Bryan Dawson's Story: From Hell's Highway to the Valley of Vision

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This is a story about everything folks love hate family and redemption.

I had a pattern in my life, all with girls putting in a friends out the very first girl that ever put me in the friends I remember was in eighth grade and I wasn't listed on science class and I remember leaning over my friend Ryan saying is that and that neither of us knew she was and I develop the courage to ask her to eighth grade graduation dance and I guess what I mean by develop the courage I asked her and her friends ask her if she would give today for graduation dance with me and she said yes. After that I told her how much I like her wanted to be with her professed my undying love for her hand. She put me in the friends out and then that would be a pattern for Jana the long haul, no looking back at my childhood is at a couple key moments that really stick out to me you know as far as I can remember my mom and my dad never really been together like it's never memory that I can remember them actually being the other being married but I do remember is that you got to be about my first grade year. My mother joined the Army she kinda bounced around from job to job and couldn't find anything solid and she really wanted to do something to support us and I have a brother Brad who is these two years older than me, but we have different dads. She eventually got stationed in Germany and that launched into a giant custody battle. My dad was a very responsible, hard-working, structured, individual, and the obvious best place for me would've been with my father but the court's tendency is to always place the child with the mother, unless there is just an absolute crazy circumstance that would would lead them to do otherwise, but at that point I was going to be with my dad and my mom had me go out to lunch right before really, they were to make a decision and we had lunch with my brother and she basically said what you don't believe your brother to you and the others castles in Germany and basically said all the things to you, you'd want to tell a kid to make them want to go that way and I just remember the biggest feeling having is that I didn't leave my brother didn't only my brother in that environment without me to be there with him. I was planning seven years old that time and I went back and told the judge that I didn't want to go with my dad as I had said previously that I that I want to go with my mom and and that was into that being the ruling after all the time and money and everything spinning that custody battle. I remember leaving the courthouse that day.

At seven years old six years old.

Whatever it was, and my dad looking down at me as we waited for the light to turn across the road, said no I'm very disappointed in you and I kinda set a pattern really for the rest my life with my father that I was kind of a disappointment, and then when we moved to Germany. My mom was still with this abusive guy.

He's the one that convinced her to join the Army and when we moved to Germany we lived in what's called the economy so we can live on base. We lived in an apartment above a pub in the Pope was called Clouse's pub and my mom and her husband Dave would drink every night and they would fight every night and sometimes would become abusive and sometimes the screaming and all those things got to be so bad. My brother and I would always wonder if if it was BS next and unfortunately we were never physically abused about, you know. I remember wanting to protect my mom, but only being, you know, eight years old and small and having this desire to protect my mom and inability to do so and it kind of developed feelings of cowardice that I was unable to protect my mom now came to an end when we started going to church and I will she she left Dave. We moved on base. We start going to church Sunday morning, Sunday night and on Wednesdays.

Every time the doors were open. We got involved, and begin to experience a sense of belonging and that went on for about a year. There is no drinking. It was like this stability in our lives like the calm in the storm of my life as I look back on my remember coming home from school one day was when my last days of fourth grade I came home and my mom and bend your free from drinking for year's brief reporting. Her life was you know so much better and I came home and there was a beer sitting on the end table beside the couch and I looked at the beer and I would to my mom and I knew that we were going back into that lifestyle and that all that peace and calm was over I was old enough to equate beer with pain and you know my mom, drinking beer and alcohol with pain and suffering for my brother and I and instability in and I remember being fueled and filled with with hatred and anger towards my mother and I remember screaming at her and telling her that I hated her and I wanted nothing to do with her and I wanted to to move back to the states and I wanted to move in with my dad then I moved in with my dad and I used to go to church with my friend and his mom. We would go to church and would be fun.

It would be fine. Then we get in the car and his mom would gossip about everybody in the church all the way home and then she would pick us up and she actually gave us a ride to school on the days that the weather was bad and she would just gossip about people in the church. The whole way to school in the hallway back and I'm like you people are ridiculous and so what I did is I took a few Christians and I labeled all Christians is these few right and so my mind I had this core belief that all Christians were these gossipy judge mental people and so I hated them when we come back we continue with this really wrong and really you story Ryan Dawson stored on our American story of the great American stories we tell love America like we do, risking you to become a part of the American stories from if you agree that America is a good and great country. Please make a donation monthly gift of $17.76 is becoming a favorite option for supporters of American stories.com now go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming out American stories and were back down American stories. We continue this remarkable story and one that comes close to home as close as can be right here in our own staff. Let's continue with Ryan Dawson stored my mom moved back from Germany. She went to Cara Springs. So I went and spent a summer with my mom in Colorado.

