Robinson Never Going Back

This is My Story
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5439-9038-6
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 122 Seiten

Coming from a life of brokenness and abuse, Dylan came to a crossroads in his life and had to choose between going down the path set before him or to accept the hope and love of Jesus Christ. Once he experienced Jesus for the first time, he knew it was what he had always been looking for. Life didn't get easier after accepting Christ, but the purpose and fulfillment that came with living in Christ was a life he never thought was possible. This book is about how God took a broken kid, born on the wrong side of the tracks, and redeemed him in a way he never thought possible. Dylan now travels all over the country preaching about the Good News that can save their lives as well and also inspire others in their own faith. Dylan chose and continues to choose to keep moving forward and to never go back to his old life, and he believes that God desires everyone to continue to grow in their faith rather than becoming stagnant. What will you choose?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Robinson, Dylan

Leseproben

Chapter 1 “He’s a miracle baby.” Those were the first few words the doctors and nurses told my family when I was born. I was born with a defect called Gastroschisis, in which the baby’s intestines are found outside the baby’s body, exiting through a hole beside the belly button. If the medical description wasn’t gross enough, seeing pictures of me as a baby with my intestines on the outside was enough to make me gag! Though more common now, Gastroschisis was something that wasn’t too common in the early 90s, so the doctors weren’t too sure what the outcome would be. This birth defect typically occurs with younger mothers, and my mother was 18 years old when she had me. It wasn’t until recently that I saw pictures and videos of myself shortly after I was born, and honestly speaking, I was overwhelmed by the idea that God’s hand of protection was upon me right from the start. As I looked through some of the pictures and saw the many IVs attached to my body (even to the top of my head), making me look like some type of alien, it dawned on me how close our God is to us even from the start. The first part of the famous verse found in Jeremiah 1:5 says, “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.” Wow: though I have read and recited that verse at least a hundred times since becoming a Christian, it never became so real and personal than right there. Though the doctors and my family members were shocked that I pulled through as well as I did, God knew His protection upon my life was just getting started. Until now, I’ve always hated the scar on my wrist from the IV and also the way my belly button looks, but rather than seeing them as physical imperfections, I now see them as God’s protective mark upon my life. Right from the start, life was a fight, and that was pretty fitting since fighting was something that I became very accustomed to within my own family. Growing up, my life on the outside seemed perfect to others. My Mom was a young, beautiful woman, and many of my friends and older men were in awe of her; my Dad was one of the most popular men in the state of Missouri at the time because he was a professional boxer that had a couple of fights on ESPN. It was textbook: the young and pretty wife with the dynamic, tough-guy husband. Honestly, I was pretty proud of it early on. Some of my favorite memories as a kid are going to the boxing gym with my Dad as he prepared for his next fight. He would be with his trainer going through their typical pre-fight ritual, and there I would be off in the distance shadowboxing in front of the mirror because my Dad told me to (which I hated). I remember watching and being so proud of my Dad as all of the other local boxers in the gym would watch him workout. Every boxing gym has their “main fighters” that the trainer works with the most, and that was my Dad. Everywhere you looked on the wall you would see newspaper articles of him with the name in big, bold letters: “Rockin’ Shawn Robinson.” He was my hero. After his long training session would finally end, he would always take me through a mini workout even though he was completely worn out. Though he was very hard on me, I secretly loved it because I wanted to prove to him that I, too, could grow up and be tough like him one day. Perhaps my greatest moment as a kid was the day my Dad brought me into the local radio station in Springfield, MO, to do an interview with the sports reporter to promote my Dad’s next main event fight in town. As I was sitting there listening to my Dad answer questions from the broadcaster, I’ll never forget when the attention was shifted to me. The man asked me, “Young man, are you going to be the next Rockin’ Robinson?” I hesitated and stumbled over my words. “Uhh, ye-yes sir.” I was only around 10 or 11 at the time, but I truly believed that I was going to be just like my Dad, if not even better! As I returned to school that day, I was so proud because my classroom had tuned into the station to listen to the interview, and I felt like I was the coolest kid in the entire world. As great as that was, nothing compared to the day of my Dad’s fights. I never got to travel with him when he had to go far away for the fights, so when he fought at home, I couldn’t wait to see the