In this episode of 'Small Town, Big God,' host Mikel Collins introduces the story of Stephen Johnson Thorne. Stephen's journey is a rollercoaster of excitement, heartbreak, addiction, and redemption. The episode delves into Stephen's wild early years, and his struggles with an abusive father, ultimately highlighting his path to restoration both with his earthly father and his faith. Stephen shares candid anecdotes from his tumultuous youth, including incidents of substance abuse, family conflicts, and dangerous encounters influenced by his reckless lifestyle. The episode underscores the impact of a father's role, the importance of forgiveness, and the transformative power of faith. Stay tuned for more episodes featuring Stephen's continued story and further insights into his life and recovery.

00:00 Introduction to Steven's Story

01:12 Steven's Early Life and Struggles

05:11 Family Dynamics and Challenges

12:07 Teenage Rebellion and Substance Abuse

23:52 Living with Dad: The Highs and Lows

30:09 A Turning Point: The Car Accident

35:10 Escalation and Consequences

38:05 Meeting Strangers from MySpace

39:10 Meeting Camille's Family

39:54 Exploring Darien, Connecticut

42:00 A New Romance and School Adventures

43:43 The Road Trip Mishap

56:51 A Night in Hartford

01:02:54 Reflecting on Life Choices

01:07:26 Finding Forgiveness and Healing

01:10:47 Conclusion and Future Episodes

01:10:47 Conclusion and Future Episodes

Welcome to Small Town, big God.

My name is Michael Collins and today I have the honor of sharing with

you the beginning of the story of my friend Stephen Johnson Thorn.

Now, Stephen's story is a lot of things.

It's wild and exciting.

It's also heartbreaking, and it brings to light some things that

a lot of us would probably be more comfortable not thinking about.

Steven battled with addiction.

He's been mistreated because of his race and he suffered abuse

at the hands of his father.

But ultimately, his story is one of redemption and restoration, both with

his earthly father who he now has a good relationship with and with his

heavenly Father who has been able to use all of Steven's pain for good.

So before you listen to this.

Please remember that the goal of this episode is not to bash people who may

have mistreated Steven in the past or to glorify some of the poor decisions that

he made in his youth, but rather to show you that no matter how dark it gets, you

can always come back to the light eight.

So my name is Steven Johnson Thorn.

I was born upstate New York.

I lived in a small town called Chatham, or I told people I was from Chatham, but kind

of moved all around that general area.

but tell everybody that I'm from Chatham.

'cause that's the closest place with

a traffic light, pretty

small town.

Gotcha.

Here in

York.

And they think, you know, uh, like New York City.

grew up in a town, pretty similar to the size of Gilkey.

pretty small.

Everybody knows everybody.

Everybody's in everyone's business.

not really much There, I was not raised as a believer.

I was raised kind of like in the old school, go out, get in trouble be

a kid.

Be a boy.

quote unquote in line with the world.

From a young age, drugs, alcohol and sex all

and that was just considered being a boy, I guess.

Just considered the norm.

I think I smoked my first cigarette, I was like 10 or 11.

Where'd you get it?

my parents were very much involved in emergency medical.

so

like the firefighters the volunteer fire department and the rescue squad one big

thing with the fire department, especially

back

then in my home area was it was more of an adult club hangout.

they had a Pepsi machine and for 75 cents you put 75 cents in the only non-alcoholic

item was one button on the bottom.

was like Coke or something like that.

Everything else was bush light, Jenny cream cans of Budweiser.

75 cents.

they would sit in their little auxiliary hall and just smoke

cigarettes hang out and drink beers.

the kids of the other people who were a part of the fire department there, my dad

would go and drink beers with his buddies

the

kids and I would hang out and play.

there was one time,

and

my memory is definitely not great So my timelines for a

lot of things are messed up.

But

remember stealing a pack of Marlboro Reds with David Quicken

and smoking them behind a snowbank,

throwing

up immediately

and

being super sick.

And wondering why would we do that?

Why?

this is so gross, blah, blah, blah.

But, but it's what our parents was

the norm for me to see, people drinking, people smoking?

I do remember being, a small child It being kind of funny when I was sitting

on Grampy Dave's lap or my gram,

somebody's

lap and, drinking a little bit of their can of Budweiser.

that was kind of funny.

You

know?

fast forward to middle school high school years, everything

was about drinking smoking pot, partying, having premarital affairs.

I've mentioned this before, but I always feel like I need to say

it again before I say anything about teaching or raising kids.

Just in case.

This is the first episode that you've ever heard of this podcast, but I am the kids

pastor for Element Church in Forest City.

I've been doing youth ministry in different forms for over a

decade now, and I don't think I've ever seen that old phrase.

Do as I say, not as I do.

Ever be followed by any child or teenager, ever.

If you have kids or work with kids, let's even story be a reminder

that your actions will always teach kids a lot more than your words.

My parents got divorced, I think I was nine or My remember my mother

telling me sick of my father cheating on and that she had kicked him out and

there was trash bags in the trailer.

she very tearfully told that he wasn't coming back and that I

was gonna have to choose Who I

wanted

How old were you?

I said nine

or 10 years old.

made my mom cry,

a bunch.

my mom has been my rock, my father especially after their divorce, fast

forward to me being 12, 13 years old.

I remember him heavily

him heavily drinking, smoking pot.

then that was when abusive really

kind

What was that like As a kid being offered this choice of who you're gonna

live with, did you make a decision about that or what was that like?

I've always been a mama's boy.

Yeah,

I don't really remember my, as a kid, like, I don't remember a lot.

but what I do remember is mostly of my mom.

Okay.

I don't remember my dad.

I know he worked a lot,

and

was

gone

a lot, but I don't really remember much positive

stuff,

so I wasn't much of a, decision.

my dad made mistakes, and, we all make mistakes.

some of the guilt of those mistakes led him to continue making mistakes it felt

like

my dad was leaving the family

going to a woman who had two children I felt like my dad was leaving and my mom.

Like, it

just like my mom kicked my dad out I felt like, man, my dad's With and I'm

gonna stick with her and my grandmother

who was very, very important, and my upbringing, especially in the high school

I started going over, to their house, I think every other weekend

to my father and stepmother's house.

which they weren't married yet at this point.

And, that was pretty rocky

right

away.

you know, I love my stepmother and we have an okay relationship now.

maybe I'm remembering things differently, but, than how she intended.

But I do remember being a kid and feeling like,

all I was to her was a reminder of my mother.

So

there was unfavorable treatment.

I think maybe 12 or 13 was really when I start to remember,

the unfavorable treatment.

it was summertime

upstate New York, Stuyvesant, rural, old farmhouse, upstairs,

I couldn't sleep.

everybody

had a fan in their room except for And

so I asked, you know, I tried to sleep Friday night, couldn't sleep.

Saturday

morning I asked,

I would really like a fan.

