Video Transcript: Tyrone Flowers - iamsecond.com

It was like everything slowed down. I saw the gun. I saw him pulling it out, .357  Magnum. The trigger being pulled, getting shot in my shoulder, in my neck and  my hand. I was told I would never walk again. I just started asking God, why  me? I was born out of wedlock to teenage parents. My mother and my father  was unable to provide for me, and my grandmother stepped in to raise me and  her 12 other children. At the age of seven, my grandmother became ill, and I  was removed from her custody and placed in foster care. And that's when my  life for the next 10 years, went on a pretty challenging journey, you know, being  placed in a basement, overnight, sitting up on that top step, just banging on a  door, praying and wishing that they would let me out. I was told I would never  amount to anything. I wouldn't be anything. Raised in poverty. We've always  struggled when it came to having the resources to meet a lot of our basic needs. I was stealing from the corner liquor store milk and cereal, and that was pretty  much my diet. At the age of 10, my father was murdered. He was shot to death,  and often, people would always tell me, you're gonna be just like your father,  either dead or in jail. I remember learning something that's how to look good. On the outside, you can have yourself well groomed, but on the inside, I was going  through so much pain. I went through three different foster homes, residential  treatment facility, eight different group homes, juvenile reformatory school, and I  was sent to the largest youth center in the state of Missouri. This is really your  last chance in order to get yourself together. All I desired out of life was just my  basic needs to be met. So here I am 17, wanting to do things the right way, but  didn't know how my senior year, I got on a bus to go out to a friend of mine's  house. When I got on the bus, I got in a verbal confrontation with a guy I played  basketball with. I got off the bus, and he got off the bus shortly behind me. I  threw up my guards, thinking we were going to fight, and he pulled out a .357  Magnum. I just remember getting shot in my shoulder, in my neck, in my hands.  I was instantly paralyzed because I didn't feel any pain. And I almost died that  night. I was told I would never walk again. But the main thing that was ringing in  my head, was getting this person back revenge. My goal was either to put him in a wheelchair or kill him. And during this time, I had questions for God, like, Why  me? He basically told me, in order to be forgiven, you have to forgive. And I  knew that was, I would have to forgive the guy that shot me. That was, you  know, the only way I was going to be able to have this relationship with God.  And that really helped me, because it was the first time I really had that type of  conversation with God. Now, what was really burning in my heart was, why did  God save me? Why did I go through the things I went through? What is my  purpose? I ended up getting a full ride scholarship to the University of Missouri,  Columbia. I had to write a paper, and I decided to write it on the juvenile justice  system. And I went back and visit some of the same juvenile institutions I was in  as a kid, and this one kid came up to me, and I told him my testimony. Then he  shared his life with me, and I went to the staff, and I basically said I didn't know 

that this particular kid went through the things he went through, and the staff  said we didn't either. So I thought the kid had lied to me, and that's when the kid  looked at me and said, Mr. Flowers, I didn't lie to you. I've been lying to them,  and that bothered me. I said, Why me? And he said, because we shared the  same cell, that one common denominator allowed him to open up and share his  experience with me. And when I came outside, it was this lady I just I believe to  this day, she was an angel. She approached me and said, You know, I don't  know where you came from or who you are, what you plan on doing, she said,  But you have a gift in working with these kids. At that moment, I knew what I  wanted to do for the rest of my life. God had displaced in my spirit that this was  it. I dedicated my life to work with kids. I realized that if you're operating in God's perfect will, you're not disabled, because if you're operating His perfect will, he's  going to enable you to do whatever He calls you to do, even if that's disabling  you. I realized that the kids that I was working with, all of them, are going  through something that I've already experienced. Parents are incarcerated or  dead. Grew up in poverty, trouble in school, the lack of support, emotionally,  mentally, physically, educationally. So I knew God had equipped me uniquely to  work with high risk urban youth. I realized that it's not about me, it's about what  God can do through me to change the lives of others. My name is Tyrone  Flowers and I am second.