Mother killed while praying in Bible study. Son has message of resilience, forgiveness.

many of our viewers will remember that fateful day in june actually of 2015 when we heard the news of a racially motivated mass shooting at emmanuel african methodist episcopal church in charleston where nine innocent lives were lost during a bible study and in that number of nine your mother sharona coleman singleton only 45 years of age at the time was one of the precious souls lost what did that do to you as a young man man well it was uh you know being thrown into the fire for me 18 years old and uh you know something like that i call it the unthinkable because you never think in a million years something like that would happen to you until it does um it was tough then it's tough now and i'm sure it's going to be tough in the future but it changed me maybe you know grow up quicker than a lot of people taking care of two teenagers when i'm i'm not even 21 yet and life changed for me totally after after i lost my mom that night now you describe yourself it's not necessarily walking with jesus or having a faith that you could really cling to up to that point in your life you were kind of doing the teenage thing kind of living life for yourself enjoying yourself but you said that moment when you were faced with the loss of your mother under such tragic circumstances it did something to your faith what happened yeah man i think anybody that loses a loved one while they're praying in church right my mom was shot eight times while she was praying um i think there's two ways you can go with your faith you could say number one there's no way god is real or you can say to uh god i don't know how this happened or why this happened but i need you to get me through it and i went with the ladder and things changed for me right the the relationship became real i didn't just call myself a believer i actually started seeking a relationship daily uh pouring into the word for the first time for myself not just listening to my pastor or my mom as she would read me scriptures in the car and i'm listening to music like most teenagers do but the relationship came became real for me um and because of that i'm able to be where i am today share the things that i share about all because of the things god has placed on my heart chris what would you say it is about your relationship with jesus that helped you get through that tragic event and continue to process it even six years later yeah i'd say mainly um you know i don't didn't have my mom anymore didn't have my my dad and so jesus became the rock that i would lean on right i think up until that point i was an athlete right and it was just be strong be courageous all the time and for me i the vulnerability i found was when i was able to just talk to jesus at night and just pray and just let those emotions out um and that was the comforting for me it was therapeutic for me and i think that uh in itself helped me to kind of you know maneuver through those really really tough times and now to this day i feel like god's leading me you know my daily prayers are asking for wisdom my mom used to always tell me to read the book of proverbs so every month i try to read it entirely and so just filling myself up with things like that so i can pour back out to other people of some ways that i try to get it done now the young man that was found guilty charged with numerous counts of first-degree murder racially motivated is going to spend pretty much the rest of his life behind bars i mean the big question for me i'm sure for most of our viewers is how do you get to that point of forgiveness and and if you even can because i mean we could talk about a five-step step program and we can write books about it we can even dig deep into the theology of forgiving our debtors but when we're faced with that decision much like you have been faced with how is that even possible for you you know i honestly think it's a it's a modern modern day miracle right when i forgave my mother my mother's killer the day after my mom was killed um and so for me i didn't you know think about doing it i didn't say these are the seven steps to do it uh god placed it on my heart i said those words and kind of surprised myself um but now i realize why forgiveness was placed on my heart because of the power in it you know recently somebody asked me um you know chris where's your mother's killer being held and i have no idea i think forgiveness has freed me from constantly thinking about the person that caused so much pain in my life forgiveness has freed me from uh trying to get revenge forgiveness has freed me from all these different things it's it's it's freed me from hating white people right it's freed me from so many different things and i know uh why god placed it on my heart and every single day i have the opportunity now to share about it because now i'm able to be the best husband that i can be the best father that i can be and i know that there's no way i could do those things if i was constantly holding that grudge and wanting to get revenge i'm after what happened to me my family how have you seen god work out that forgiveness in you in your day-to-day life and what have you seen as a result in terms of fruit in your life as a result of that forgiveness you were willing to extend yeah i think uh number one it's given me a new perspective on life um you know i'm 25 years young being you know going through so much uh you know having to grow up super early taking care of you know teenagers as a 20 year old and and finally see my little brother graduate this year but i think mainly it just gave me the the hope that yes bad things can happen to you but you don't have to stay there forever right and i think you know whenever i talk to non-believers they'll say chris you've gone through so much how in the world do you still believe and always say um you know the bible doesn't say it's going to be easy i just know that there's somebody