This promise gave me security and strength, and made me see that my case was not a matter of life or death, but a trial from which I would emerge victorious.
Group members, including founder Rockefeller Twyman, a member of the Rockville (Md.) church, recently visited the home of Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, whose son, Thomas, took his own life.
When I knocked on his door 30 years ago, I never imagined the conversation we had would impact me to this day. I asked, “Pastor, if you had to give one piece of advice on how to live a life like yours, what would it be?”
“There is an amazing opportunity to change the world when we start empowering our youth for Jesus,” Robert Machado says. “So if I am given the opportunity to journey with young people and teach them the Jesus I know, how could I not want to be a part of that?”
I was blessed to have parents who always believed in me. Their willingness to be there for me meant the world. It gave me strength and confidence to move forward when, at times, I didn’t think I could.
I boarded the train for home after attending my sister’s funeral in Georgia. A friend agreed to pick me up at the station, but after arriving, I waited and waited with no sign of him at all.