Can I get a fan.

And my stepmother's response was, well, I would really like Central Air

in my house, like, your mother does, but you don't see me complaining.

And I didn't know what Central Air

was.

So I was a preteen and was like, I guess I messed up.

I shouldn't have asked that.

I'm sorry.

shame on me kind of deal.

Like I didn't know.

And When I got dropped off at home that Sunday by my dad when my dad

left, remember asking my mother,

I said, mom, what's Central Air?

And

she's looking at me kind of funny.

She's what's like an air conditioning system for the whole house?

Why?

I'm like, oh, is that really expensive?

Do You had to pay a lot of money to get that in the trailer.

And She's like, what are you talking about?

We don't have Central Air

And oh, well, I asked Brenda if I could have a fan and she basic, she told me

that she wished that she could have Central Air in her house like you do.

And so told me no, because you have Central Air at the house.

and so my mom is kind of dumbfounded and, and she explained to me that's not true.

We don't have that and I'll take care of it.

But I think

kind of was taking it out

I don't know for sure because I haven't asked her, but I think it is

very unlikely that Steven's stepmom even remembers that conversation.

But Steven remembers every word of it.

As an adult, we often don't realize the impact that we're having on

our kids, especially if we happen to be wronging them in some way.

If you think back to your own childhood, you can probably remember some times

when you were treated unfairly by an adult, and if you went to ask

them, that adult probably would have no memory of that ever occurring.

But again, the purpose of sharing this is not to try to make the people

who have wronged Steven look bad.

It's to highlight the healing and the forgiveness that has taken

place all of these years later.

I recognize that mistakes have been made and it has been a

long, long, long suffering journey for me to reach true forgiveness.

Hmm.

And

it's something that some days, well now as I get stronger in my

faith, it goes from days to weeks.

have

good weeks and good months, but every once in a while a memory will come

back like a flicker, and it'll just ignite this memory of severe trauma.

Yeah.

have

to work back through, the forgiveness with my dad and, my stepmother . But part of

my forgiveness is, recognizing it's not my place to judge them And I feel a duty not

run my dad even if he maybe sometimes deserved it.

Or

deserves I recognize there's a lot of, shame and guilt tied to

that

past.

he's not a believer.

He doesn't have a relationship with the Lord, and that's not a

good representation of who Jesus is for me to be putting him on blast.

As we move into some of the stories from Steven's childhood, it's important

that you remember what he just said because there's gonna be some stories

of abuse and some other things that might be tough to listen to, especially

if you have a story similar to his.

But if that's the case.

Our hope is that hearing Steven's story will inspire you to seek out

the restoration and forgiveness that Steven has found, both with his Heavenly

Father and with his earthly parents, and some of the siblings and other people

that you're gonna hear about here.

So I'm a teenager and I have two stepbrothers.

my name is Steven Johnson Thorn.

Originally though the thorn has been added on.

My original name is Steven Michael Johnson.

Okay.

That was my given name.

Uh, my stepfather has been, one heck of a dad to me since I moved

to North Carolina and got sober.

even before then, he was already being that way.

I just didn't see it

'cause I was

living in addiction.

Um, but I've wanted to honor the way he's treated me like a son.

So I got

His last name added onto mine.

as a child, my name was Steven Michael Johnson.

when I met my two stepbrothers, Steven Michael.

Oh, no way.

it was pretty wild.

Steven Robert and Michael Patrick were my stepbrothers.

from my dad and my stepmom.

Yeah.

that was pretty wild.

they had been through a lot.

Mm-hmm.

obviously,

they've

got a new guy coming in and to my dad's credit,

he

really tried to step up and be a good father to them.

they have,

especially

my brother Steven and my dad a great relationship with each other.

and I think he a father, uh, to him.

and to Michael, unfortunately, that's kind of where it stopped.

and I always kind of felt that, so there was this major feud between Steven,

Michael, and myself who was called Steven

and Michael are both older.

they were like a year apart, and Steven is

seven months older seven or eight months

older, you so close in age?

We as teenagers hated each

Absolutely hated each other.

to the point of, of like actually trying to hurt each other and

trying to like, like kill each other, we would get into fights.

I was quite a bit bigger than both of them, and it ended up being kind of

a, a little bit, more evenly matched because they would team up against me

and I fight

both of them at the same time.

And when I, you know, we have kids, we have teenagers,

stepbrothers, stuff like that.

You talk about fights like that's at least then

to us, like

that

was Uh,

what was not normal was the fact that we would fight, with weapons.

I remember my brother Steven and Michael hitting me over the head with

a baseball bat knocking me to the ground, and then Steven pinning me

to

the ground underneath this tree in the backyard

of, of their house in Stuyvesant, Michael picked up this iron weight

climbed into the tree and climbed out onto a, a branch over where I

was standing and tried to time it up.

and

Tell Steven to move as he let go of this eight pound

Iron weight

And tried to drop it on my head and I rolled out of the way.

As Steven moved, I moved with him and the weight came with foot

and

left a big indent in the ground.

I would pick them up and be choking there.

it was not normal fighting.

were, we

were we were trying to hurt each other very much.

oh, was this just like, just because, or was this an argument

would spiral outta control?

I think

was very resentful that I felt like this woman,

my stepmother and by proxy,

my

stepbrothers, these two kids were stealing my

dad.

Mm. And that's

not at all what the truth was, but, I was very much influenced from the world.

And the

enemy came in and saw young man full of pain and anger and resentment

and he took a hold of those lies and he just fed into them.

And I didn't have anybody speaking truth into me.

I think the flip side, they kind of saw, you know, like a little

bit, this guy's coming into their life and his son comes once every.

Two weeks for a couple of days I'm sure that was a shock for them they have

To

give up some of their stuff and their freedom.

So they, they didn't like me either, for a while we really just tried

to hurt each other, got into a lot of fights and I brought that stuff

with me from the weekends home.

And

my

mother did an amazing job trying to fill the role.

She worked extremely Three, four jobs all to keep a roof over

our and I thank her for that.

but obviously when that happens, she was gone a lot.

so I was home alone a lot, so

my

influences were video games.

Mm-hmm.

I'm a 13, 14-year-old playing like, grand Theft Auto by City.

I'm not getting as much discipline as I should have.

not that I would've stood for it anyways.

I would've Tried to rebel and my mom did a wonderful job I think she did great.

but she was fighting a losing battle, to Some degree, because I'm pretty stubborn.

and I was, angry and resentful, to a lot of people,

Anger is not always wrong, but it often leads us to doing or saying

things that are wrong, and even when anger is justified, that

doesn't mean that it's healthy.

Steven's anger pushed him to rebel against discipline and eventually

led him to a way of living where he didn't really expect to live very long.

