AMAZING STORY
Paying the Consequences of a Drug Induced Rage
By Randy Rudder
The 700 Club
CBN.com -To some Louisville, Kentucky is a thriving hub of commerce. And enterprise.
But Darryl Davis knows a different side of his city. “I didn’t see anything but poverty. I didn’t see anything but crime,” he says of his formative yeas.
His father’s mental disorders created chaos in their home. “He was in and out of psychiatric institutes quite often,” Darryll says. “He would be delusional. The fear that this imparted into my life was something that I would carry for all of my life.”
The family’s utilities were often cut off. And Darryl and his four siblings never knew if they would eat that day. “Not knowing where the next meal would come from was probably the most difficult issue,” Darryl recalls.
When he was a teenager, his parents divorced. “In the court’s eyes, I was old enough to choose who I was going to stay with,” Darryll remembers. “And I did that. I stayed with my father, which was not a good thing.”
His father drank heavily and began prostituting women out of his home. When Darryll was just 15, his father threw him out on the street. “I packed the few things I owned and got in my car and I found a parking garage in downtown Louisville. Didn’t know where I was going to sleep that night, other than the car.”
That car would be his home for the next several months.
“I remember unraveling a bag of chips and eating those, and thinking, ‘I hope these last for a day or two.’ I remember the hurt and the fears,” Darryll says. “And I wasn’t sure where I was going to turn to.”
Darryll wandered the streets, eventually landing a job as a dishwasher. His wages were just enough to pay for his food and his newly formed drug habit.
“I was pretty heavy into drugs and didn’t know where I would acquire the next drugs that I was looking for.”
Darryll later married and moved in with his sister. He also found a new vocation.
“The best route to make money was to sell drugs, to pay not only for the drugs I was doing, but also to make money over and above,” he says.
One day, Darryll received an indictment on drug charges. He realized a friend had ratted him out. Armed with a knife, he went to the man’s apartment. “He was staying at friend’s barbershop that had a little room in the back, a small apartment,” Darryll recalls. “I remember walking in the door and confronting him, and the heat of the argument escalated in a very short time. He grabbed a knife and within a few seconds, we were in quite a fight. We landed outside on the concrete.”
During the fight, Darryll says he blacked out. “I had no idea how many times I had stabbed my victim,” he says of the harrowing incident. “I knew when I stabbed him the last time that he was soon to be dead. He put his hand over his mouth and he whispered, ‘Oh, God.’ Those words continued to echo in my mind as I left.”
Darryl was arrested and charged with murder. After he was released on bond, he went home, and started getting high. But this time, it was different.
“I was sitting in a recliner listening to music with a joint going,” Darryll says. “I remember the presence of God just settling around me, something very foreign to me. I didn’t even know exactly what was going on. All I know is that, for the first time, I was able to feel for a very long time. Remorse began to work in my heart. I began to really contemplate what I had done. I thought about the crime and the scene of it, and all the horror that it had entailed. I remembered every detail for the first time. I got on my face and my weeping turned to a convulsive crying. And my high was gone.”
That night, Darryll asked Christ into his heart. Two years later, he went to trial and was given a life sentence. When he got to prison, it didn’t take long for his newfound faith to be tested.
“When I got to the yard, I saw a friend of mine that I had grown up in the streets with. He came to me and said, ‘Darryl, you’re not gonna believe this, but we run this yard. We’ve got people bringing in drugs,” Darryll says. “And, as tempting as it was, I knew that I had to say no. This was it. This was my crossroads. And I said ‘I can’t do this.’ I said, ‘My life has radically changed. I’ve accepted the Lord in my life.’”
His friend’s response stunned him.
“He said, ‘Well, that’s good, That’s really good, man. I have no problem with that at all. In fact, we’ve got your back.’ He said, ‘One thing I know about you, Darryl, is if you said you were going to do something, you did it. And we believe you’ll do this.” I was awestruck. I thought ‘This is incredible. This is God.’”
Darryll led Bible studies in prison and took every opportunity to share Christ with his fellow inmates. He also earned an associates degree.
Despite his model behavior, Darryll was denied parole twice. The second came at 18 years. “I went back to my cell and I just poured my heart out to the Lord, and I said, ‘Lord, I just don’t understand this. And I remember him speaking to me so well. There was a knowingness from within, that if I would just face one day at a time, and put my feet on the floor that morning, He would meet me there with grace.”
Darryll was finally released in 2012 after serving 22 years. He moved back to Louisville, and recently married tiffany. He now leads a ministry for ex-prisoners called “proclamation of the word.”
“I sit here today, believing in a God that is sovereign, that was not only in the parole board’s answers, but my deferments, my hardships and my adversities, and the good times and every time in my life,” Darryll proudly proclaims. “I can’t imagine one day without His love, one day without his grace, and his mercy. And every single day when I wake up, I feel that need. I sit here today, in total love with my Savior, my creator, my God, Jesus Christ. He is my all in all.”
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