Thirty-two stab wounds were not enough humiliation. They threw garbage on the grave. She cleaned it off. They came back and threw garbage on the grave again. She cleaned it off again. He was young. He loved to have fun. And he was her son. But his killers threw garbage on the grave and on her grief. The message was clear. Her son was no better than the garbage insolently strewn across his grave. How can a human being be reduced to nothing more than garbage?

Steve (not his real name) left the sobbing mother at the grave and turned away. It was the grave of his best friend, Michael, and he was turning away from the gang life they had led together.

It seemed like a long time ago when Steve left home. His parents were preoccupied with their own problems. He was restless, acting out, sniffing paint. School held no promise. Might as well go where someone would care what he did. Someone would notice what he did.

His cousin was the president of a gang. It was a powerful gang. Connections with organized crime insured a steady stream of income and a never-ending party. They danced with the angel. Angel dust, PCP—the drug of choice. It was the lifestyle. To be in the gang was to be high.

Steve’s first paying job was to answer the door of the three-bedroom house the gang rented for their business. When customers asked for credit, he checked with the boss, his cousin. Then he delivered the answer or the drugs. He was 15, packing a gun, and it felt big.

“We got joy out of causing pain to other people. It’s how we slept good at night,” Steve says of those days.

Steve started through the revolving door from juvenile detention to county jail to state prison. It was a cycle—drugs, death, jail. Back on the street. Then start again.

Gang life is dangerous. As time went by, casualties mounted until half the gang was in jail and the other half was dead. His cousin was killed. Steve was given his jacket. The jackets were especially designed for the gang’s use and carried their signature emblems. It was an honor. But it got old.

Then Steve watched his best friend die and he knew Michael was going to hell. Steve knew he was on the road to hell also. They had done so much together. Bad things. Very bad things. They were serving Satan because they wanted to. Dancing with demons. Worshipping death skulls. Longing to be in the box. The grave. End it all.

Life was a two-edged sword—drugs and crime. The two go together. Where there’s one, there’s the other. But after his best friend Michael died, it was no longer fun. The game was over. Steve wanted something real.

He found himself in a hotel room and opened the drawer by the bed. There was a Gideon Bible. Maybe it was real. He took it and he began to read it. As time went by, Steve got a job, a wife, a house and a family. But the Bible did not talk to him. It was just so many words. It was all so boring.

The drugs came back. Or Steve went to them. It’s hard to say, when you have no direction or purpose in life. Before long, the job was gone. The house was gone. The wife and kids were gone. The street became home. Every day getting a fix was the plan. A little crime here. A little high there. The years began to drift aimlessly away.

Then, thud! A closet. No, a jail cell. Two stinkin’ losers in a pen. Only one hour every three days to leave the cell and clean up. Sitting hour after hour, the stench of sweat seasoning every meal. The cage was closing in on him.

Steve began to bang his head against the wall. Anything to stop his screaming brain. He thought about his cellmate. He thought about ways to kill him. As hope trickled out of his veins, Steve mused, “One of us has to die. Maybe I can knock his head against the wall. Maybe I can strangle him with my bare hands. But then my brain will still be screaming.” Hope was nearly gone.

One day Steve was working with some trustees. They were demolishing a building. Steve was up on the roof when it gave way and he landed on a concrete floor head-first, a 15-foot fall. The other men gasped. They were sure he was dead. A quick trip to the emergency room only to be told it was just some bruises. Steve knew he should have split his head open. God must have spared his life.

“I’ll try once more. I’ve tried everything else. Maybe I didn’t do it right the last time. I’ll read the Bible. I’ll give it one more chance. God, if this is real, speak to me. Help me,” Steve prayed desperately. Hope was not gone yet. Where there is life, there is hope.

He opened the Bible and began to read. This time Steve wasn’t trying to help himself. He was just seeking the truth. The book came to life. Suddenly Steve was in the story. It was happening to him. When the Apostle Paul said, “Be of good cheer,” he could hear him. He could see him. He was there. When Jesus said, “Let the dead bury the dead,” he could see the truth in his eyes. He could hear hope in his voice. He was there. It was happening to him.

Steve changed completely. The words of the Bible spoke to him and Steve’s past, present and future began to have meaning. Steve understood his purpose. He had no time to waste. He had already wasted too much. Here was reality. Here was truth. He began to thank God every day that he was in jail. He no longer spent the hours contemplating death and murder. He immersed himself in the Bible and the months passed. New life came into his heart.

Steve was released to intense probation and was given 24 hours to report to the Salvation Army. He crossed the street from the bus station and bought a fifth of whiskey in the supermarket. He’d been planning that move for the entire year. He took two drinks. Suddenly he could drink it no more. He knew it wasn’t for him. He left the bottle in the shopping cart and walked away. Steve has now been clean for four years.

Six months with the Salvation Army and another six months in a halfway house prepared him to start a new life. Steve began to attend a local church. There he met his current wife and they now have a child together. Steve goes to work every day. Where there had been screaming in his brain, there is now a song. It’s a new song every day. It’s a new life in the White Mountains of Arizona.

Steve the gangbanger took everything to the limit. There was nothing too dangerous or too dastardly for a young man with no desire to live.

Steve the Christian says, “Now I have Christ, a wife, a family. Everything I need to be happy. I have forgiven those who wronged me and I have made restitution when possible. It’s all good.”

Nancy Stidham is the wife of Pastor Clay Stidham, Cornerstone Community Church. This is a true story. The names were changed to protect the new lives of people currently residing in the White Mountains.