But even in the anger and the darkest moments, there were

signs of a silver lining.

one thing I do wanna mention is because I have said a

lot of negative stuff about, stepmom

we will get

to the redemption part later.

there were some redeeming qualities, of my stepmom.

And I remember the moment I was like, this woman actually does care about it was a

really bad weekend, really bad dad had and

I don't

was mad at me, if he was mad at my stepmom but

I do remember

standing in the kitchen my back to

My dad facing

me into his left was the stove, about a three foot space on the ground was an 18

pack of Molson Canadian in front of the fridge door is me with my back to And in

the laundry room door leads to the outside

And my dad lost

bottles

the Molson

just started

throwing they're smashing on on this thick wooden farmhouse they're just exploding.

everywhere and he's throwing 'em.

And my stepmom

screaming and she's trying her hardest to get in me And I remember, had no shoes on.

There's glass on the floor, stepping on some bottles.

And I remember her grabbing me and like shouldering open getting the two of us out

of And getting us vehicle and her taking

I believe my mother met us at the iBod Crane High School in the parking lot.

and I'm pretty sure Brenda gave

that was, pretty terrifying

Pretty Scary.

but also pretty profound Hey, this woman doesn't actually hate me.

There might be some weird stuff and things might come out weird but she

definitely protected me like I was her

Traumatic events like the one Steven just told you about, have a major impact.

And if you have trauma, the more that you try to act like it doesn't

affect you or isn't affecting you, the worse that impact is gonna be.

I don't really remember, and this is kind of a common thing, I don't

know if you've ever talked with people who have suffered like abuse and trauma.

Their memory and their timelines don't always connect and make

a lot of sense because there's like a lot of like distorted, I

think like blocking out stuff.

So I, on top of the drug use, uh, that I have, so I do apologize that I don't

remember everything that it might seem kind of choppy, but my dad would

have these episodes and then be good.

And then get really, really, really, really drunk and

get mean and then be good.

Um, my father told me one time that he hoped that he would never be the

father to me, that his father was

My grandfather, who is a believer, has been a believer for a long time,

was in the Marines, had a tough life.

He got attacked in North Carolina, black man in North Carolina, in the Marines.

He got attacked and some, some clan members tried to kill him.

He lost his sight and he had a bad drinking problem when he

got home, and he was extremely abusive they reconciled since then.

My dad has a younger brother.

My uncle Curtis and my uncle Curtis was raised completely different.

Wow.

And

you can see two totally different types of um, because of that.

I don't know if it's in my dad's defense but he, was raised tough.

I don't think he

knew how to be with me at least, a good dad.

There's a lot that everyone can learn from Steven's story, but one thing that

I wanna stop and highlight right here is the impact that a father has on his kids.

In addition to my job as the children's pastor to Element, I also serve as the

director of operations from ministry called Psalm 68 5, which seeks to

serve fatherless kids in America.

So I'm very familiar with the impact fatherlessness.

Fatherlessness and bad fathers can have on kids.

I'm not gonna start rattling off statistics to you, but I

do wanna mention one thing.

If you are a father, you are having a major impact on your kids'

lives, even if you don't want to.

I think of a lot of absent fathers and bad fathers are trying to somehow avoid

taking on the responsibility of being a father because they don't think that they

have what it takes, and they're scared to try to be a good father and fail.

But if you don't try, you're guaranteed to fail because you don't get to

choose not to impact your child's life.

You only get to choose how much you're willing to try to

make your impact a good one.

Now, I'm not saying that anything like that was going on in the mind

of Steven's dad when he was a kid.

'cause I don't know.

But Steven's story shows us how impactful a father's example is on his kids.

So

I, I become an actual teenager and the fighting between me

and my brother Steven stops.

it stops because we find a mutual interest in smoking marijuana.

my dad starts smoking marijuana with us.

And not only does he start smoking marijuana with us,

he also starts growing it.

What?

with us.

So we have an operation in the back of the house, where we're growing pot plants

my brother Steven and I we're smoking marijuana all the time, going to school.

I was playing sports playing

music and just partying and

you

know, if

like there was definitely times where my dad bought me alcohol to

hang out with friends and stuff like

that.

And I had other connections.

I had fake Id, you know, I'm 17, 17, 18 years old my brother

Steven and I are best buds.

Wow.

and

what about Michael?

Michael and I are still kind of rocky.

but we're getting along

Okay.

like

More.

at

Is he helping with the whole operation, the pot

I would've called him a total nerd.

He was more interested in collecting magic, the gathering cards.

okay.

Playing final fantasy video games he was also, close to

graduating and doing his own

stuff, graduating high School,

and when I was

a freshman in high school, I got busted, smoking pot outside the

county fair, in my hometown Chatham.

I got busted by the chief of Police, Kevin Beum, who

was very much knew my mother, my whole family.

he let everybody go except for me.

Oh.

And arrested me.

And charged me

possession because that happened my freshman year, my sophomore year.

The fair was the big thing.

Every

the fair is a big thing.

My sophomore year, my mother told to the fair.

And

in my rebellion, because she was sending me to my father's, I was

like, okay, you wanna do that?

I'm gonna move in with my dad.

my mother warned me and said, I know you think you're getting back at me.

but I want you to really

think long and hard about this.

If this is the decision you wanna make, you wanna live with your dad,

that's fine, but this is not gonna And she, I mean, she kind of saw it.

I

know my mother was aware of a lot of the things I was doing.

, And what was going on than I thought she was at the time.

But she was wise enough to realize she could say and do whatever

but I was still gonna do what I wanted because I was a rebellion.

so you moved in with your dad?

I, had my license, had a 1994 light blue, Ford

Ranger.

Mm-hmm.

I had a dad helping us grow marijuana at the house.

I thought I had, the world in the palm of my hand.

Right.

I move in with my dad and everything is pretty cool

for

a little while.

hanging out with my brother.

My brother and I

are

sharing the same

room.

Like, he's got his bed on one side and I've got my bed on the other

we've got it set up.

paraphernalia all over Not even trying to hide, my stepmom knew

what was going on, wasn't super happy but looked the other way.

where we would

light incense and turn the fan on then

just smoke in the house.

no way she didn't

know.

like she knew a hundred percent.

were you growing this just to smoke or were you selling it

mostly to smoke?

I sold a little bit of it, but what I was selling like marijuana in

high school, I was selling a pretty good amount of marijuana in high

school.

among other things I was doing to make money, mostly wasn't the stuff

that, uh, we had grown with my dad.

Yeah.

what I used it mostly for, was for the parties I would go to.

one of the reasons I got the nickname that stuck, Stevie J

that's what everybody called me Stevie J. And they would call me Stevie J. 'cause

my last name was Johnson Steven Johnson.

But all my teenager friends and all this and that, they called me Stevie J because

I would walk around with Ziploc baggies full of 20 or 30 pre-rolled joints.

My

brother and I would just, at nighttime, just pre-roll joints.

joint after

Got

really good at doing it and we'd bang 'em out really fast.

