Unlike most preachers, I did not grow up in the church listening to sermons, or watching the savvy moves of a faithful minister on a Sunday morning. I grew up in the streets of Harlem, New York, Inglewood, and Hawthorne, California. At a young age, I was captivated by the street hustlers my father and uncles were. While my young mother tried to instill in me precious jewels, that would have carried me around the ""generational curse"" of the ghetto lifestyle, I rejected her wise counsel and made my own ""CHOICES."" I decided to walk in the same footsteps of those who had long walked before me, only expecting different results. Because of my CHOICES, I mad a bed for myself that I was forced to lie in at a young age. When it came time for me to reap from all the wrong I had sowed, I had no idea that I would have to spend 18 years of my life in Federal prison. Finally, the false reality I had been chasing after for so long had revealed its true identity. And yes; ""It was what my mother tried to warn me about."" When I initially started writing my story in 1998, I selected the title C.H.O.I.C.E.S. to reflect how my life was about the choices I made. The edition you hold in your hands is the second printing of my book under a new name to acknowledge that during my years away, I realized that God had brought me to a place of SURRENDER. From the streets, to the feds, to the pulpit is my life's journey, through the material possessions, women, money, temporary happiness, prison, trials and tribulations. In no way is this story meant to glorify the life I once lived. However, its purpose is to glorify the GOD, that brought me through it all, in spite of who I used to be. ""Sometimes in life, we have to lose what we think is everything in order to know what everything truly is. Life is all about CHOICES and I made the CHOICE to SURRENDER ""