All For Your Glory
Meet Jerry
Jerry Roberts was born and raised in Manchester, a small country community outside Detroit, Texas. He grew up with the responsibility of raising cows, chickens and horses. During his early childhood years, his grandparents, who brought him up in church. One of his dreams was to escape poverty by becoming a professional football player. After graduating Detroit High School in the year 2000, Jerry left for Iowa, where he attended college to play football, only to return to Texas after breaking his arm during the first game. Afterward, he completely gave up on life and moved back home. Being filled with anger and disappointment, he began a life of drugs, alcohol, and gang violence, which led to an imprisonment sentence of five years and six months....
My Journey
When you’re running with the wrong crowd there is usually someone you know in the county jail. Mario and I had been friends for some time. He was a member of a rival gang. Mario had always been filled with anger and rage but now he seemed to have peace. When I used foul language in front of him he asked me to stop cursing. Now this is a man who never said two sentences without cursing. He then asked me if I read my Bible. When he learned that I didn’t really read my Bible he handed me one and said, “Tomorrow morning you are going to get up with me and we’re going to watch Creflo Dollar together.” Creflo Dollar is a television evangelist.
I wasn’t where I wanted to be in life. My plans were to play football then become a mechanical engineer. I was well on my way but I broke my arm after two years at William Penn University in Iowa. When I could no longer play football I gave up and came home. Anger began to build up in me. I had witnessed a lot of violence in my life. I had watched my mom be abused and had even seen my uncle shot right in front of me.
The combination of anger issues and alcohol had finally led me to jail. Now I was looking at a possible twelve year prison sentence. I was already on probation and my situation looked very bleak.