by Devin Calhoun as told on the Story Partners Podcast
One night, I felt a distinct nudge to read 1 and 2 Timothy.
When I asked people what it meant, they said, ‘I think you’re being called into ministry.’
I said, ‘No thanks. That sounds like a hard job and bad pay.’
Rich in Love
Man, we might have had $0.00, but we were very rich in love. There was just so much love in that house. We can look back now and say, ‘Man, remember that night where we just couldn’t stop laughing?’ Everyone was dying laughing. We were technically homeless in a hotel room, all shoved together watching one TV, but that was one of the most exciting and fun times of our lives, even looking back now.
Being the youngest—the baby of the family—I always had a certain level of protection. One Christmas, we were staying in a hotel room with two beds. My parents slept in one, and my middle brother and I slept in the other. My oldest brother, who was already about 6’1″ at the time, made a little pallet on the floor between the beds. Being a young elementary school student, I thought everything my oldest brother did was so cool. I kept asking, ‘Can I sleep there?’ He’d say, ‘No, you have a bed. That’s silly.’
But that Christmas Eve, after we’d been laughing and joking all day—I think I even made little paper decorations out of scrap paper—he finally said, ‘You know what? You can sleep on my pallet with me tonight.’ I even sang a song. That is probably my happiest childhood memory: singing a Christmas song and finally getting to sleep on that pallet on the hotel room floor.
Self Identity In Poverty
The hotel situation was difficult, especially regarding food. You can’t cook, and most of the money went toward just having a physical place to stay. It was very important to my parents to keep us in a stable location.
One time, Child Protective Services took me out of class at school and asked, ‘Hey, where do you stay?’ I knew there was an answer to that question that might lead to consequences I didn’t want, so I started describing my uncle’s house instead. When I got home, my parents were waiting. They hadn’t known if I was still at school or if I had been taken. We had a conversation like, ‘Okay, this is the situation. We are homeless at the moment.’
Even in poverty, they made it clear that God still loved and valued us; our situation didn’t mean we were ‘less than.’ My father had us say daily affirmations from Scripture, like ‘I am the head and not the tail’ or ‘This is the day the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad.’ Those little affirmations of our worth in Jesus prevented me from carrying a ‘self-identity burden’ despite being very poor.
Financial Redemption
Because of our housing and financial insecurity, we didn’t go to church all the time. My parents would watch church on TV, or we’d go with whoever we were staying with. We lacked consistency in housing and transportation.
While we were at the hotel, our car was stolen. We ended up walking to Walmart and buying bikes. For about a year, bikes were our only transportation. My dad would ride me to school on his bike, then ride my middle brother to school in the opposite direction. He was in great shape because he was probably biking 20 or 30 miles a day!
As a kid, I don’t think I understood God as a personal being. I thought of Him as a big force that made the world. I didn’t cognitively understand what it meant for Him to love me. Eventually, my parents applied for a housing project—affordable assisted living. I remember how excited we were to say, ‘This is our place.’
Later, my father got better jobs. We moved from public housing to a regular apartment, praising God the whole way. My dad sometimes worked two jobs at once, but they got it done. My folks saw the hand of God move. The Lord provided in tangible ways; in the very same city where we had been homeless, my parents eventually built a house. That happened during my transition into middle school—I saw a total story of financial redemption.
The Love of the Mat
I always loved WWE wrestling—it was my favorite pastime. I’d watch Friday Night SmackDown and Monday Night Raw. I’d play-wrestle with my brothers. When my middle brother, Rashad, started wrestling in middle school, I’d hang around their practices. The coaches asked, ‘You want to learn something?’ I loved wrestling, so of course I did!
When I finally got to middle school, it was the first thing I signed up for. I told people, ‘I’ll play football, but I’m a wrestler.’ I did well, but in Georgia, the middle school season only lasts a month. I needed more. I found a local wrestling club and asked my dad if I could join. He said, ‘I’ll let you do anything, but you have to really want it. You have to prove it.’