I would go to a party not bring alcohol and find somebody and be like, Hey

man, let me get some of that whiskey.

they'd be like, I don't know.

I'd be like, here's five joints.

they'd be like, okay, here you

go, man.

Yeah.

And everybody knew me as Stevie J.

Yeah.

I

became the guy that if you wanted to smoke weed for the first time,

you

would come to me.

I had this whole routine where I would give a questionnaire, like,

how's

your home life?

do you have stress?

what are your parents like and that?

do you have allergies?

they would come over we would smoke weed for the first time.

And I would make food tell 'em everything was gonna be okay.

I was so proud of this aura that I had.

don't know.

Interesting.

that I had, going on.

But

things

are going pretty good.

I think it was homecoming at Chatham.

The

issue was, my dad lived in a different school district,

so

I had to drive from his school district to my school to go to my school.

And Chatham High School where I went and iBod Crane, which was his

school district, were very much.

like huge

rivalry.

Oh, huge

rivalry.

I played sports and so I was very much ingrained in that rivalry.

We

would

go to parties and immediately get into fistfights because

there were iBod Crane Wow.

small town politics through and through.

Not much going on.

We've reached a point in Steven's story where it seems like he finally

has a little bit of stability.

He definitely isn't on a good path, but he has found some sort of identity with

this Stevie J persona and his brothers aren't trying to hurt him anymore, but

when you're living the way that Steven was living back then, it doesn't take

much to throw you right back into chaos.

After a football game, I give some kids a ride home driving back to

my dad's house I come around the corner on Sharp Town Road my phone vibrates.

I look up and see headlights in my lane.

and

swerve and try to stay on the road as much as I can, but off, so I don't hit.

And we sideswipe each other and it sends my Ford Ranger into a

telephone pole and into a ditch.

my, truck flips and I had like these cement bags that had been getting rained

on and stuff in the back of the truck.

And when the truck finally stopped,

it was on the passenger door and I was suspended.

in

my seatbelt.

I remember

these cement bags coming down all around me.

'cause I had gotten launched out of

the back of this truck.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Um,

and then it stops I heard the homeowner

of

the house.

They're like, Hey, I called 9 1 1, is everybody okay?

And I just was yelling that I needed a knife 'cause I couldn't get my seatbelt

my dad is a firefighter.

my

stepbrother is a junior firefighter a quarter mile away they get the call,

hear it go off and It's late at night.

This is not a heavily trafficked I'm supposed to be coming home like they know

it's And They they roll up, see the truck.

that all gets, taken care of.

The truck's totaled.

I'm okay.

the issue is because I have no vehicle anymore, I have to

get a ride somehow to go to

my

high there's this kid, Chris Kerner,

who

would meet my brother.

My stepbrother would bring me to Kinder Hook.

And like 15 minutes outside of my hometown.

And Chris Kerner would drive like 15 minutes the opposite direction

for him from the high school.

Which he lived right around the corner from, and would go to Kinder Hook and pick

me up every day and bring me to school.

it was definitely not ideal.

the other option was for me

to

transfer schools and go to

table.

it was kind of a pain for people.

my

dad didn't like it at all.

there had been many other incidents in between the first incident

that we talked about in this incident, but this incident was the

final

my

dad came one night into the room with Steven and I, drinking I was kind of half

asleep and he woke me up, by punching me

he screamed in my face that

I

was going to iBod

this and

that curse word, curse word, this and that, blah.

blah.

I had just had And, it was the first time ever swung back.

Wow.

And then we got into a fist fight.

my brother's screaming.

My brother Steven is trying to like, get into the room.

My stepmother, she's trying to get into and it's kind of a blur,

but the gist of it is we're on the second floor and our bedroom is like

five

to seven feet away from the top of the stairs

and

kind of knock my dad down and I see an opening to the door and I'm

like, I remember thinking in my head like, man, if I can get to the

stairs, I can get down the stairs.

I don't even need shoes.

I just need to get outside.

If I get outside, I'm a track star.

I'm fast.

I know these woods extremely well.

I'm gonna

get to the woods he's never gonna see me again.

Wow.

I

And I get two steps from the top of the stairs and my dad just spears

me and tackles me down the stairs.

We land at the bottom of the stairs I end up getting on top of him and just bam,

bam, bam.

My stepmother is screaming my stepbrother's trying to pull me off.

on my, like elbow.

I think my stepbrother and my stepmom in the face and like their nose is bleeding

now and this and that, but it all ends.

I end up back home with my mom.

And

we

realized, I realized

like, man, my mom was right.

Like that did not end well.

And

I'm Talking on the phone with my dad and I could hear the

glass clinking, the whiskey glass he's slurring his words.

I remember being so mad

and saying remember when you told me you never your dad?

Good luck with

that.

and

then I later was told by my stepbrother, he's like, I don't

know what you said to your

And man, that was tough.

That was years

after, you know, all that had

happened when he had told

I kind of, kind of, stung that I had done that.

but.

to say that didn't end well.

I ended up moving in with my grandmother, my memaw,

and that

was where I lived, my

junior and senior year

After this final incident with his father, Steven started getting even more involved

in drugs and even started going out of town to get drugs and bring them back in.

I had a friend in high school I'll call him Simon.

Simon had connections from the Albany area we were bringing in a lot of

marijuana, but we were also bringing in like LSD mushrooms and other things.

And these were by no means, like we were not the only ones in our small town.

the only thing we didn't touch was, was pain pills and heroin.

when we first started

First time it started off we all kind of like, just put in a bit of money got

some stuff and he was a grade above me.

Um,

so by the time I was a senior in high school, it was like I would just make

trips to get connections with him.

and

would bring up money and come back with a lot of stuff.

and then on top of that, I had connections and people closer to town

that I operate

I was doing wild things.

Right.

And my, I was living with my grandmother, and my mother was definitely like,

realizing she knew I was doing wild stuff.

I think my grandmother knew I was doing wild stuff too.

But they also knew like, he's just gonna have to, he's just gonna do what he's

gonna do and we're just gonna have to hope that like, he like it ends well

kind of deal, I think is the mm-hmm.

The approach that they took.

And, that's not their fault.

I didn't give them much

I was

not a very easy kid

by any

means, And I was very rebellious angry and I thought.

I found this niche, like my identity was already starting

to become the partying drug kid.

who's

Like

everybody loves and you got the dreads and I play the guitar and I'm with a

joint

in my mouth and I'm only in high school, but I'm like,

college is gonna be so much fun,

bro.

And George Bush doesn't understand man, like, so

I'm meeting people on MySpace having my friends, tell people

I'm spending the weekend with them

taking money and getting a train ticket.

in Hudson, 20 minutes outside Chatham, it's the actual, small city getting on

the Amtrak train taking the train two and a half three hours south to the city.

then being in New York City as a high school kid transferring to a different

train station and going and meeting some random person off of MySpace.

