TESTIMONY OF JOHN MARTIN, K-53887

It is a beautiful, summer afternoon in August of 2020 as I write this. We are in our fifth month of a quarantine/lockdown due to the coronavirus, and I find that I have no better time than right now to introduce myself, my mission and my purpose to you.

 

My name is John Martin, and I am a grateful believer of Jesus Christ who struggles with addiction, depression, anger and the demons of sexual abuse from my childhood. I have been incarcerated for murder over 27 years. I am serving a life sentence for murder, plus two 30 year terms (ran consecutively to the life sentence) for armed robbery and home invasion. I am 100% responsible for the crimes that have me in prison.

 

God still blesses me, even deep into my sentence. He left me alive for a purpose. So, in 2017 I created SolafideJAM, with the hope of it being needed by both people inside and outside of prison. I did not want to wait until I was free to begin to fulfill my purpose – that day may never come for me. I am guilty of the crimes that have me here, and was lucky not to be given the death penalty. So the fact that I am even still here is a miracle in more ways than one. So, right now is the moment, today is the day.

 

I have given my testimony many times… at church, at Celebrate Recovery®… at secular substance abuse programs. I notice that the deeper I get into Christianity and recovery, the easier it becomes to open up and share. Layers of the past become easier to peel off, and you evolve into a stronger person. Things I was too embarrassed or ashamed to talk about 4 years ago, I can now share with people who need to hear it. I can give it all to you now because it was all part of the insanity that was my life before Christ and recovery. Maybe some of what I have through you can relate to.

 

When I tell my story, I always issue my warning…unless you are a Christian trying to witness to Muslims, or a Muslim seeking the courage to leave Islam, you will not like anything I have to say. I am here to help people break chains, like God gave me the strength to do both literally and figuratively speaking. I believe whole-heartedly in the Word of God. I pay close attention to the words in red – the Words of our Lord Jesus Christ, especially when he speaks on forgiveness and love. However, I believe that as Christians, we can become too politically correct. We can sometimes, in trying to be nice, bite our tongues when it comes to expressing “pure truths”. We become afraid of offending “this person” or “that group”. We become timid when it comes to standing up for our core beliefs… whether it is to avoid conflict or disagreement – we hold back with people that do not share our Christian values and ethics. In that fear, we become reluctant to offer up no-nonsense response to come of the lunacy we see and hear on a daily basis and as a result of that it becomes easier and easier to accept things that directly contradict our core Christian values and ethics.

 

So, I am here today to put all of my cards on the table, uncensored and raw.

 

So, I come to you as a recovering addict and ex-Muslim, which I was for over one-third of my life, and it gives me the absolute right to speak openly about both topics. I accepted the Lord in September of 2014, and I did not do it to become an example. At the time the Holy Spirit snatched me up, I was the Imam, and the face of Islam in the Illinois Department of Correction’s Maximum Security Unit at Pontiac from 1999 until September 14, 2014.

 

I was born at South Chicago Hospital in 1969 to a teenaged Cuban mother who was hooked on heroin.  She abandoned me after I was born. My father was an 18 year old black kid who snuck off to Vietnam to avoid prison and never returned home. I never met either one of them. All I ever knew about them is what was discovered by my death penalty mitigation investigators when they were in search of any mitigating factors to present to my judge to keep me off death row. It is terrifying how I still wound up with their traits and mannerisms. What is even scarier is that my biological daughter, who just turned 27 years old, and just reached out to me last month for the first time since 1995 has just been released from prison herself. It is like she was living the life I left behind when I found Christ.  She has learned like I had to: the only thing that can break a generational curse is the Blood of Jesus Christ. My daughter is now a Christian and my friend, and I talk to her on a regular basis. Praise God.

 

These days, I like to brag about my late adoptive mother, Vivian Martin, who died in 2012 at the age of 93. She adopted me when I was two, and she was fifty-two. She was a single, black woman who struggled to raise me in what was then an almost all white suburb in Park Forest, Illinois. She turned out to be one of the finest Christians I knew, my only true musical influence, and in the end, my friend. She was also one of the most profoundly troubled and complex people I ever knew. After serving in World War Two, she went on to get degrees in music and mathematics at Princeton and Columbia University. She taught music and Latin at Evanston High School and O.W. Huth Junior High. She retired from Governor’s State University in 1989 at the age of 70, right when I turned 20 and was beginning to take my final nosedive into addiction and insanity.

