declarations. I was like, "I live for you. I never turn my back on you. I never turn my back on you. I live for you. I live for you." Like, out of nowhere, I just started saying this. Like he was sitting right there in front of me. I said, "If you want my life, you can have mines. I said, "You didn't turn your back on me, I won't turn my back on you. I'll never leave you." And I said that for probably about maybe 10 minutes straight. I just kept saying the same thing over and over and over. My tears dried up. The feelings of taking my life went away. And I just sat there and just was just praising God.

And next thing you know, it was time to come out in the morning for like early showers. And I ran to the phone and called my mom and told her what just happened. And she was rejoicing and praising God. My life before Jesus, no joy. Cause looking at that moment and the joy I felt knowing that God, like God, like not a religious figure. I'm talking about God. Not a sermon that came back to my, to my God, like he came in to say, "Hell with me," and said, "Try him." Me, a murderer. I'm in prison for murder. You would think that somebody like that deserves to die. You would think that a God's response to someone breaking his law or committing something like that, that he would pass by them and choose someone else that's seemingly more worthy or a better candidate. And I think back and I just say, "I didn't have no questions like, 'Why me?'" At first, those questions came kind of later. But in that moment, I was thinking like, "You're that good? The guy that I went to church to sit there and try to not fall asleep and watch everybody pray and praise you and you know, preach about you, like you're really real and you're actually good?" I was amazed that he would want me. And I felt so loved.

And I realized my life before Christ didn't have true love. It didn't have it because now I know what it is. Yes, you have family who love you, and they, they do their very best. But I'm talking about that no judgment love, that take your place type of love, you know, the love that understands where you are and knows where you are. My life before Christ was full of a lot of anxiety, stress, comparison. I compare myself to people all the time because in the neighborhood that I grew up in, you have status. It's status everywhere. You got people that's popular, you have people that's getting money, you have your athletes, you have status all around you. So comparing yourself, it's easy and simple, like that's what you do. And you try to be better or, you know, hang around people that's doing good. So my life without Christ, I dealt with a lot of comparison, not content with who I was, didn't even know who I was.

But in Christ now, finding him, or him finding me, that day, like knowing where I was and revealing himself to me, it's like, "If God himself accepts me and wants me, like, right now, you want to do life with me? You want me to be yours? Like, right now?" It through comparison out the window because what do I have to compare myself to any anybody now for when God himself says he accepts me? Now, they accept this part. I struggle with that even in Christ. The comparison, I didn't compare myself, but the acceptance, my enemy came at me hard with that. He literally, now I know, I look back, I knew it was him. He literally would plant thoughts to say that, "Yeah, you say, but you still gonna die. Like, your life isn't gonna be anything. Like, you're still gonna die. God just saved you so that way you can just die and go to heaven. Like, you're not gonna live long. You're not gonna have a blessed life. You still have to pay for what you did."

The shame, the guilt, and that condemnation came like a flood immediately after salvation because I started thinking about all the things that I've done. And the thing that had me in prison, so I'm still in prison, and I'm still facing this charge. And now I have Jesus. So I have to face what I did with Jesus. And I struggled. I struggled with believing that his acceptance was like complete. I struggled with believing that all of the emotions of guilt and shame weren't real because it felt real. Those feelings felt like, "God loves you, but you got to still pay." And I lived with that almost my entire time in jail. I thought that God saved me, but he still needed to exact some type of restitution from my life. And I couldn't live free. I couldn't live free in him. I won't be serving God, praising God, loving on God, loving people, being a witness for him, and then going myself and beating myself up, banging myself over the head like with a hammer, like a, like an invisible hammer, just tearing my thoughts up.

I knew his love was real because in my heart, and it's like the same moment that happened, I lived that moment every day. I can feel his presence with me. I knew he was with me. But when it came to my thoughts that I was thinking, it wasn't like correlating. I, it's like I knew, but my thoughts were saying something different. I knew he forgave me, but my mind was telling me that, "No, you have to pay." I knew that he still wanted to use me, but then my thoughts was like, "Only to a certain limit because nobody, like, you can't fully be used." And it literally like tortured me to the point where it even was messing up my physical body. I was under so much shame and guilt that my body started reacting to it. I would wake up with pains in my body out of nowhere. Went to the prison hospital, got X-rays done, they couldn't find anything. It would be so bad that my entire skeleton from like my face to my shoulders, my arms, fingers, legs, knees, chins, toes were in pain. I couldn't even walk around the jail. I couldn't go out to eat sometimes. I had to stay in my bed. I had to get myself, my cellmate, to sneak me back food from the chow hall because I was in too much, too much pain to walk.