fight in person. My Dad was always the main event when he fought in town, so everyone there was just as excited as I was to watch him. As the nights would carry on, the time would finally arrive. It was fight time! My Dad was always the last one to walk out to the ring, and you couldn’t hear anything but the incredibly loud music they played as his “walkout song,” followed by the entire building yelling my Dad’s name. Wow, I was so lucky, I thought to myself. As the fight would begin by touching gloves and ringing the bell, I would stand with my family shouting, “Come on, Dad! Knock him out! Let’s go!” Grown men would look at me and smile with approval once they realized that was my Dad up there. As soon as the fight would end, it never failed: my Dad would get someone to pass me up through the crowd into the ring and he would raise me above his head as the entire arena would cheer for him after he defeated his opponent. My Dad has a tattoo of my name on his chest: “Dylan Jagger Robinson.” (I’m named after Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger, and that alone summarizes my story!) When he held me high, I was so proud to be his son! In those moments, watching thousands of people yell and cheer for my Dad with me on his shoulders, I was the luckiest kid around, so it looked. Though I must admit that I loved the attention of being known as “the boxer’s kid”, what people didn’t know was what took place when we weren’t at the ring, with the lights, music, and people cheering. As much as I loved my parents, some of my earliest memories involved them yelling, cussing, and screaming threats at each other across the room. We lived in a trailer, so you could hear things in the other room very easily and there wasn’t anywhere else to hide, so when they began to argue and fight, there was no way not to hear it. It seemed like it was almost clockwork. I grew accustomed to the screaming and yelling due to the frequency of it, but it was the nights where the yelling grew even stronger and pushing and shoving got more physical when I would lock myself in my room, cover my ears, and just begin to cry. I tried to block out the screaming and abuse coming from the other room. After what seemed like forever, they would finally quit, and I would go to bed and wake up the next morning and make sure everything was ok. I was the cool kid with the cool family. I wouldn’t dare sacrifice everything we seemed to have by saying anything to anyone. However, I felt trapped because inside I desperately wanted someone to know and help, but on the outside, I smiled and pretended like everything was great. There were many disturbing things like this that became so ordinary for me that I began to pretend to my parents that I didn’t know what was going on or that I even had to cover up for them. At a very early age, I began to discover a very strong and distinct smell coming from their room, but I had no idea what it was. It wasn’t until my older cousin came and stayed with me and convinced me to go into their room and take some weed that I knew what it was. I had heard of marijuana, but I didn’t know that it was the weird smell coming from their room. Once I knew this, it made sense why my Dad would ask me to pee in a cup (so that he could pass a drug test in order to fight) and then lecture me to not tell anybody. I began to cover their tracks without their knowing, but it eventually caught up to them. I’ll never forget the day I got off the bus from school at my Great Grandmother’s house and the same cousin that wanted me to get the weed from their room asked me, “Did you hear what happened to your Dad?” “Umm no,” I responded. “He got busted by a police helicopter growing a bunch of weed out in the field behind your trailer.” He then showed me the newspaper article with my Dad’s name all over it. Sure enough, he was right, and now the entire town knew. (I discovered later on that it wasn’t just marijuana, but much heavier drugs that my parents had been doing ever since I was a kid.) Not that this was new news though—most people had already suspected it—but now it was out in the open for all to see. Though no one ever mentioned these types of things around me, everywhere I went it seemed as though people knew what my parents had been doing. As much as I loved them, it was hard for a kid to balance it all. As time went on, things continued to progress with my parents and their actions, and the drug and physical abuse escalated, but now divorce was something that was being thrown around. This went on for some time, but eventually my Mom had enough of it and moved out. As dysfunctional as it was at home, I still was a kid (in 5th grade then) and they were still my parents, so it broke my heart. No divorce is easy, but this one was extremely messy. I began to share time with my parents separately. When I was with my Mom she would say terrible things about my Dad, and when I was with my Dad, he would say terrible things about my Mom. I just tried to block it out. However, though the divorce was painful to experience, it did give me almost a feeling of relief because I thought to myself that maybe this would give my family and me a fresh start, and maybe things would all get better. Little did I know at the time, you can change environments, but if you don’t change yourself then you will just continue to do the same thing over and over again. I moved back and forth with my Mom and Dad, so I would move in...