 

I share all of this with you so you can see that I wanted for nothing financially or materially. Not only was the blood curse of violence and addition in my DNA at birth, my adoptive mother was beaten and sexually abused by her father, and she struggled her entire life between being a good Christian mom vs. her struggles with homosexuality, sex abuse, and alcoholism. This caused her to lash out at me, causing her to physically and sexually abuse me until she nearly lost custody of me in 1979. She hated parts of herself so much, and felt so guilty about who she was and how I was turning out, that by the time I was a young teenager, she would only leave her bedroom to go to work or church. She was too ashamed, set in her ways, and too old fashioned to have benefitted from a program like Celebrate Recovery.  So, instead she became a hermit and closed herself in her bedroom until she had to be put in a nursing home when she was 84 years old.

 

Early on, I was inexplicably combative and over-the-top violent. But anyone who grows up with an educator as a parent know that school is never out. I hated summer breaks because my mom was home all the time. So while other kids were playing outside, my mom was creating lessons for me, giving me homework, and enforcing piano lessons, which at the time, I hated. All she watched on TV was 60 minutes, Masterpiece Theatre and the Cubs. I tell you this, because my exposure to adults and adult situations taught me how to relate to them more effectively than the typical 8 year old boy. It made me a better liar, a better schemer, and very manipulative. I knew how to cater to the large egos of those people who had knowledge or power. I was forging checks at 9, and committing credit card fraud at 10. I was always savagely beaten when I was caught, but I did not care. Beatings were normal.

 

I hated church, because for a while my mom was also a choir director. So every Wednesday and Sunday, I would have to listen to her argue with people. She was replaced when rumors of her affair with a female co-worker came out. Naturally, I became her one and only choir member, performing with her at church on special occasions whenever she wanted to outshine the choir that did not want her.

 

She put me in an all white Christian school. It was so strict, many of the families of the other children that went there would not even allow a television into their homes. This school made me hate religion because they made Jesus Christ a source of fear, and a reason to get hit. Disobeying His example would get you beaten by the fanatical teachers. When I got beaten at school, I would have to take a form home to have signed and returned by mom, notifying her that I disobeyed and had to be paddled. This resulted in horrific beatings at home that would regularly devolve into her needing to be sexually gratified by me in some way, shape or form, often cloaked as a way to make up for what I did to get in trouble at school.

 

I was expelled from the Christian school after it was discovered that I had forged over 30 corporal punishment notification forms. I was beaten so severely by my mom that I required medical attention. My mother realized doctors had alerted authorities about the full extent of the abuse going on in my home. My mother was successful in convincing the right people I was making it all up, and I was put in Glenwood School for Boys. In 1979 it was a military/reformatory style boarding school for troubled children from broken homes. I was ten years old.

 

At Glenwood, I began to smoke cigarettes and weed. I began to drink beer, collect dirty magazines, listen to heavy metal music and get into weekly fist fights. I had to become a product of my environment in order to survive. I began to have nightmares and wet the bed every night. When my mother found out I was talking to school psychologists about her, she removed me from Glenwood after my second year there. I returned to the Park Forest Public School System. I was a total savage.

 

I was a psychopathic misfit with zero social skills, low self-esteem and a drug problem. My only “in” to make friends was my ability to read music and play keyboards. I was a latch key kid who sometimes went days without seeing my mom. We lived on opposite ends of the house. My mom was nearing retirement and paid little attention to me. I only got attention when I was in some kind of trouble with the police, which was often. My mom had a lot of guilt in her heart for sending me away. So, she became one of those parents who would rather have me party under the safety of her roof than to have me go out. She didn’t want me to go out and get drunk or high and get hurt or in trouble, which I still managed to do.