And when you injure yourself in prison, that's, that's not a good thing because it's people who prey on them. Like, like people who injure you, got people who are on drugs in jail, you got people who are in gangs, and they look for people that's weak that they can prey on. So if you're injured, they don't care if you're a Christian. They don't care if you're preaching in the church or in the, in the church in the jail, they don't care. Because if they're in a gang or if they're on drugs, they need to even get their fix, pay back somebody, or do what they have to do for their gang, and they're going to choose the easiest target. So if I'm walking around limping and on crutches, then they can easily take advantage of, advantage of it. So I wasn't going out to eat sometimes because I didn't want to be afraid to that my body would be, I would literally have to cry myself to sleep. So much pain, I'm crying out to God, like, "If you saved me, why am I going through this? If you actually do love me like you say you do, why isn't this going away?"

Like I was remembering because I'm reading a word, of course, getting in my Bible, certain things was coming to my mind that I'm asking God about, like when he told Paul, "How many things he'll have to suffer for his name?" So I was like, "Am I suffering for your name? Like, is this what it means to suffer for your name?" God wasn't answering. He was quiet. So here I am, still got this charge. I'm telling people all about Jesus, man. I'm going through this in my body, and God hasn't answering me. I don't hear his voice anymore. Like he spoke before. I'm thinking he left. Because in my mind, I computed, if something's happening to you, then I mean, God has done it, and he's not there. Like, if it's not being fixed, then he's not there. Like, I computed, if something's bad happened or something wrong is happening, then God is off doing something else, and he allows it to happen, and he don't want no parts of it. That's what I thought. Because I still didn't have any enough experience with him, like he was teaching me at the time.

So I was complaining. I was complaining to God, crying, fussing. I probably called him some names. I was still growing them up. I probably said some things to God that, and I can't remember one time where he spoke back. It's quiet. I wasn't used to that. I was used to him, "Good morning, how you doing?" and talking to me, and we talking about, I'm reading the word, and he's speaking, revealing to me. To now I'm going through this, I don't hear nothing. I do realize something that was happening, though, without him speaking. I realized that I was still able to have faith. Cause I was looking back, and I was even questioning myself one time, man, this is, it's like I'm reliving it, right? I can, I can feel the emotion of it. I was asking myself, "Why are you even, why haven't you stopped?" I was asking myself that. Like, "If you're upset with God, and God is seemingly like, has left, he saved you and he gone, he saved you and you know he's on to the next person to save, why haven't you stopped going so hard for him?" I was asking myself that. "Why are you still fasting and praying and worshiping God and preaching and ministering and leading people to Christ? Why you still going so hard?"

And I realized that in those moments where he wasn't speaking, it was like strangely taking me deeper in love with him. Because I realized that in those moments when I hear his voice, it's, it's fun, it's exciting, it brings joy. But then at times when he wasn't speaking, I was really seeing what I was made of in him. If I'm really doing this for him, and I was able to know that I'm doing it for him, and it wasn't just a moment that happened and I'm just super excited and living on this euphoria and it's high, because right now I'm going through it. And even till this day, I still have those same complications in my body. The pain of it is in there, but I still have it in my body. It's gotten better since then, but it's still there.

And fast forward, when it was time to face the judge for my charge, I remember being in a behind the courtroom, in a bullpen, right? They call it a bullpen because it's like, that's not the actual name of it, but think about it, bulls, like they're in this pen, and they're all in there together, right? And it's like they're all waiting to be released. So they call it a bullpen because it's a bunch of animals, right? And, and people that so-called vicious in one space, we're gonna be released. So I was in the bullpen, and I was like, "God, whatever, whatever's gonna happen today, I just give you the rights to do it." I didn't want to lie about what happened. I was at the point in my walk where I wasn't gonna lie. I wasn't gonna make up some story and say self-defense, you know, a whole bunch of stuff. I told God that, "Whatever I have to say, I'm just going to tell the truth. And whatever your decision is, God, I'm, I'm good with that."