I ended up calling the coach myself. My dad was shocked: ‘Did you just call that guy?’ The coach was a man named Coach Sabo. We were so blessed; he had coached the Junior National Team. There was no reason we should have had access to a guy of that caliber. Finances were never an issue with him; he just told us, ‘Pay what you can.’ He taught me so much and gave me a great background in the sport.
Being A Cultural Christian
Growing up in the South, everyone says they’re a Christian. I said it too, but I didn’t live it. I went to youth group because there were pretty girls there, but I wasn’t participating in a faith community. I kept wrestling through high school and placed fourth in the state my sophomore year.
For my senior year, I went to The Hill School, a top boarding school in Pennsylvania. It was a massive culture shock. I was in an AP English class with a kid who said, ‘My dad’s a lawyer and makes a million dollars a year. What does your dad do?’ I told him, ‘My dad’s a garbage man. I’m here on a wrestling scholarship.’ I couldn’t compete with them financially, but the confidence my parents instilled in me kept my identity secure. I was okay.
Leaving the South allowed me to stop being a ‘cultural Christian.’ I loved debating at boarding school, and we often debated the existence of God. My friends eventually got tired of arguing with me and told me to talk to the youth pastor who led the Friday night Bible studies. I remember telling him the Old Testament God was different from the New Testament God. He corrected me using the story of Jonah, explaining that the whole point is that God is merciful and relenting in anger.
Eventually, I told my parents during Christmas break that I didn’t believe in God anymore. My dad and I could talk for hours, but when I said that, my mom was visibly distraught. She went to her room in tears. At the time, I didn’t understand her reaction; I thought, ‘This isn’t a big deal.’ I moved from simply not believing to actively thinking religion was bad. I’m ashamed to say I would even ‘anti-evangelize’ and try to talk people out of their faith.
Unexpected Tragedy
I went to Georgia State University in downtown Atlanta and double-majored in Film and Philosophy. I loved the city life. As an unbelieving college student, I pursued a lot of the wrong things, but I also began an intellectual journey. Ironically, God started making more sense to me while studying philosophy.
I fell in love with Plato, specifically his idea of the ‘Ultimate Good’ and the ‘World of Forms.’ Understanding that there is an ideal version of everything—the most ideal being ‘The Good’—provided an on-ramp to understanding God.
Then, COVID-19 hit. Classes were shut down. One morning, my father banged on my bedroom door: ‘Devin, wake up! Your mother has been in a car crash.’
My oldest brother was first on the scene. We rushed to the hospital, but because of COVID, they wouldn’t let us inside. We sat in the parking lot. A State Patrol officer pulled in, and my father cut him off to ask what was happening. Then my mother called us in tears, saying, ‘They’re saying I killed a guy.’
We eventually learned she hit the back of a man’s truck. The man passed away. My mother had suffered a seizure while driving, causing her to drive erratically. Witnesses on the scene thought it was intentional. The officer leading the investigation recreated the crash and looked at the car’s computer. He concluded it was an unexplained medical event—she never even hit the brakes.
The Fallout
However, before the investigation finished, a fervor grew online. We are from Brunswick, Georgia—the same place where Ahmaud Arbery was killed. Because of the recent cover-up in that case, there was a massive distrust of the judicial system. People online started making up stories, claiming my mother was dating the victim (who was a pastor) and defaming her character. Despite the officer finding no connection and no evidence of intent, the social media storm was relentless.
The Georgia State Patrolman told us he wouldn’t recommend filing charges. My father, being a prudent man, didn’t take that for granted. He gathered every dime we had to put a top lawyer named Paige Pate on retainer. I believe that was the hand of God, because soon after, a second State Patrolman was brought in. He launched an investigation, ended it in a single day, and charged my mother with vehicular homicide.
In my opinion, the District Attorney was dealing with national social media fallout and decided it was politically safer to arrest my mother for something she didn’t do than to deal with the online mob. It was the worst time in our family’s life. People were writing newspaper articles and making death threats on social media—one person even said they should come to our house and hang her from a tree.