there's another in the fire that's always there with me i think going through the things i've gone through and now forgiveness for me uh has allowed me to keep moving forward in my life i don't think i'll ever be able to quote unquote move on but i can't move forward and that's what i'm trying to do right now amidst all of this going on in your life in 2015 you move on to the pros in 2017 you played with the chicago cubs you played in the minor leagues there and now you work with athletes you're working in your community coaching baseball but tell us a little bit now about what you find yourself especially passionate about yeah so it's a little bit different i'm no longer on the field um and people say you know they introduced me as a retired 25 year old it's a nice way to say i got cut right i love the cubs but after i got released um i just followed my passion which was then sharing this message of unity um i get the opportunity to speak to you know professional teams across the u.s like the houston texans like the washington wizards minnesota timberwolves and many others about uh unity and what that looks like how do people use their influence to bring people closer together right i always say we don't always have to gather around the campfire and sing country songs or sing keith urban right maybe i want to sing usher but i should look at somebody and say because they're god's child they're my brother they're my sister regardless of what they look like or what their first language may be and so that's the message that i get to share across the country and around the world now and i'm just blessed that god has been able to you know open up the doors for me to be able to do so and he's blessed you indeed i know you've authored some great children's books you're a best-selling author you've got two titles your life matters and different about the beauty of diversity and loving our neighbors what is so important because they're geared towards children i want to ask you what is so important about children in your quest to be able to bring unity and reconciliation why are they so key man we we always say it right it's up to the next generation we've been saying that for generations um but the key is not only did the kids get the message in these books the parents are reading it to them uh which i think a lot of people miss and so the conversations that they'll have with the discussion questions when they ask a kid hey did you choose where you were born or did you choose your first language right we're celebrating kids from all over the country um i think it's what i honestly meant as a believer i think um you know heaven's a melting pot of people from all over the world and so i think in these books that i'm uh writing i want that to be uh what what's shown shown to these kids and also i always said my story is so sad right and i share it with companies and you know sports teams but i never felt like i could tell a eight-year-old you know how i lost my mom i feel like it would take away their innocence but the mission is still there and that's how i'm able to keep spreading the word through these kids books and diversity is such a beautiful picture of what heaven is going to be like and i think we lose sight of that so often in this journey like in the here and now i want to ask you because your books really deal drive this point home that we need to love our neighbors how do we effectively love our neighbor chris yeah well number one i used to always uh do this example of um number one i would just have people hug one another that they don't look like one each other right so if you're a black person if you're a white person if you're a latino person if you're an agent i would say hug them for the first time because so many people have never given somebody a hug that looks different than them and i think that's a little you know that's weird if we're always talking about loving people let's still start with the hug right affection if we can't do that then i would also say make sure you hear somebody's story before you hear their opinion the way the reason why i say that is because so often we jump to conclusions based on somebody's stance on something forgetting that they have a story behind it just like we have a story behind ours so when i go into a conversation i want to love people i want to know about them i want to learn their story because then those stereotypes and the things that those uh you know unconscious biases that i i may not even realize i have maybe the walls would drop once i hear their story and i hope the same if they hear mine those are some strong powerful impactful words chris you know i want to draw attention to the fact that you and your wife mariana you still live in charleston you have a son cj you have one on the way what is your prayer for cj and his generation as we move forward yeah well man the the prayer is simple i pray this all the time but i just pray that people would love one another regardless of where they're from or what they look like um we realize there's so many things we we don't control in this life like my skin color right or my first language uh but we can always love people regardless of those things i pray that for my son i pray that for every single kid and i'm also praying that for the adults as well you

Channel: 100huntley

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Keywords: 100Huntley, Crossroads, Christians, Jesus, Christian Testimony, Christian Testimonies 2021, forgiveness, how to forgive someone, how to forgive, how to forgive someone who hurt you, christian testimony, chris singleton, christians, christianity, christian testimony video, my testimony, 100 huntley street, christian testimony 2021, evangelism, life after loss, coping with grief, grief and loss, dealing with grief, how to grieve, 5 stages of grief, mass shooting, charleston shooting

Id: 0qJ4oe11aSI

Length: 10min 50sec (650 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 20 2021