If you don't know what MySpace is, it was essentially Facebook

before Facebook came around.

And just a quick disclaimer before we go any further into this story.

Going to meet strangers from the internet is not a good idea.

In fact, pretty much everything that Steven talks about in this episode

can be labeled as not a good idea.

But I wanted Steven to share the following story about one of those friends that

he met on MySpace, because for one, it's just a crazy story, but it also

gives us a very good idea of Steven's view of life and how he intended to

live his life before he met Christ.

And the story starts with him taking a train from New York to Connecticut.

So I,

I

get the train station in Connecticut and I get off the train and I'm looking around.

I got my backpack on and I'm looking around and I don't see

anybody that looks like this person, this girl in the MySpace profile.

And then I see this girl, smiling at me.

She doesn't look anything like her.

MySpace photo.

And I see this really jacked dude standing behind

her, And

then some like normal lady.

this girl starts walking towards me.

You know, she's my age.

looks like a high school kid and she's got a big smile.

She's like, Hey Steven.

runs up throws up her hands gives me this huge hug as she's giving me this hug.

She whispers in my and she's

like, Hey, I'm Camille, My parents think we've known each other for years

and you were one of my counselors at Fat Camp

Just

Play.

Cool.

And act like you were my counselor at, Fat camp this past summer.

She just super fast whispers that.

And I'm like, all right, bet.

So I'm like, Camille, it's so good to see you.

You look great.

Oh my gosh.

you've been Sticking with the diet.

Oh, this must be your mom and dad.

nice to finally meet you.

I've heard so much about you.

I

know nothing about them they're like, oh, it's cool you could come

down and, go with Camille to school.

And I'm like, I'm going to school.

What?

Wait, what?

So,

um, so yeah, we hop in their like, really nice car.

We drive into this town that I didn't know at the time.

Um, and it's called Darien, Connecticut.

it's one of the richest towns in the country.

This girl I randomly met on MySpace that I traveled down there to meet

ends

up being like a family, from like

multimillion millionaire family, We could pull up to this huge mansion.

And her dad's like, you're gonna stay

in

the guest room connected to the gym so you can work out whenever you want.

and he's asked me about, running track playing football

volleyball all the sports I do.

how much I bench and I squat and I'm just like, yeah, I really like running a lot

So I'm not really weightlifting right now.

Cycling off

that and just

focusing on cardio.

Camille's mother, whose name I don't remember, is French,

speaks very little English.

Wow.

That's

important for a later story.

I meet Camille and she takes me to her school and I meet all her

friends in Darien, Connecticut.

And it's like, you gotta understand, I'm from rural, upstate, poor New York.

So now I'm down in Connecticut, at this school.

She's introducing me to her friends, and she's telling me

she's one of the poor kids.

I had just stayed in

a mansion with an indoor pool And I'm like kind of not taking her serious

until we go to one of her friend's house where they literally have a spiral

tunnel slide

from

the

boys' room on the third floor down into the boys' play, Like hangout room?

in

the basement where they have like big projector screens with the PS

two connected to it, and they've got air hockey tables and this and that.

And I'm like, okay, you were not kidding.

There's crazy money here.

so wait You were going to school what about your school back home?

So, when she took me to the school that, that particular

time, it wasn't in session,

okay.

the

weekend She showed me her school

Okay.

I later went back down with a friend of mine.

I went, so Camille introduced me to some friends and I hit it

off with a couple of different

people.

Mm-hmm.

But

I ended up kind of dating one of her friends.

named Abby

I

would go back down to Darien, Connecticut with some of my friends.

one of the people that I would go down there with was Josh Hutchinson.

And Hu Josh Hutchinson and I were very, very, very played sports together.

One of the times that we went down, we actually didn't have school.

Our school was closed okay.

On like

a Thursday, Friday.

And so we planned to go down and actually go to the school

and Camille

told our teachers that her cousins were coming from France.

Josh

Hutchinson is white as you, Camille is white as you.

And then there's me for you

know.

I'm definitely, I'm half and half, you know,

I'm

not

white, not really getting away with the

tan, kind of thing.

My senior year of high school,

we did fundraisers for the football team.

We sell these like gold cards and it was like a, like a discount card.

We would go knock on doors and people would buy the cards and then you got like

a discount or like pizza den or discount at this local place and raise money

I had planned with Hutch, Josh Hutchinson.

Hey man, we're gonna do the gold cards and then we're gonna go down

to the city get you a fake id.

And then go meet Camille Abby

and

Nina, we're gonna go to this party,

we're gonna hang out with them all weekend.

he was like.

I'm Game for sure.

Let's do that.

Hutch drove this old gray station wagon there's a highway that goes to, the city.

called the Taconic State Parkway.

It's

lane road.

pretty similar to the Blue Ridge Parkway, but not as much in the mountains.

as

sketchy in parts.

but it's like a two lane parkway.

it's tight.

Mm-hmm.

Curves

or not much shoulders, just cement or pavement.

Like curbs and

woods.

Right.

we sell these gold cards.

We're wearing our football jersey We hop into the station wagon, the Taconic

State Parkway, straight down to the city.

just outside of our town, We start driving we're gonna go to

the place where I got my fake id.

Then we're gonna go to dinner, yet, and we're gonna have a great time.

I'm like, Hutch, I'm tired, man.

I'm gonna take a nap.

So I go to sleep.

I wake up to this loud

bow

and I look over.

Hutch has got both hands on the wheel

and

he is spinning the wheel with all of this might, And he looks concerned

and he's just yelling curse words like, oh, oh.

oh.

oh.

I look up out the windshield and see the side of the road.

look out my passenger window, I can see the road We're sideways

coming across the Taconic State

Parkway and like sliding and it's like rainy and stuff.

And I could hear it loud.

Like we had a tire, like full on blowout and it sent us like sliding.

Oh wow.

I don't

know how, but somehow Hutch manages to, catch this and, gets it back around.

We're like, Slow down.

we're right at the fish kill exit and pull up onto the fish kill exit.

We're like, get out.

it's no longer raining where we are.

It's kind of stopped, but it's like dirt road right there.

It's already kind of wet.

I'm Like, man, we're gonna have to change this tire.

he's got a spare though, Okay, let's get the jack and start jacking

New York State Trooper pulls up.

He's like,

what are you guys doing?

we just had a tire blow out, so crazy, blah, blah, blah.

And he is like, oh, you got a spare.

Like, yeah, we think so.

He is like, okay, cool.

It's, it's starting to rain, starting to storm, it's going to, rain harder.

I'll be back in like a half an hour to make sure you guys had everything good.

That was the last time we saw him.

He never came back.

Everything was not good.

We put the jack down on this car and when we left it was like, one or two.

we were expecting to be in the city by like four, five, and in Darien

by like 6 37.

so we put this jack down.