36 Days of Injustice
Our lawyer told us she would turn herself in and likely be out by the weekend. My mom, still physically unable to walk well after the crash, went in. Our pastor, Pastor Rose, went with us to pray, but I had no room in my heart for prayer. When the judge denied her bond completely, time and reality didn’t feel real. My lawyer stormed out of the courtroom.
Pastor Rose said, ‘Let’s gather for a moment of prayer,’ and I just walked away. I thought, ‘If your God is real, He is being unkind.’ If prayer worked, we wouldn’t be here. I felt like it was a fruitless exercise. If I had stayed, I would have said things to him I couldn’t take back. My mother went from expecting one night in jail to spending 36 days there.
I was full of hate and anger, but my mother was completely different. We’d be ready to fight for her, and she’d stop us. She was in jail, but she was worried about us: ‘Are you watching out for your dad? Are you guys eating? Don’t eat fast food every night.’ I asked her, ‘How are you okay right now? The world is against us.’ She just said, ‘That’s just my faith.’ This ‘Jesus guy’ I had been talking bad about my whole life was the only rock in that moment.
Persistent Prayer
My mom didn’t have a Bible in her cell at first. She’d tell me, ‘Devin, next time you call, you have to give me a scripture. I’ll write it down.’ I’d read her Philippians or something, and she’d ask, ‘What do you think that means?’ I credit her for starting my preaching career right there, walking me through God’s word. I couldn’t figure out how she was so calm, but I decided to humor her.
Then our lawyer called with news he couldn’t explain. He said the judge who had been so rude—who had yelled at the lawyer—couldn’t sleep since he denied my mother’s bond. He decided to write her a bond as soon as possible. My lawyer, who wasn’t necessarily a believer, said, ‘I can’t explain it. But you say she prays… that’s the only thing I can think of.’ It was like the parable of the persistent widow; her faithful prayer moved a hardened heart.
Even when we were paying the bond money, I was skeptical. I thought something would stop her from leaving. Then, I saw her through the barbed wire fence. She asked the guard, ‘Can my son help me over?’ because she was still limping. He let me cross the line to grab her arm. In that moment, it became real. I thought, ‘Alright, Jesus, You got me.’ He kept her at peace and set her free. How could I not give Him everything? That was the moment I became a Christian.
The Calling
I read the entire New Testament in two days. I knew I couldn’t go back to Georgia State because I’d fall back into my old life. One night, I felt a distinct nudge to read 1 and 2 Timothy. When I asked people what it meant, they said, ‘I think you’re being called into ministry.’ I said, ‘No thanks. That sounds like a hard job and bad pay.’
I argued that I had sinned too much—that I was a blasphemer. But God pointed me to the Apostle Paul. I realized once God decides something, saying ‘no’ is a bad idea (Jonah taught me that). I ended up at Toccoa Falls College.
While my mom was out on bond, a new weight hit. We found out she might have brain cancer—an inoperable tumor. I was gut-punched. I told my friends, ‘I don’t have faith like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego yet. I need my mother to be safe.’ I cried in front of my best friend, then took my longboard out at 1:00 AM. I put on my headphones and listened to the Book of Romans on repeat.
Peace in the Storm
I was longboarding and praying, ‘God, I gave You my life, what else do You want?’ Suddenly, I felt the Holy Spirit deeper than ever before. I burst into tears, but I felt a peace that made no sense. It was the realization that everything works for the good of those who believe. I understood what my mother felt in that jail cell. It’s like Jesus in the boat during the storm. The disciples asked, ‘Don’t You care that we’re dying?’ and Jesus just showed them that if they are with Him, they are fine.
I stayed out past curfew, worshiping in the prayer room all night. I called my parents at 6:00 AM to tell them I had peace. Later, we found out the growth in her brain wasn’t a malignant tumor—it was a non-growing abnormality that caused the seizures. Praise God, she was okay.
Then, our lawyer, Paige Pate, tragically drowned on a fishing trip. My mother was terrified her case would fall apart, but Paige’s partner took over the case as a tribute to his legacy. Eventually, all charges against her were dropped. The weight was finally lifted.
Today, I know that even when circumstances are dim, God is right there, enduring the pain with you. He is a God who genuinely cares.