And I got sentenced to 20 years. To come out of the courtroom, I say my little spill with the judge because they ask you, you know, "Do you have anything to say?" After they sentence you, I said my spill. I go back to the, to the jail. There was a pastor that was incarcerated. I know, right? Pastor being incarcerated. And when he saw me come back, he knew I went to court. When he saw me come back, he asked me, he was like, "How much time did you get? How much?" Because everybody at that time knew me for serving the Lord, right? They knew me for praising God. They knew me for being a witness for Jesus, even around the whole entire jail. So this pastor, he was on a whole another tear, and he knew of me. So he said, "What happened?" And I told him, I said, "I took 20 years. I took a plea deal. That's what I feel like God had told me to do." And he was like, "You sure?" And I'm like, "Yeah." I said, "Because I was talking to my lawyer on the phone, and he asked me like, did I want to take this plea deal or go to trial?" At first, I told him I wanted to go to trial because I said, "I've been preaching and teaching the gospel to people for all these months now. It's time for me to show the faith, to show that I believe God." And for me doing that was going to trial. But for some strange reason, my lawyer, he wasn't feeling that decision. He said, "Man, you can't go to trial. You can't go to trial." And I'm like, "What's going on? Why are you saying that?" He was like, "Please, you just cannot. You need to take this plea deal. You cannot go to trial."

Now, it was weird because lawyers, they don't get involved like that. They don't give their opinion, their personal opinion. So with that, he's putting himself on the line for giving a personal opinion. But it was, I guess it was something in him trying to convince me. I don't know if God was using him or not at the time. He wasn't a Christian. But what he said to me, he was like, "Man, you've been such a witness to my life. He said, "I don't even pay nobody no attention when they tell me they gave their life to God, they're living for God, they're reading their Bible." He said, "I don't pay no man." He said, "Because you can, you can imagine how many people I I serve who say that." He said, "But it's something different about you." And in my heart, right now, I feel led to tell you that. So I was like, "I don't know."

So I have my mom on the phone, and I said, "Mom, what you think?" She said, "Whatever you feel like God is telling you, son, I stand by you." And she told the lawyer that. The lawyer went so far to say, "Call his dad." And I'm like, "Wait, something is happening on his phone. This lawyer is risking everything to convince me." Like, and I, and I felt like it didn't have to do with money. It didn't have to do with anything. I just felt like, "Something is up. I need to be paying attention to what he's saying." But I just said, "I'm sorry, but I'm going to trial, man. I'm trusting God. Whatever God want to do, he gonna do it this way." I hang the phone up. I run it myself. I lay down on the floor, and I started crying. The moment I closed my eyes, I saw a picture of a ram. When I closed my eyes, and I knew exactly what that meant from like reading a word, because that's what happened in the Bible. God used the ram so that Abraham wouldn't have to kill his son, because it's a picture of Jesus being a substitute. And he told Abraham, he said, "Now I know you trust me." And those words ring in my head, "Now I know you trust me."

So I said, I ran back to the phone so fast. I was like, I was like, "Mom, call Eloy back. I know what God want me to do, exactly." And she's like, "Are you okay? Are you okay?" I'm like, "Yes, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. But call him back now." She called him back. No answer. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, call him. Call him again." No answer. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, call Mom. Please call back. Try again. Try again." Call back. He answered. He was like, "Mr. Duncan?" I was like, "Yes, yes, yes." He's like, "Man, I'm walking on office right now." I'm like, "Listen, I know exactly what I want to do. I heard from God. I said, I'm not going to trial. I'm taking a plea deal to 20 years." He's like, "Are you sure?" I was like, "Yes, I'm positive. I heard God." So he was like, "Okay, praise God." So then, boom. He was so happy.

So I told the pastor that asked me, right, why I took the plea deal, and I was, and that's that's why. So he was like, "Oh, man. He was like, 'No, man, not you. You can't do 20 years, man. Not you.'" And in my mind, I'm like, "I ain't nobody special, man. You know, I'm like, whatever God got, that's what he got." So he walked out the room, and they had this glass, right, that you can see outside of the room. And he leaned up against the glass, and he came right back in, in like seconds, probably like five seconds, came right back in, and said, "The Lord just told me to tell you, you only gonna do 10 years." And I smiled, and I said, "Praise God." Because you don't want to just, you know, deny people and stuff. So I said, "Praise God. I received that. Praise God. Thank you, man. Thank you."