It's still daylight We put it in this soft, dirt sand and we're

just pushing the jack down.

The car's not moving.

We finally get it moved a little bit we've got the car jacked up, we

get the spare tire out and finally get it on take the jack off drive

a little bit and the spare is flat.

Geez.

we're like, okay, this isn't good.

So then we like jack it back up and we're like, well, I think we gotta take it off.

I don't know what we do, blah, blah, blah, this and that.

And um,

these

two guys who were definitely, Definitely gay.

Like drive up to us and they're like, Hey guys, we guys need some help.

What are you doing?

We're like, oh, kind of weirded out a little bit, you

know?

And they're like, oh, we're just trying to fix it.

So they're like, oh, we wish we had room.

We'd give you a ride.

Like in this two seater convertible, and they told us there's a campsite, maybe,

like they said it was like a quarter mile down the like, maybe somebody there

has a pump because it's a campsite.

They might, somebody might have a pump that you guys could use

to pump, pump up this tire.

Like, okay, that's probably a good idea.

That's a good, good

idea.

So we're

thinking do we just

put

the other like rim on and just destroy the other rim?

Or do we put this on and Hope it doesn't pop.

'cause we know it's not really full.

So we end up driving with the deflated donut.

And driving really slow.

And we drive up to this campsite and now it's like the sun is starting to set.

And Hutch and I are realizing like, Hey, this is not going

the way we thought it would.

let's try to do this as quick as And

So that we decide, the best thing for us to do is split up and go to different

campsites asking people, if anybody has Hutch goes through a campsite, I

go to a campsite to ask these people.

Apparently not everybody was a really big fan of two random kids

and football jerseys coming up and

Interrupting

their weekend we both end up getting screamed at by like some random

dudes, that got these campsites.

So now we decide , oh, that's actually a stick together.

we

get, we're walking further up into the campsite and all of a sudden I see

these motorcycles and start hearing some r and b music playing I'm like,

man,

I think

these people

are gonna be cool.

ask

them if they've got a pump.

So we walk into this campsite it's five or six, African American couples.

It probably in like their fifties and they're grilling up.

They got chicken and they got ribs and they got collard

greens beans mashed potatoes.

a whole spread

going.

Yeah.

we're like, excuse me.

do

you mind if we come down talk to y'all?

they're like, what do y'all want?

And we tell 'em the whole story.

We're like, yeah.

The cops said he was gonna come back.

He never came back.

We don't know what to do and we're stuck and we don't have any cell

phone service and this and that.

And one of the ladies said, honey, Y'all boys need a plate to eat.

So they gave us a plate.

they're talking trying to figure out how to help us.

one of the older guys comes up grabs two solo cups

pours Hennessy into these solo cups and hands us these solo cups with Hennessy.

And he just puts his finger up to his mouth, like, shh, don't tell nobody.

we're wearing our high school football jerseys Two high

school kids.

now we're fed, feeling a little tipsy.

and they tell us that there is a autobody shop and down the road like a few miles

they help us get the donut inflated, but we realize there's a slow leaking in.

Mm-hmm.

They're you guys can make it to the autobody shop.

there might be somebody there.

That's your best bet.

We're like, okay, it's eight o'clock.

the likelihood of somebody being there was not,

But they had been drinking smoking and we were dumb high school kids.

So we tried it anyway, and it was actually like 10 miles Away.

But we're getting closer to civilization.

we stop

at

this autobody shop

roll

up.

the donuts pretty much flat.

Lost all the air.

we roll in,

there's

no one there.

completely closed, pitch black.

no houses around.

Husch is like, what do we do?

I'm like, I don't know, dude.

What do you wanna do?

He's like, let's try to make it to the city.

If we get to the city, we can get to Camille's place.

they can give us a ride back to the city take a train somewhere

and try to figure this out.

Like we are gonna have to probably go back home and pick up another car.

Get

a tire and then come back.

Uh, like, okay, sounds good.

So how do we do that?

we're on the side of the road in the woods, not quite in the city

like, well, I guess we're just gonna So now we're standing out, we're

hitchhiking and standing there for a good 30 minutes, something like that.

And all of a

boom.

boom, boom.

boom,

Off in the distance and it's getting louder and louder and it's just

this deep base and this car pulls up and he see, well, I, he sees us,

drives by and slams on the brakes.

and

then puts it in reverse and comes back, pulls up, Hey, what's going on guys?

Like we're trying to get somewhere.

And he's like, well

Dude,

there's a Sam's Club right in town.

We're 15 minutes outside the city, You can get a tire and if not, there's

an Amtrak station by the Sam's Club.

You could take the train into the city, He's like, I'll give you a ride.

Get in.

He's got Wu-Tang clan plan, We open up the door.

And he's like, oh, don't worry about that.

And grabs a 24 pack of Coors Light.

I remember that specifically that it was Coors Light and pulls it out of the

passenger seat and sticks it behind.

The

driver's I

get in, he's like, how old are you guys?

We're like 18.

You guys want a beer?

Sure.

So now we're drinking and driving with this random dude.

Down

in to go to the Sam's Club.

We get to the Sam's Club, their tire apartment's closed, so we

decide to go to the Amtrak station

We finally have service I call Camille and tell her what's going on?

She's like, all right, well, it's fine.

Like, she's like, Hey, my parents are actually here, blah, blah, blah.

It's no big deal.

totally expecting everything.

I'm like, okay, that sounds great.

So we take train to Connecticut.

from Connecticut we get in a cab and Camille's like, my

dad's gonna pay Just get a cab.

So we take the cab and now we're finally in front of it's 1130 at night.

Everything

has gone, not according to

plan.

This

party we thought we were going to Camille's parents not being in

town, but they were in town, but they knew we were gonna be there.

So we had a place to stay, like it's a wash, whatever.

That's fine.

Camille's like, Hey, when you get here, don't knock on the door.

Just call me.

I

call her, and she comes outside.

She's like, Hey, let me go get some money to pay the cab driver

as she's walking to go back inside, her mom comes outside and starts

at the top of her lungs in French.

I have

no

idea what she's saying,

but

she is screaming at Camille and now Camille is screaming back at

her in French and Hutch and I are just standing there looking at each

other then at the cab driver and just like, I don't know what to do.

And I was just like, dude, I got some cash and like gives the cab driver

some cash and the cab driver drives

off.

Mm-hmm.

And we're walking up towards them.

I'm like, Hey, trying to say hi.

Camille's mom looks at me and starts screaming Camille's mom goes inside,

Camille says something, Camille follows her, and they slam the door shut.

And then it's just silenced and then the outside sconce light turns off.

So now Hutch and I are standing in front of their mansion end Darien, Connecticut,

and now it starts pouring raining.

He just gave the last money he had to the cab driver.

I'm calling Camille.

