I grew up on the east side of Detroit in a single-parent home. I knew my dad’s name, but I had never met him — or even seen a picture of him. He was always a big question mark in my life, which left me feeling rejected, abandoned and angry.

As I entered my teenage years, this turmoil led to rebellion. My mom wasn’t a religious woman, but she did her best to protect me and instill a sense of right and wrong. Still, she couldn’t keep me out of trouble.

I wanted acceptance, and I was willing to do anything to have it. I sought to fill the void in my life with gangs, girls, pornography, drugs and alcohol.

I was also heavily influenced by hip-hop culture and began writing rap songs as a way of coping with my growing sense of despair.

After high school, I got a job working as a security guard. The paycheck enabled me to move out of my mom’s house and get an apartment. I saw this as the opportunity to step into what I thought was true manhood.

I was ready to live life my way, without answering to anyone, but God had other plans. One of the supervisors at my new job was also a rapper. Soon after we met, we had a short conversation about music, which led to him telling me about Jesus.

Never could I have imagined a conversation about hip-hop and Jesus in a security office would change the entire trajectory of my life. Nevertheless, we became friends, and I started attending church with him. As I heard the gospel, I felt the weight of my sin. For the first time in my life, I realized I needed a Savior.

About a month after that initial conversation, I gave my heart to Christ during a New Year’s Eve service. A few weeks later, I was baptized. This was my new beginning.

Right away, I could sense that God was working in my heart. I started looking at manhood in a completely different way. I no longer saw women as a means to pleasure, but as image-bearers of God who should be honored and respected.

I was ready to live life my way, without answering to anyone, but God had other plans.

A year and a half after becoming a Christian, I married my wife, Paullette. We now have two boys, Nehemiah and Malachi. God blessed me with the very thing I didn’t have growing up: a traditional Christian family. I have the opportunity to give my amazing boys the fatherly love I desperately wanted.

I finally met my biological father a few years ago. We never developed a close relationship, but I was able to forgive him, gain closure, and move forward. I knew that if God could forgive me of my sins and mistakes, I needed to forgive my father. I even wrote a song about it, called “Broken Narrative.” I wanted to share my story to help others who may be going through a similar situation.

In 2020, amid the pandemic and racial tensions, I felt burdened to do more to help bring about change in my community. I believe God is calling the Church to reconciliation — in our families, in our neighborhoods, and across dividing lines of race and ethnicity — and I want to be a part of that. As an Assemblies of God credentialed minister and an African American with a mixed-race wife and kids, it’s personal for me.

I am sharing my story not only through music, but also in middle school and high school auditoriums and gymnasiums across the state of Michigan with Youth Alive. Many of the kids I meet are growing up without a father in their lives.

According to a 2018 report from Pew Research Center, 21% of children live in a household like the one I grew up in, with a mother as the only parent. In the Black community, the share is an astonishing 47%.

Michigan Youth Alive is addressing racial tension and fatherlessness by partnering with Brian Pruitt and his organization, Power of Dad (POD). POD teaches fatherless teens life skills through mentoring relationships.

We’ve seen teens with anger problems and destructive habits become healthy, well-adjusted young people. Many are now attending college, working, and starting families of their own. More importantly, many are living for Christ and learning what it means to serve the God who is a “father to the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5).

I’m a millennial, and I believe it is crucial for the next generation — Generation Z — to encounter Jesus and experience the healing only He can offer.

This will only happen as the Church reaches out to the fatherless and the brokenhearted to show them the love of Jesus. They need to hear a message of hope and compassion. And many need help facing and overcoming challenging issues.

This article appears in the April–June 2021 edition of Influence magazine.