So I went back, and like I said, it's the 20 years. The day comes when I have to go and where I'm going to spend my time. And there's a lady walking with me. She has my paperwork in her hand. And she looks at me, and she looks at the paperwork, she looks at me, and she looks at the paperwork with this strange face. She shook her head and sucked her teeth, smacked her teeth. She said, "Y'all kids just don't respect life." And I just didn't say anything. Just kept walking. Thought it was kind of rude for her to just blurt out. But I mean, I know my charge. I know what I was, you know, guilty of. So I just took it. And then she say, "Why you don't have a lot of time if you took somebody's life? What you told on somebody? Did you snitch?" Like, she was really rude. And I looked at her and said, "What do you mean, a lot of time? I said, 20 years is a lot of time." She said, "You don't have 20 years. She said, "You don't know how much time you got." I'm like, "Yeah, 20 years." And she said, "I can't show you, but I don't say that on here." And I said, "You're gonna have to show me if something else say, if you say something else on that paper."

So she took the paper because it has everybody that has their name and their charge and all of that stuff on it. She took the paper. My name was like maybe like this far from the sheet. She folded it this way. Then she took the bottom half and folded it this way so it could just show my name. It said my charge, first-degree murder, and then in the last right-hand corner, it said, "One zero y r s." I was like, "Hmm." Kept it to myself.

I leave that cell. I go to, um, because that was the processing center. I leave the processing center. I go to where I'm actually going to do my time. And I see my case manager. My case manager was a Christian too. It was finally a blessing to talk to somebody in the system that's a believer. So we were fellowshipping in God. And she's at the computer. She's saying, "Okay, I have to send you somewhere because you have a charge like a violent charge and a murder." She said, "I want to send you to a maximum security, like a super max." She said, "But you don't have a lot of time." So she'd look around the computer. And I look at her around the computer. I'm like, "What are you, what do you see?" And she said, "Well, you have a murder charge, but you only have 10 years."

So it's setting on her paper back at the other jail. And it says it in her system here. I say, "How farther your computer go back?" She said, "Well, it's backdated, you know, to the, the day you got sent." And I'm like, "It's 10 years." She said, "Yeah." I have my papers from the actual day because when you get sentenced in any courtroom, you have to sign the paper in the building that day, at in front of the judge, that you receive your sentence, that you agree to it. You have to sign it yourself right there. I have my papers on me, and I showed her. And she said, "Well, there's nothing I can do." I said, "So you can't go in and change nothing?" She's like, "No, that's illegal." I'm literally trying to get her to like do something because in my mind, I'm like, "If this is a mistake, I don't want to be living in this false hope. So I would rather face the reality, right, than to live in this false hope." So I'm like, "Do something." She was like, "Maybe your printout is a typo." She said, "Because in a system, what's here is what was typed in the system that day." But I'm like, "But it printed out this. So this was typed out." And we just started praising God. We just left it alone. We just started praising God.

Now, um, she sent me to a prison. I went to a medium maximum security instead of a super max. A medium maximum security is people who have violent charges but not that much time. So I went there. And now I'm seeing my personal case manager. So I'm like, "All right, if this state is in her system, Lord, man." So I go see her. No, it was a guy. I go see him. And it's the same thing. So I'm pondering on it. I'm like, "The man said the preacher said, God told me to tell you, you only gonna do 10 years." So now I have this sentence that, um, that's calculated from the system that says to tell your sentence when I know that I got 20 years. I couldn't even enjoy the blessing though. Because again, here's the guilt, the shame, the condemnation. It's stirring back up. God blessing me again, and I'm thinking about what I did. He's showing that he's good, still. And all I can think about is, "I don't deserve it. And this is gonna catch up to me." I'm not thinking that God is being faithful to his word. I'm not thinking that he's showing the love that he promised to show me. I'm not thinking that all of the things that God is doing through my life, that he's rewarded me. I'm not thinking about none of that. I'm thinking about, "This can't last because somebody like me don't deserve this. You don't deserve to be blessed in this manner. You have to still pay for what you've done."