She's not answering.

Then her phone is just off and I look at huts and I'm like,

dude, I don't know what to do.

He's

like, I don't know what to do either.

I'm like, I guess we should start walking

back to the train station.

He's like, Let's get outta here.

So we start walking down the road.

All of a sudden this car drives by us.

They turn around and drive back.

It's

a cop car.

immediately turn their lights on.

Who are you guys?

What are you doing?

we start telling the story.

Everyone we've talked to and told the story to is laughing and cool.

Yeah.

They're not laughing.

They're not cool.

They immediately start putting me in handcuffs.

And my buddy Hutch, who's white, is like, whoa, whoa.

What's going on?

And the

cop is like, he's got drugs on him.

He's got drugs on him.

Now, everything that I've told you, it would make sense

that I would've had drugs on

me.

But it

was the one time that I actually didn't have anything on me at all.

And the other cop's like, I can smell marijuana on him

from all the way over here.

He's like 40 feet away from me and it's pouring raining.

Right.

Hutch

is immediately like, oh, you guys are racially profiling him.

Hutch says that they don't like it.

They start putting Hutch in handcuffs.

another car rolls up.

It's

an SUV, it's Camille's dad.

He gets out and he's a massive bodybuilder dude.

He gets out, walks up to the cops, starts talking to them.

I'm sitting against the cop car in the rain.

Mm-hmm.

tells the, cop get those handcuffs off him right now.

they're like, no, we're gonna search him.

He's like, you're not doing anything.

Get it's raining.

They're gonna get sick.

You get those handcuffs off him right now he starts walking to the other cop.

I don't know what they say to each other, but the other, the cops come

over and let us out of the handcuffs.

Camille's dad's like, get in the car.

So we get in the car, we're like, yes, sir.

We

get in the car.

he's like, do you have drugs on you?

I said, no, sir. yes, I smoke marijuana.

But no, we didn't bring anything down with us.

No, sir. He said, okay, those guys were gonna arrest you just for being black.

we're like, yeah, okay.

We thought that's what

going on, he said, here's the deal.

Camille thought we were going out of town this weekend, but we're not

going out of town till next weekend.

And now we're not going outta town at all.

'cause we told her she wasn't allowed to have anybody over she tried to

have you guys over and she never told us that you guys were coming.

If she had told us

you guys were coming, like it would've been fine.

But you can't stay there.

So I'm gonna drive you to the motel.

we're gonna get you a motel room and in the morning you can take the

train and get your stuff figured out.

So he takes us to the motel, gives us some cash, and think he gave us like $200.

And on top of paying for the motel, we're in this dirty, dingy motel

and I think we're in Hartford.

, but it is not a good neighborhood that we're in.

And when we pulled up, I remember seeing like a seven 11 or something like that

and being like, Hutch, we should go there and we should try to get some food

then we should also see if we can buy some pot because of course that's a great

idea.

So we get to the motel room, we get checked in.

Camille's dad leaves, we go to the gas station, there's a random like crackhead

sitting outside of the gas station.

We ask if he knows where we can get anything.

He's like, oh yeah, yeah.

Come walk, come, come with me.

Come with me.

we start walking away from the motel, into the ghetto

Mm-hmm.

With some random dude, no idea where we are.

He walks us to this trap house through these alleyways, literally whistles.

And somebody else whistles back to him.

Geez.

And then

this kid runs down and is like, come up then he's like, gimme the money.

how much?

40 bucks.

we gave him 40 bucks and he like disappears into this and

then like 10 minutes goes by.

Hutch is

Like, dude, this is bad.

We need, we need to leave.

I'm like, yeah, you're right.

this was a terrible idea.

we should

just leave.

all of a sudden he comes outta this trap house.

He's

like, Hey, y'all I got your stuff right here, dog.

He gives us this little baggie.

I remember there was little Batman symbols and he's like, Hey, hey.

He starts scratching his neck and stuff.

He's like, Hey, you think you gimme me, kicked me down some money so

I could go get some of my stuff?

sure.

How do we get back to where we were?

He is like, I just walked down this way.

You'll be fine.

Then turn left here.

So

We give him like 20 bucks.

Go our separate ways.

Go to the gas station.

we get some papers and we smoke and we definitely smoke something that's laced.

A percent because I'm like, cracked outta my mind and I'm in the, motel

watching some late night TV show.

It's like three o'clock in the morning and I'm just like, can't

shake this weird feeling that makes, I'm feel like somebody's watching me.

I go to the window pull the curtain in the window

and all I see are these eyes, This like white, old, white dude in like his

seventies with like this big scruffy beard It's just looking in the window like this.

And I pull it back.

I'm like, ugh.

like scream, like wake hu up.

And he is like, dude, just go to sleep.

Go

to sleep.

and

go to make sure

the

door is locked.

we go to sleep.

the next day we go

back to the train station and we end up getting back up to where our

car was, into the Sams Club getting the tire fixed, and then we go home.

Yeah.

So did you ever see Camille again?

Yeah.

I saw

Camille a a bunch of times

after.

that.

So Camille and her mom actually came up and visited us in Chatham.

I went to prom with Camille's friend Abby.

we stayed in contact for a while.

Did it ever come out that you weren't her camp counselor

I

I

of feel like everybody, like her parents knew.

I kind of feel like But

that was never discussed.

Her friends knew.

Yeah.

They all were like, you are

crazy.

met these random people on MySpace.

you're crazy.

Steven has a lot more stories like this, and we're gonna get to

hear a couple more of them soon.

But as I was editing this episode, I got curious about the drugs that

Steven and Hutch had purchased with the Batman logo on the bag.

And

so I did a little research online and I found the arrest record

for a man named Carlos Escara.

You see, apparently Carlos was a high ranking member of the Los Solitos

Street gang, which operated in the Hartford area, and in 2007 he was

arrested and police seized 51 grams of heroin, cash, ammunition, and narcotic

manufacturing items, including Ziploc bags with the Batman symbol on them.

So I don't know for sure whether Steven and Hutch purchased their marijuana

from this guy or somebody connected with them, or what it was laced with, but.

It very likely looks like it could have been someone Carlos was

connected with, or Carlos himself.

And I think it's possible that the marijuana was laced with heroin since

that was primarily with the gang sold.

But all of that's just speculation and my own curiosity, and I wanted to

share it with you guys, but it's all another reason on the list of reasons

not to live the way that Steven was living at this point in his life.

So that's one of many stories of like, just these absolutely.

Wild, wild things That I would do with other friends.

That was not the only time I met random people in the city.

Mm-hmm.

We

had a friend, gray Ballinger, whose family owned Webster Hall in New

York City and

Manhattan, which was like one of the

largest clubs.

And so we would go down as teenagers stay in Manhattan get let into the.