 

From 8th grade until I left for the US Navy at 17, my mom bought me a carton of cigarettes every two weeks. She turned a blind eye to everything except the cops. To give the appearance of being interested in my musical aspirations, she allowed me to form, practice with, and perform with several different rock bands in her abandoned music studio. I converted her music studio into my bedroom (it was the size of 2 ½ car garage) which had a door that led to the street. It became a 24 hour party. It was a freedom and environment that brought harder people and harder drugs. I began to drop acid on a regular basis. Took PCP. I began to get locked up regularly for burglaries or savage beatings I’d sometimes lay on classmates who had a problem with me. I was always clever enough to parlay my troubles off on the fact that I had a “drug problem”. My mom had awesome health insurance that landed me in a posh co-ed teenaged rehab, where the party never stopped. I got hooked up with better-connected rich kids who were there with me trying to avoid prison themselves.

 

In 1985, I was charged with a string of burglaries. It marked the first time I couldn’t talk my way out of trouble. But, I had a sympathetic judge who said he saw potential in me. So, I was given the choice of going to juvenile prison, or enlisting in the military. I chose the U.S. Navy. The judge expunged my entire juvenile record, and my mom gleefully signed me into the Navy the day I turned 17. I served on the U.S.S. Iowa (BB-61) and worked as an Operations Specialist (radar man). I was the 6th youngest sailor on the 1500 man battleship, the youngest in the Operations and Intelligence division, and one of only four black men in the division. I broke my neck to prove that I deserved to be there. The pressure to keep up due to my age and race made me overcompensate in every single aspect of my life. I quickly shot up in rank, but kept a perpetual chip on my shoulder. I worked and studied hard, but played three times harder than I ever worked since I was making more money than I ever had before. I drowned my low self-esteem in huge quantities of alcohol and now, cocaine. With every promotion and decoration came a drug or alcohol related incident or reprimand.

 

When I came home from the Iran/Iraq war in 1988, I was like a coke sniffing dog unleashed. My superiors forced me to go to NADSAC, the Navy’s week long out-patient substance abuse classes held on Norfolk Naval Base. The classes were held directly across the street from the enlisted men’s club I often played at with a couple of other sailor/musicians. We would all be paid in free beer and exposure to every drug dealer, pimp, hooker or stripper allowed onto the navy base. So, I would go to rehab from 0800 hours until 1500 hours, walk across the street and drink myself into a stupor.

 

I lived in an apartment off base with my girlfriend, and the party almost always spilled over there. The day I graduated from the NADSAC program, I was involved in a street brawl that got me arrested by the Virginia Beach Police.

 

The Navy blood tested me because I routinely beat the cheap piss tests they were administering back then. I tested positive for THC, methamphetamines, and cocaine. Six months later I was back at my mom’s house, kicked out of the Navy, sitting on her couch like a zombie, broken and ashamed.

 

I sank deeper into addiction, secluding myself behind my keyboard in my room. I took to dropping 15 or 16 hits of acid at a time. I snorted coke and smoked crack at the same time, blowing through my savings and savings bonds, and robbing drug dealers to feed my addictions.

 

On one such stick up, I caught a street dealer who had about $100 in cash and 40 dime bags in crack. I went back to my mom’s house by myself and smoked my way through 31 of them before I had a heart attack and had to be rushed to St.James Hospital in Chicago Heights, Illinois. I came home from the cardiac care unit a week later and put myself into detox. I entered a 28 day inpatient and 3 month out-patient program in East Hazel Crest called The Counsel.

 

I found a decent job. I got an apartment with my new girlfriend. I stayed clean and sober for a month or two and then binge out on whatever I could get my hands on for 3 days. I would hate myself apologize to my girlfriend go to a couple of meetings, and be cool until the next crisis came. Each crisis giving me the excuse I needed to binge out again.

 

It was during my final binge that I wound up stabbing my mother’s girlfriend to death in her living room. This came from a decades-long feud during a home invasion gone wrong while I was tripping on six hits of acid and had been snorting coke all night.

 

After the struggle, I sat on the floor next to her as I uncontrollably hallucinated. Trying to breathe. Unable to think.  Besides the growing, horrifying realization that I had just robbed someone of their life, came the unavoidable thought that I had committed an unforgiveable crime. I physically felt a void growing inside of me, and a deafening silence of my conscience.