I lived in fear of it catching back up to me. Anytime they called my name for like mail, I thought they was bringing me back to court to say, "Hey, we need to change something. We made a mistake." So when I got sent into 20 years, my lawyer told me that he was gonna bring me back in about six years, seven years to retry my case, to see if I can get time off my sins. I live with the fear of that. If my lawyer was to call me, then they'll realize that my sentence is, is not 20 years, it's only 10 years. And they may feel some type of way and say, "Oh, no, we're not giving him any time off his sentence." And then the thing that I fear came upon me. Ain't that what Job said? One day, I'm in Bible study. I get my name called, right? "Legal mail." Uh, I go to legal mail. Sure enough, it's a letter from my lawyer. I already knew what it was. I opened it up. It said, it said, "Congratulations. Your reconsideration has been approved. You will come back before the judge to reconsider your sentence." It was three days away. I was like, "And now I'm back living in this fear, this anxiety, this shame, this guilt, this condemnation." I can't even accept what God freely has for me. I'm thinking that God has caused them to catch it. I'm not seeing God for who he is.

I go to court. My lawyer, I'm in the bullpen. My lawyer comes and says, "How much time would you like to ask the judge back for?" I said, "I don't know. What are you thinking?" He says, "Well, what's your release date?" Right? Now, I ain't want to tell them. I mean, I could have told him. I said, "Lord, I don't want to lie." So I'm a star. I stalled. I said, "Um, in your paperwork, do you, do you have my papers in your file?" I was stalling, I promise. That's literally what I was saying. And he said, "You know what? It don't matter. It don't matter." And I was like, "I didn't have to lie. Thank you, Lord." He parted his lips and said, "I feel like we should ask for 10 years. How you feel about that?" And when he said that, light went off again. I said, "This has to be God." I said, "Because they already, it was 10 years already basically disappeared out of the system. And I already have paperwork that says my release date is upon a 10-year sentence. So if they was to go inside of the courtroom and take away 10 years off the 20 that they sentenced me to, when it print out, it's going to be the same printout that I already have. There's not going to be anything that changed for me. I was already doing the 10 years since."

So I said, "Let's do that." I immediately was happy. We, I stormed in that courtroom with so much confidence in God. And I felt all that love again. I felt the fact that he cared again. It wasn't that he didn't. I just had to understand in this moment that God isn't against me, he's for me. The things that I'm thinking, my past, that I'm, that it's hard for me to get over, that's not God reminding me of that stuff. And God isn't holding back things or being quiet to me because he's causing me to.

Pay for something that I did. I just have to grow in God in certain ways that God knows that's gonna force you to grow. So, in that moment, I was happy. I went in there, I still before that judge, and he said, "I remember you." And that was shocking. I said, "How?" He said, "Because when I asked people what do they have to say when I sentenced them, some people cursed me. He said, some people don't say. They say, some people just pass out because they get a lot of time. He says, and you had got a lot of time, 20 years. He says, but what you said to me stuck with me." Now, I don't even remember what I said. He said, but it stuck to him. He said, he never forgot it. So, he was like, "Talk to me about why you're here today." I told him why we was here. My lawyer came in and spoke. He asked my lawyer, "How much time were we thinking about reconsidering?" My lawyer said, "10 years." The judge looked at me, smiled, and said, "You got it." Just like it was that fast. He was like, "You got it. He said, I believe in you." I said, "Wow." And that was it. I walked up to the thing, to the to the bench, I signed the new papers, and they said that I have now a 10-year sentence because of reconsideration.

Reconsideration is a term where once you get sentenced by court, they have options later on down the road that you can appeal for and have a reconsideration of your time that you were sentenced to. Meaning, whether you were doing things good in jail, or whether they feel you are rehabilitated and your life has changed and you're a better person. The judge allows you to come and present to him why he should reconsider the time he gave you, and they can give you a new time. Right? And the powerful thing about that is, it's like a rule of thumb. It's not a rule, but it's like a rule of thumb. It's an unspoken rule on a reconsideration. You don't ask for more time than what you already have. And usually, how much time you have, they bring you back right before the halfway mark. So, I had 20 years, and 10 years would be half. So, I went, and I had six years at that time. So, you don't ask for anything more than six years because he's like, "Why would you want more time off your sentence than you did on your sins?" So, to ask for 10 years would be like, so you're trying to come off your sentence, and it looks like to the judge that you don't want to do the time for your crime, like you just went off. So, to ask for 10 years, then I only had six, would be like rude to ask. You even asked for six or less. But I just knew it was God. God did it in a way where it just had to be him all the way around the board.