One of the largest clubs in Manhattan.

has underage kids and get like VIP passes and might be underage drinking,

like the amount of underage drinking and drugs it's kind of mind blowing.

not a normal

high

school experience.

Why do you have all like, I've had friends who have done crazy

stuff done drugs, underage drinking.

I've met plenty of people that have been through experiences like that,

but I've not met anybody who's been to the largest club in Manhattan.

you know, largest.

one of the largest.

And who was going to the, was millionaire's house in Connecticut

and like some of this crazier stuff.

I mean, is it, was it just chance that this stuff happened or do you think, was

there something about the way you were living your life or your desire to take

risks that led you into these stories?

I used to think it was just chance I don't think I'll ever

understand why it was part of God's plan for me to meet those people.

Maybe that story is not fully complete yet, but I, I do believe

there is a reason the Lord made me willing to seek adventure.

Mm-hmm.

Willing to go and not know.

And definitely a, a a part of it was not caring about the consequences.

Yeah.

Like, I was at the end of the day, to me it was like, Hey, at the end of the day,

it's either gonna be okay or it's not.

And I'm okay with that.

I also never thought, when I was in high school, I didn't

think I was gonna make it to 21.

I was pretty sure I was gonna be dead before I was 21.

And then when I did make it to 21, I was pretty sure I was

gonna be dead before I was 25.

And then when I made it to

25, I was pretty sure I was gonna be dead before I was 30.

I thought there was much of a point to life other than just having a good time.

And, I was like, I'm just gonna live hard and fast.

most people who live hard and fast don't make it that long.

I And then when I made it to 30, close to around the time when I

was like,

Hey,

I have a problem this is

not what life is all about.

I keep thinking I'm gonna be dead by X amount of time and I'm not.

there's a lot I'm wrong about, it's time for me to take a look at

guess

say live in the moment.

And

I took that literally.

there's good behind good intentions behind, you know, live in the moment,

be present I think is better to say

than

live in the moment.

Mm-hmm.

sometimes because

I lived in the moment and that was the

only thing that I focused on, because of that I didn't set myself up for future

I think pretty much everyone at some point has this moment where they

realize, Hey, maybe I should pay a little bit more attention to how I

live my life, because what I've been doing so far doesn't seem to be ideal.

And for me, that moment came when I was 18.

I wasn't living anywhere near as wildly as Steven was, but I had a moment

where I realized I have no idea what to do with my life, but God does.

So maybe I should just let him be in charge and for me.

That was when I went from making God a part of my life to the center of my

life and the path that he put me on has only gotten clearer since then,

and I know the show isn't about me, but I wanted to share that to say that

I second what Steven is saying here.

And if you've never sat down and been really intentional about where you want

your life to go and whether or not you are willing to let God have control.

I highly suggest you take some time to go and think that through,

but let's go back to Steven.

Between the time that I graduated high school and, moved,

so I graduated high school in 2007.

I moved to North Carolina in 2019.

In between that time there was a lot more hurt

with my dad.

mostly emotional, and mental

mm-hmm.

Hurt.

I would say actually all of it was emotional and mental.

I lived in Seattle, for a few years my dad stepmom step family and brothers

flew into Seattle went on a cruise in Alaska and didn't tell me I just

happened to be like really close to, one of the places that they were at.

And how I found out that they had done that is I saw a picture of them

outside of this restaurant in Seattle.

And

like put the pieces together that I was really close to that

restaurant and could have seen them.

And I was like, what, what, what, what is

this?

I got told like it was my fault and this and that.

Uh, and then to my stepmother's,

to,

to

to, to her defense.

she did call me after the initial phone call, I think like the

next day or something like that.

and was like,

Hey, we talked about it and realized that we didn't actually

tell you we were doing that.

really sorry that we did my

dad

and stepmom also, decided not to come my wedding.

I've, later found out some of that was tied to like, some guilt and shame

and fear

of

being called out In

front of people, which never would've happened.

I just wanted my dad to.

Mm-hmm.

but there was a lot fake forgiveness.

I don't necessarily believe that you can have true forgiveness unless

you've experienced true forgiveness.

Before I was a believer there was a lot of this like surface level fake

forgiveness, and I would still be angry after coming to Christ and experiencing

the forgiveness of the Lord and his mercy and grace, and starting the VCL program.

the Victorious Christian Living

Program,

uh, is very impactful and it, I mean, it changed me.

VCL or Victorious Christian Living is an organization that offers biblical

counseling curriculum and an online institute where you can get a bachelor's

or master's degree in biblical counseling.

Now, this is the organization that Randy Southwick, the guy from our last

episode, is closely connected with.

It's where he got his degree and.

Where his wife, Lori, serves as the director of training, and Steven recently

graduated from the VCLI program with his master's degree in biblical counseling.

I.

My

relationship with Jesus obviously changed starting the VCLI, Victorious

Christian Living Institute, to get my

degree

in biblical counseling, really was like adding gasoline into the fire

that the, of healing that the Lord was, was doing I believe that's because of

the way the program is, set up when you're a student your first year,

doing the VCL program.

You are counseled by either a master student or one of the staff?

My

counselor.

My advisor, my entire time in the program is actually the CEO of VCL,

Ray Lamarre Ray has had his own struggles, and one of his common

struggles was he struggled with alcohol.

uh,

for a long time Ray just really understood, he saw the pain and desire I

had to have a relationship with my father.

And he made it clear to me that I had a relationship with my Heavenly

Father because of the forgiveness that my heavenly father has shown me.

And that it how important it was to show my earthly father that.

that really opened up my eyes and feeling the Lord tell me and show me that, you

know, my dad was living in guilt and shame and it was my duty to show Jesus to

him.

And

the best way I could do that is to, let everything be.

Show true forgiveness, which is why I'm hesitant to not, you know, run anybody

through the mud I want people to know,

stuff.

But,

you

know, I love my dad.

I love my dad he tried his best, when we all make mistakes.

And I'm not a parent yet, but I can see from the sidelines that

parenting is difficult I have no ill will against my father or my

stepmother, I love them very much,

but I am able to reach that because of the love I've experienced from the Lord.

the catalyst was going through the VCL program and biblical

counseling.

I'm

extremely grateful for that.'

Thank you for listening to this episode of Small Town, big God.

Now, if you're a fan of the show, I know what you're probably thinking, why didn't

I ask Steven, the question that I always ask at the end of this show, which is if

there was one thing you could say to all of Ruthford County, what would it be?

Well, I didn't ask because Steven still has a lot more to talk about, and it'll

probably take us several more episodes.

I promise that we are going to ask Steven that final question, but not

until we hear the rest of his story.

, So keep your eyes peeled for future episodes with Steven, where we're gonna

talk about his struggle with addiction, how he was hurt by a very racist church

when he was younger, and plenty more crazy stories from when he was making

some questionable choices with his life.

But thank you for listening and thank you for being a part of Small Town Friendly.