Scarface Aspirer is Blown Away by a Whisper
“I never felt like my dad loved me...the way he treated me, the way he talked to me, made me feel worthless.”
Brandon Chism grew up in home filled with turmoil. His parents partied and his dad beat him. He turned to the streets to find acceptance.
“I was looking for love and a place to fit in somewhere, you know, with the gang life. And then, you know, of course, that brought the weed, you know, we started smoking weed,” Brandon remembers, “and by 12, I was already snorting powder and dropping microdot acid. And then it's just a snowball from there for real.”
Brandon says he found fulfillment in the gang life but continued to pursue love when he met Terra.
“He was crazy about me, and he was the sweetest guy I had ever met in my life,” says Terra.
Brandon smiles, “She was my saving grace and my light, you know. I fell head over heels in love with her.”
Terra thinks back, “He was good until I got pregnant. But my [party] life stopped and his didn't. And that's where the real conflict started.”
The pregnancy didn’t stop Brandon, “I kept partying. We had a child. I was 15 when we had our first daughter, and I didn't slow down a lick.”
Brandon's gang life turned him into a violent drug dealer, with a delusional sense of pride.
“I felt like I was Scarface. You know, I toted four pistols on my person at a time. Then I would have guns in the vehicle that I was driving.”
“I wanted to be a hit man or a kingpin. And here I was selling all this dope and pockets full of money and guns and vehicles and motorcycles and electronics...you name it. I really thought, this is what I want. This is who I want to be forever.”
Meanwhile, Terra was at home with their daughters, hoping he would change.
“Over the years I did hope that everything would change, and he would get better, because he would. He would get better just long enough to kind of reel us all back in. And then he would just go right back off the deep end again.”
Brandon was in and out of jail numerous times, but now he was facing a serious prison sentence for a gun charge, and he says that's when he heard from God.
“(I was) just feeling sorry for myself and wondering what was I doing with my life. And I hear this whisper, that is by no shadow of a doubt, it's-it's the Lord. And I'm feeling Him like just surround me with this love and this comfort in this moment. And He says, 'Are you gonna go left or right?' You know, uh, 'This is the last time. If you don't serve me, I'm gonna let you go. I'm gonna let you do what you want to do.' And I'm already knowing the end to this so, you know, of course I cry out and I said, 'Lord, I-I'm here. I will serve You.'"
Terra was not convinced, “He told me that he had heard the voice of God and, honestly, at the point that he was at in his life, I wasn't even trying to hear whether he had heard the voice of God or not. I'm like, 'God can deal with you.'"
Miraculously his gun charge was thrown out of court and Brandon was given 6 months unsupervised probation. He says he caught fire for the Lord and this led him to church.
“I was down close to the altar, and I just raised my hands and invited Him in. And everybody, you know, my wife has her hand on my head, and people are praying over me. I was on a different path and have been from there on out. The grace and mercy of God has just blown me away.”
God delivered him from drugs and alcohol and restored his marriage and family. Today Brandon and Terra follow Jesus and desire to teach others about their faith.
“The hope that you can find in Jesus Christ Almighty...you just have to dig into the Bible. You have to get to know Him. That is the only way to get to know Him is to study the Word of God. It's living, it's breathing, it's been proven, it's been tested, it's been tried. He is hope. God is hope. God is love. God is redeeming. God is faithful above everything He is faithful."
"When you study the Word of God and see what all we have been given, what we are heirs to, how much He truly loves us, you know, He manifests Himself in the flesh to come die for us so that we may live,” Brandon continues, “Yes, there is hope for anyone. There is nobody that's been too nasty and been too wrong and hurt too many people. God will take every bit of that away in an instant.”
Terra says, “Now we're doing ministry side by side and we're praying for people and we're going out in the community and we're serving meals for homeless people at a shelter or, you know, just the different things that we're involved in together as a couple, instead of beating each other up. Like if you would have told me that 23 years ago, I probably would have told you that you were crazy, but seeing that God can do anything--that you can't put Him in a box, there's nothing that He can't do, that He can't fix, that He can't restore--has wrecked me, has changed me, has changed our whole family. The kids are seeing it. Everything's different.”
Brandon has a word of encouragement for people on the street, “this lifestyle of being in the streets and the dope game, and running with your homeboys and your dudes thinking that they're greater than. When there's only one – there's only one person that we should be running after like that, and that is Jesus Christ. I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to even speak the name Jesus. That's what I'm grateful for.”