 

I felt like whatever connection I had with God was instantly severed.  I sat in her blood, on the carpet, and followed her open eyes to see where they were staring. I hallucinated that Jesus Christ was standing over us. He was looking at what I had done. He was shaking his head in disgust. I watched as he turned his back on me and stepped back into His dimension of eternity with no invitation for me to follow him.

 

I was locked up on June 24, 1993. I was found guilty in January of 1997.  My guilty verdict made me eligible for death penalty hearings. In March of 1997, I was sentence to Natural Life Imprisonment, and two consecutively run 30 year terms of imprisonment for first degree murder, home invasion and armed robbery.

 

The crime was absolutely horrific. Even though God spared me of the ultimate punishment, I felt like he was telling me it would be his last favor to me. I felt like I had placed myself permanently outside the scope, reach, and love of Jesus Christ. I felt like my crimes were too terrible to be forgiven. I felt like the only way that I could get back into God’s good graces was to earn my way back through ritualistic prayers, fasting, zealousness and strict discipline. In 1998 I embraced Islam.

 

I threw myself DEEP into Islam, studying every aspect of it day and night. By 2003, I was elected as the Muslim community’s Imam (Islamic leader). Imam is a role that was overseen by the prison’s chaplain department and the internal affairs unit. I remained the Imam until 2014, the year I became Christian. But even at the height of my knowledge and power, there were always three things that secretly (and sometimes openly) insulted my spirit and intelligence about Islam:

 

First, Islam has always taken the “agree to disagree” approach when it comes to the religious and historic fact that Jesus Christ was crucified and rose again. His life, death and resurrection are well documented. Anything man has done to try and disprove these facts crumble under the slightest bit of scrutiny. Not even the Qur’an could completely erase the existence of Christ.

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In my 27 years of incarceration, I have been locked up with some of the greatest liars, schemers and dodgers of responsibility known to man, and every single one of them are capable of making, up better stories (in general) than the Islamic version of the last days of Christ. The Islamic version of events are so flimsy that it only bolstered my belief in the crucifixion, and almost caused me to view the Holy Qur'an as a third testament to the Holy Bible, slightly altered just enough to accommodate the views of Muhammed, and the agenda of the Muslims.

 

Secondly, I found Islam to be indefensible to my wife, and to my mother. But that is an entirely different topic I will return to on another day.

 

Third, I never understood why Islam frowned so heavily upon praise and worship music. The joy, happiness and love expressed through music at Christian churches are non-existent at the morose, somber Islamic services. So, between 1993 and 2011- 18 consecutive years, I did not touch a piano or sing a note. It was around 2011 that I heard that Yusef Islam (who is a 1970's rock star formerly known as Cat Stevens) was playing guitar again after years of being out of the spotlight due to his early conservative Islamic views. As he got older, his views on music obviously became more liberal, and I figured that if a Muslim who was on the no-fly-list could rock out again, I could too.

 

I worked in the prison kitchen with a convict named Lee Harris, who, in 2011 was the choir director of the Christian choir. When he heard that I used to play keyboards, he invited me to come write, produce and perform original music for a couple of Christian rappers in his choir to be performed at a Black History Program held in the maximum-security gymnasium. To the astonishment of my Muslim brothers, I would go to Christian choir practices for 2 months in preparation for the program, and not only work on the material I was supposed to be working on, I would listen to (and often sing with) the choir as they practiced their gospel music. I would return to my duties as imam a changed man every year, because I had been exposed to love. The Holy Spirit was working on me then, but I didn't know it. I tried to bring a slice of that atmosphere back to my Muslim community as far as doing music for Islamic functions, and was met with resistance and anger...not because they could quote me any laws that said it was not allowed, (Islamic law is replete with rules forbidding music,) but because they simply did not want to appear any less militant or angry, and did not want to be compared to Christians. While your everyday Muslim had no problem with listening to or performing music, those in leadership roles were strongly against it. Not only was I more of a student of Qur'an and Islamic Law, and could quote it off of the top of my head, I was a muscular, physically intimidating presence who had no problem with any type of confrontation, so as angry as they wanted to get, I was able to meet them at whatever level they wanted to take it.