And then what I didn't know at the time was the judge said it in front of me in the courtroom. He said, "And he said, I don't know if you know, Mr. Duggar, but I have a letter in front of me from the prosecutor." At that moment, I'm like, "Oh man, what is about to happen now?" He said, "I'ma read it to you." It was short, but basically, this is what it said. The prosecutor wrote my lawyer and the judge without me knowing after I got sentenced to the 20 years, six years ago. He said, "Please accept this letter as a recommendation on behalf of Raynard Duggar that when he comes for his reconsideration, that you will reconsider his time." The prosecutor, the one who was just calling me a murderer, saying I was a menace to the community and wanting me to get the highest amount of time on my sins. On a day that I got sentenced, he wrote a letter to the judge to say, "I believe in the change in this man's life." The prosecutor. And I was like, "I was floored. God is so amazing." Now, here it is. I'm doing this time, and God reconsidered the time. God did. Man didn't. Even though I had to go back to court and make it like official, it was already written in heaven, and God made it official before it even happened in the natural. God did it. And because of the 10-year sentence, and I had six years in already, because of all the good time I had, I was eligible to come home eight months later. When I came home, six years and eight months on a 20-year sentence by the grace of God. All God. No good time, no parole. I actually got denied parole. But coming home, I realized I was like, "It's time to run for Jesus out here." Malinka with people, lingo with church, and we're gonna be gonna fire for God because in prison, to my fire, man. The reason that God had his name spreading throughout the jail, using my life, is because of the fire of God that was in that place. Miracles. Officers would come on their lunch breaks just to see if we were having Bible study at the time, and we wanted to stand by and listen, wanted to see if we were praising God on a tier, and wanted to come and listen. Fire. People don't play about God in prison because that's really all you got. So, I'm like, "Man, I'm gonna come out here, connect with people, and be on fire, man." I couldn't wait.

But then it shocked me. It was hard to find the fire out here. I mean, people love God, and you see people going to church, but I remember I went to church, and the church was on fire. But then after church, everybody's back to their normal life, and it's like they're waiting for Sonny to come again. And I'm used to having three services a day on a tier every day. I was managed. God had me ministering three times a day, every single day for years straight. I mean, I know we had the time to do it, but I'm used to people being willing and ready to just go for Jesus all day, every day. And I had an awakening. But I also had to stop and think that, "Okay, Ray, you were in this situation where you had time." And now I realize that it's not that maybe people are not on fire for God, but life is smothering their fire because they're busy. And even in my own life, I started to see. I got a job, I got married, praise God, had a child, and now I'm busy. And it's like the habits, the things that I was doing for God, it didn't do window, but it like, it wasn't as much. It slowed down. My prayers went from 5 a.m. to like 7:30 because I'm not getting up as early because I gotta go to work. And it started to frustrate me spiritually because I can remember, and I have this, I still have this desire and this hunger, but life is now happening. So, now I'm trying to figure out, how do I keep this fire burning while life is happening? How do I keep going hard for God when I have other decisions to make? And then now I have to choose between God and the rest of my life. It was tough. I went through a season where I feel like I was like trying to spark. I didn't have a flame. It's like, it's like this, trying to spark me and God. I'm hitting, we hitting. I still feel his presence. We hitting, but it's just a spark. And I had to figure out a way to stay on fire.