 

I knew Islam had a loophole for everything, or so it seemed, so I scoured the world for an Islamic law that allowed Muslims to do music. I found an old Indonesian piece of Islamic law that allowed for Islamic rock groups (several which were fronted by women) to put on talent shows during Ramadhan. I was blown away! There were even pictures of the groups on stage performing. I knew most of the Muslim converts around me (even those who claimed to be "scholars") did not have much knowledge past what was in the Qur'an...half couldn't even say their prayers in Arabic: so for every reason they gave me why I shouldn't do music, I had an Islamic law that said I could. After winning the debate and a majority vote from the Muslim community in the prison, and with the blessing of the Chaplaincy Department and the then Assistant Warden of Programs at the prison, I was allowed to form the Higher Power Music Project with a Rastafarian rapper named David Gardner, (A/K/A Milwaukee).

 

We invited people of all faiths who had a song, a rap or a poem in their hearts to come perform with us at every opportunity we had a chance to perform, be they Christian celebrations, Islamic functions, black history concerts, substance abuse class graduations, or just because we felt like putting on a show. But I couldn't wait to drop all of my Islamic duties every year, and merge my program with the Christian's during black history month preparations. It was like freedom...a vacation from my Islamic life. I loved it. I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, and craved the presence of the Holy Spirit. However, I was still the leader of the Muslim Community, and I was not able to initially let go of all of that pride and power that my position gave me even after it became increasingly clear that I was following, practicing and teaching false doctrine and hate. As a Muslim, the Holy Spirit made that as clear as day to me, and it was terrifying because the Holy Spirit would not let me turn away from that truth. I was fighting against myself.

 

Anyone who believes that I simply woke up one morning and decided to become a Christian has no idea about the battle I put up. But the Holy Spirit had me by the collar, pushing and pulling me for over three years, and would not let me close my eyes. Day in and day out signs and wonders were dropped, and when I turned to walk away from one, I ran smack dab right into another.

 

So, at first, I tried to tip-toe away from Islam, using every excuse in the book that every Muslim used when you saw one show up at a Christian church service in prison with a copy of the King James version of the bible tucked under their arm:

"Oh...my Christian friend invited me," or,

"I'm just giving my cellmate some time to himself for a couple of hours," or,

"I'm just here to see what is being said..."

For me, it was getting ridiculous: "Who me? Oh, I'm just doing music for the choir, learning all the words to all of their gospel songs, playing keyboards with them and worshipping with them... no big deal."

Christians were looking at each other every time I showed up as if to say "Is this really going to happen? SHHHH! Don't talk so loud - you might scare him away!" The Muslims were looking at each other as if to say "Is this really happening? SHHH! Don't talk so loud- you might scare him away!"... And I was thinking "Am I really doing this? SHHHH! Don't think out loud, or they might ask you to leave!"

 

Call it what you want... It was the Holy Spirit guiding me.

 

I'd even show up at church if I wasn't needed and sit in the crowd as the only Muslim, and listen, acting angry for show. I'd roll my eyes when the preacher spoke, frown or shake my head if something that was anti-Islam was directed at me... I would act bored, fake like I was falling asleep, and act like every word that came out of the preacher's mouth was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. I acted like I had been dragged to church by wild horses at gunpoint (with a bible) to sing and play keyboards with the choir. Yet, in my belligerence and fake reluctance, I felt the undeniable presence of God. I was not fooling anyone. Not even myself.

 

When the Muslims began to hold hearings about how their imam could be so friendly to the enemy, I'd throw myself deeper into Islam. But, the deeper I got into Islam, the further away from God I felt. The more I came to church and did music with the choir- that is when I truly felt the presence of the Lord.

 

I stayed in the Book of 2nd John. It is the book that was instrumental in my conversion to Christianity. The book is a letter written by the Apostle John to a woman and her family who were deeply involved in one of the churches John was overseeing. He stressed to them that love, and walking in love are some of God's most emphasized commandments. Leviticus 19:18 talks about loving your neighbor... Matthew 5:44 talks about loving your enemy. These commandments are not incumbent on whether or not your neighbor is your enemy, a Muslim, a Jew or an atheist. 2nd John says love is the greatest commandment, period. John also goes on to warn the church about the future... about the coming of false teachers and false prophets, or those who come to twist up old doctrine (or create new doctrine) to either benefit themselves, mislead people, draw people away from Christ, or all of the above. John, the Apostle, tells this woman and the church that there is only Jesus Christ, and the opposite of Jesus Christ; that anything that is against Jesus Christ is anti-Christ... But I will get back to that.

 

It was during this tug of war that my mother died, on September 3rd, 2012. Because I have a life sentence and was still considered a security threat back then, I was not allowed to attend her funeral. Despite our dysfunctional past, she was my heart and my friend after I was grown. She was a Christian who detested Islam, but ultimately supported my decision to become a Muslim. Her death came at the height of my influence as a Muslim. While I gleefully threw myself in many inter-faith endeavors against the wishes of a few, I ran a tight ship as an Islamic leader. I had two assistants who were also knowledgeable, serious-minded Muslims. I delegated the responsibilities of running the Muslim community between the three of us. We rotated delivering the Friday Sermon (the Jumah Khutba). We took turns leading the congregational prayer in Arabic, taught Arabic, taught Islamic history, did conflict resolution, and sat as judges during disciplinary proceedings if a brother were accused of breaking Islamic Law, and we interpreted Islamic Law for implementation into our prison's Muslim community. While we often had differences of opinion, I was usually the final voice in most matters.

 

So, when my mother died, news spread fast. Some inmates knew before I did. I still attended the Muslim services that Friday after she died, but I was in no condition to speak or lead prayer, so I tapped one of my assistants, a white guy named Abdul Ra'uf, to take over for me that day.

 

I was completely devastated when, during the sermon and prayer, my mother's name was not even mentioned. The fact that she was dead was never brought up, or even hinted at. I was stunned. As soon as services were over, I caught Abdul Ra'uf alone and asked him why he couldn't even say a little prayer for my mom. The skinny, white kid looked me directly in the eye and said "Because your mother did not die in a state of Islam, Muslims are precluded from praying for her at Friday Muslim services." He said it with such certainty, that I knew he read it from some book and was prepared for this argument. Because my mother was a Christian when she died, her death could not be recognized by Muslims in my house of worship on Fridays.

 

It made me numb. I went back to my cell and looked it up in one of dozens of books of Islamic jurisprudence I had. I called my wife and made her Google it for me. It was true. It was from the Qur'an. It was what I had taught Abdul Ra'uf without realizing what I was teaching. It was my doctrine. It was my law. And it was what Abdul Ra'uf stuck to on the worst day of my life just to show the Muslim Community what he thought of my interactions with Christians. No Muslim in the prison would have frowned on a compassionate nod to my mother's passing. Legally, I could not argue against what Qur'an, Islamic Law and Hadith said about not praying for non-Muslims. It knocked the wind out of me. I lost my appetite for days. It broke me because it was from Qur'an. And immediately, the Holy Spirit was in my ear telling me that no matter what the Qur'an or scholars had to say about it, that it was evil. The Holy Spirit said it was void of conscience.

 

The following Monday, I got escorted over to the administration building on the prison grounds to sign papers on how I wanted my mother's remains handled. Abdul Ra'uf was a janitor and clerk in that building, and when he seen me enter, knowing why I was there, he turned his back on me without a word. Not even a simple nod of recognition or understanding. Complete indifference to my pain. No love at all. He was void of the love a brother should have for another brother. To me, his indifference was the opposite of love... Anti-love. I became physically nauseous at the sight of him, felt weak and was growing increasingly angry. It made me bitter. It made me hate Ra'uf. I barely made it back to my cellhouse, and had to climb three flights of stairs to get to my floor where I ran into this Christian Brother named Byrd, who saw the pain all over my face. He knew who I was, and knew what I was...and still he put his arms around me and consoled me, anyhow. He held me up so I wouldn't fall, and allowed me to weep violently into his shoulder. He shooed away curious inmates and concerned guards who wanted to know why a 240 pound Muslim was weeping in the arms of a skinny, 180 pound Christian. And then, Byrd began to pray. He prayed for my mother, he prayed for my pain, and since we are talking about opposites, he did for me what an entire Muslim community refused to do for me. He did the OPPOSITE of what my Muslim community would do.