I know one thing, I never wanted my testimony to be. And I know some people may have this, and praise God, but for me personally, like before, when before I was in Christ, I never wanted my testimony to be a certain way. And in Christ, I didn't want my testimony to be that I'm not on fire for God anymore. That it was a jailhouse religion. That's what they call it. They say I have family members say it to my face, "Yeah, let's see how how hard you go for God now." I have friends that looked at me like, "It's only a matter of time before he be back out here." And it was those things that motivated me to say, "Nah, God is too real for what they saying." It's not even about me. I had to realize, yes, God gives us life. We have life to live. And behind those walls, we have life. We have jobs behind that. You have school. You have real school, like college. You can go to college, like real colleges. You can sign up. If they accept you, then you're in college. You have family that you still take care of because most people that get locked up, they still have to provide for their family from behind the wall. They have to work a job and send the money home because the family needed. But out here, it's more so. I had to learn that it's not about me. Like, I didn't start this fire. Tried to tell myself, "Don't get back into that space of shaming yourself, feeling guilty and condemned. Don't do that." I never wanted to do that again. Once God freed me from that, I was determined to never enter that space again. In my mind, I'm gonna believe God for who he say he is in my life. And it literally has nothing to do with me. He chose me. He started the fire. It's like I'm the match. Faith was the master board, and he ignited the flame because if he don't present the flame, it's you just gonna keep striking. He's the flame. And now I'm on fire for God. So, I had to realize my fire wasn't based off the things I was doing and how much time I was spending. It was because he was the flame that was joining me in those times. So, I say, "Oh, my life is ministry. My life is God." Okay? So, when I'm driving, when I'm on a train, if I'm on a bus, when I'm at work, sitting at the computer, in a grocery store, I just involve God. I don't feel like I'm robbing God of time because I'm doing something else. I just involve him in it. You're in it. And when he's in it, the flame can hit it. You know? I said, "Thank You, Lord. I got it. I got it." So, I stopped thinking that I had to perform. I stopped thinking that I had to show God that I can put all of this effort in, right, and please him.

I went right back to the beginning. Sitting on my bump. "There has to be another way." I didn't say, "There has to be Jesus out there." I didn't say, "God, if you're out there." I simply said, "It has to be another way." And then he said, "Try me." Because he said he is the way. So, I went back to that. I said, "Okay, God, you're the way. You lead the way. Just keep your fire on it." He's been faithful to do it. Have I had difficult times? Of course. There's been times when jobs turned me down. I mean, I'm fasting for jobs, things that I thought was so ideal for my family. I'm fasting, praying. They look at my thing and say, "Sorry, we don't hire felons." And I'm like, "God, I'm fasting. I fasted. I prayed. I saw you. I turned down good food." Times was rough. I actually got hired at Walmart, and I was working for about four days. They were still processing my paperwork, and then when my paperwork processed, they fired me because it came back that I was offended. But they already hired me. I could have looked at God and was like, "Here we go again. God, you're troubling me again. You want me to pay for something again? God, what did I do now?" I said, "Nah, you know what? God said, 'Try me.' He's the way." So, I said, "You know what? That's right. God, you're the way. If this isn't, if this didn't come through, I'm not going to just try to encourage myself by saying, 'Oh, God must have something better in store.'" Right? No. I face reality. It didn't come to pass. I said, "Because I'm your son." I said, "Yeah, you may have something better, but it's the fact. It's just a simple fact that it didn't come through because you didn't want it to." I don't know what you have in store for me, but it's not that. Because God, my ways, I'm letting you control it. And because I gave it to you, that's just what it is. And if there's a better way, praise God. And if it's something else that's not quote unquote better, because to be honest, Walmart could have been better than some another opportunity. But just because a different opportunity looks different than what you think is the better opportunity, I would rather have the one that God says I'm supposed to have because with him in it, that's what makes it better. So, I was fine.

I had to walk to work plenty of times for an hour, walking in the snow. One time, the sole of my shoe came off. I'm watching people driving past, just feeling like, man, I'm in, I'm close to my neighborhood too. So, I'm thinking somebody gonna see me, recognize me, man, look at him walking in the snow. That was kind of embarrassing. But again, stood up straight and said, "God, you control my ways." I walked to work for my, I would say about four or five months straight in the snow, in the cold, in the rain. One day it was raining so bad, I had to call my parents to bring me a change of clothes. When I got to work, sometimes you still may go through when you're serving the Lord, but I understood that I'm not going back. I remember my vow that I made to him. I said, "I ain't never leaving you." And I meant that. Because if God would be God to me and save me the way that he did, let me go, where can I go? And now living for the Lord, I've been home six years now. I believe I've been home more time that I've been locked up now. So, now that time is actually like it erased itself. Now I can look back and say, I served my time. I've been home for more days than I was in, and God has continued to be faithful. I realize that when you're called by God, and when he calls you, it don't matter what nobody gotta say. It's his voice that matters. Sometimes I still think back and say, "Somebody lost their life so I could be saved." I don't get that, but it's not really for me to get because it's I'm here, and it happened. I accept it. I pray for everyone that I've ever crossed paths with. I pray, but I know God called. Why he fully called me, it's still unfolding, but I know he hasn't forsaken me. Still using me, and I can say that I'm blessed.

I struggled a lot with calling myself blessed because I didn't feel blessed. I felt like a murderer, to be honest though. I know he saved me. I still felt like a criminal. I still felt like a murderer because though his presence was real, what I did also felt real. And I was still like, living with this question that'll go unanswered about why. But one question I did get answered was when I said, "There has to be another way." It was him. It was Jesus. When he said, "Try me." I literally do that every day, man. For the past six years, I just been trying him. I just been trying him. And I don't let the good times make me forget that every day he wants me to try him because there's something new every day that he wants to show me about. So, I don't let the good days make me feel like I've arrived. I rejoice. I'm glad, but I make sure that I continue to seek Him diligently and try him. "What do you have today?" And I don't let the discouraging, I don't let the bad days discourage me anymore, make me feel like he's left me because he's still saying, "Try me." In that too, as well. So, my life before Jesus, it's nothing like it is now. His presence has been everything for me. And I realized that once he came into my life, my identity changed. I had to really accept that people would try to remind me who I was, but I had to realize that when you become a new creature in Jesus, that's for real. And that's how I live my life. I live my life off of that truth, off those two words. Every day I live by, I stand on two words. Left foot on "try," right foot on "me," and I stand on that. And I'm grateful.

Now, Raynard, did you get a chance to share a moment with the family of of the the person who lost their life? That has been a desire of mine. But the answer is no. If the family's watching right now, if friends maybe that knew this person, this life, if they're watching right now, what can you tell them? Um, watching right now, I will say, I know you may want to turn this off. You probably still watched it because God has you still watch it. I would say that God, don't be angry at God. Don't be angry with him. God has plans that's above ours. And I know seeing me having to look at me, someone who's responsible for taking someone's life that you love, it's the last thing that you thought you would even be faced with. And I'm not going to sit here and try to make you feel better or try to appease any anger you may have. You have a right to be angry. You have a right to be upset. And Ray, I want to say this, my apologies is not enough. I do regret that decision. I had no hate in my heart. No animosity. There was nothing in me that wanted him to die in particular. It was a moment that happened. And if it brings any type of comfort, any answer, comfort, I would say that I have the deepest regret and wish that it never had happened. But I do also believe that God had a plan even in that situation. And if you can just not turn and hear it for another second, because when I say that, it's hard for me to understand how I got saved that someone lost their life. As I said it, I was immediately reminded that that is the story of salvation, that Christ died for us to be saved. And I know it may be difficult to hear from me, but truth, no matter who it comes from, is still true. His passing can be salvation for many. God has worked and is still willing to work through his life, through his life with minds connected to it. Yes, there was trauma at the source of it, but God has changed the trauma into testimony that his life and the story of God's salvation through what happened can lead many people to Christ. Not only that, but just know my prayer has always been that in his absence, God will be present for your family. And I believe with my heart of hearts that it has, and that it will continue. That salvation has come to your house, and that the presence of the Lord will rest with you, be with you, and that your house will be saved. So that when you think about your loved one, the joy of salvation is coupled with it. I pray you can receive that.

Reynard, who is Jesus to you? Jesus, my buddy. Okay, need my bunk buddy. Your bunk buddy is somebody who you like immediately have to trust because it's you too. All right? You might not know him from a kind of paint, but now you live together. So, it's like, when I met him, I know nothing about it, but I'm like, you're here now. We living this life together. You my bunk buddy. We sharing everything together. Be looking out for each other. And yeah, he lives with me, and I live with him. Small bunk buddy.

Aren't any last words for people who are watching your testimony right now? I would say, try him. If those words work for me, I know they'll transcend and work for you. And what it looks like to try him is simply allowing him to be who he said he gonna be. Listen, circumstances, situations, we all have stuff. But one thing about God, one thing about Jesus, he's the answer. When I said, "There has to be another way," if you're thinking about another way, it's Jesus. He's that way. If you need out of something, if you're trying to get into something, if you need whatever's happening in your life to go right, to be fixed, if you need salvation, listen, he's the only way. And it's proof in that because he'll prove himself. Skill my chance to do it. You'll see.