A week later, the nurse that was with my mother when she died sent my wife my mother's possessions: Her glasses, her jewelry box, and her bible, which my wife sent to me in prison. And I began to read it. That was the exact moment I knew I was leaving Islam.

 

There was no question in my heart that God is Love, and that Jesus is Love, and that Christ was the key to my salvation and victory. I knew then that Christ had never turned his back on... me, but that it was me who turned my back on him. But I knew what the punishment for leaving Islam could be. I had personally pushed on apostate Muslims, wayward Muslims, or even Muslims who showed disinterest in Islam, in my early, militant days. And here I was, the leader of Islam in Pontiac, trying to figure out how to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior without getting stabbed up. I expected death. In the least, I expected to be verbally assaulted, called a phony or a hypocrite. Brothers who seen me withdrawing told me I was letting my grief blind me. And yes, conservative circles of Islam did call for my death, but it was the Holy Spirit that gave me the courage to run into that fear, and not from it. Still, I needed one more kick in the head...

 

The Christian Choir had to fire one of their keyboard players due to actions unbecoming of a Christian. He was and is a good friend of mine. The remaining keyboard player could not read music, and only knew a small handful of songs, and if they couldn't find a replacement for the guy, they had to get rid of, they would have fallen apart. So, when Lee Harris, the Choir Director who invited me to do rap music with choir member’s years earlier approached me about joining the choir, I told him no at first. For one, I was still a Muslim on paper. Secondly, the politics of religion in Pontiac was every bit as messy in Christianity as it was with Muslims, so it was never a "grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side" situation. Plus, I was gaining traction with my own musical projects. I also was fearful that I was being used as a weapon against the guy they got rid of, so I went to him and for his blessing, which he refused to give me. So, I told Lee Harris no.

 

Lee Harris was one of those sensationalized, wrongly-convicted celebrity inmates who's case was on T.V. and on the internet every other month who had major influence as an inmate with people high up in the Illinois Department of Corrections. He had juice. And he never takes no for an answer. He sent every single member of the choir at me to bend my arm. He sent the cellhouse lieutenant at me. He sent the head of the chaplain's department at me. Any time he saw me, he'd holler my name and demand a sit down with me. No, no and no.

 

In the wee hours of September 14, 2014, I was sound asleep. The entire building was sound asleep. It was about 2:30 a.m., and everyone was snoring. I was jarred out of my sleep by what felt like a person striking me between the shoulder blades with their fist. I was hit so hard, I bumped my forehead against the wall. The fist kept me pinned face first against the wall, and a male voice told me as clear as day: "do it," then let me go. I stood up instantly, ready to fight... but my cellmate was sound asleep, breathing evenly and peacefully. I grabbed my hand-held mirror, stuck it between the bars and looked up and down the gallery... there was not a person in sight. I suddenly felt numb, my entire body becoming riddled with goosebumps. I gently sat back down on my bunk listening for any movement from anywhere for an hour. Finally, I laid back down. As soon as my eyes began to close, I heard the voice again. It said "Do it."

I answered: "Okay, Lord."

 

The next morning I went and found Lee Harris and told him I would join the Choir. He informed me that I had been added to the choir list a week earlier, something we both laugh about to this day.

 

In my room, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior on September 14, 2014. At the first Sunday service I performed at, in front of a packed room of 150 or so inmates, I declared my new faith and told the story I am telling you for the first of many times.

 

While everyone understood what my gifts and talents were, it was not until I began to attend Celebrate Recovery® meetings and leading praise and worship there, starting in 2017, where I discovered my purpose in God's plan for me, which is to use my testimony and life experiences (with music as the backdrop) to lead people to Christ, and to help people break the chains of dysfunction, abuse and prison by providing a forum where people can open up to each other, and praise and worship together regardless of who they are, where they come from, how many times they have been to prison, or how talented of a singer or musician they are. Everyone must make a joyful noise to the Lord, and I am here to cheer you on... and support you. I want to know what the songs in your heart mean to you.

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