My brother was two years older than me and he had friends that were drinking beer and drinking liquor and going camping and smoking pot and doing all that kind of stuff and I went out there. I never been exposed any of that stuff. Personally, obviously seeing my mom drinking and things like that but never personally and you know I remember how drinking a beer and then you know Tryon liquor and that the first first liquor I ever taste was hot damn, 100 and I was the little brother of not only my big brother but the whole group and I fit in and I and and the more I drank, the more I fit in.

And the more I drank, the more comfortable I was in my own skin.

Yeah, they call it liquid courage but was so much more than liquid courage. For me it was liquid.

I can actually deal with life. Everything in my life. I've always been very intense and very holy in whatever it was I was doing and and I began to drink heavily. I was drinking tequila, whiskey, hot damn. That whole summer and the following summer I went back to Colorado and I started to smoke pot and as I smoke pot was the same thing you know, I just enjoyed not being who I guess I thought I was you know I eventually made when I was 16 years old I got my drivers license. I made a fake ID on a computer and I got to the point where I could go on by liquor and then I became very popular for that reason. So there's a lot of it was fitting in, and all those things I would go and I was able to buy liquor for these parties which made me like the coolest person in the party and you know I would drink to the point of blacking out once or twice a week and this is a 16-year-old, and meanwhile I was working a job. It villains which is a Kroger store and playing football playing baseball and somewhat maintaining my gray zone from a straight a student to probably about a C student, I just I stopped caring about school which is interesting because up to that point westward. You know drinking and doing drugs. All I cared about was school, I got straight A's.

I scored off the charts and all these test the standardized tests and I didn't care about school anymore. All I cared about was social aspect supporting the girls and then being wasted. Basically the summer between my junior and senior year I went out to Colorado.

My brother was a driver for a signatory is but a pretty big time drug dealer in Cara Springs and his name was Casey and my brother had a drivers license and I struck so Casey would just have him drive him around and you know they be dropping now mostly pot, but you know whatever around and the craziest things that have a man so I spent the whole summer run around with them. You have just seen him be this this alpha male that everyone looked up to. Everyone respected and he had money and he had girls and had all these things I might. That's what I want to do. So I went back to Kansas that summer and and here's the thing up to that point I was excelling in football and I did really well in baseball to but I excelled in football and we had a great football team that year and I was really coming into my own as a defensive end and and a tight end on offense and we were expected due to do really really well. That year, and I was so torn between really want never to put myself in football or for myself of this party life and I tried cocaine when I was out there so I was I was really starting to do more serious drugs as I'm going in my senior year I started my senior year I got two weeks into it and I snuck out of the house and I went and tried ecstasy with some my friends in a couple of the guys were actually football players on the team and I remember trying to sneak back in and I got caught and he told me that I had to quit football in your rehab or I could quit football and go to to Colorado but I wasn't to continue playing football. This is really one resentment with my dad hit its peak. So I decided to quit football and move back to Colorado with my mom and what that basically meant as I was on my own and I just started party and full-blown. I started working for Casey inserts only and got involved in that lifestyle and that I started doing cocaine on a pretty regular basis and as I did cocaine. I realize Amy and I can't pay for cocaine selling weed so I started some cocaine.

I just had to smack in the stability to rise to the top in these in these. I guess you know a drug dealer latter's influence. I just had a knack for that life and so I started sewing a little bit ago connection. Also, a lot of coke, I was doing a lot of coke and I got the point was so bad I would have to take Xanax to go to sleep and then I would wake up the next day really.

The next evening at like 45 in the evening I wake up I blow my nose and's not in cocaine and blood would come out my nose would just be bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. As soon as it would start to kinda slow down a little bit. I would do another line and start drinking and then that's what I did and I got so bad for. I couldn't even slight breeze on my nose anymore. My friend tried to introduce me to crack and I'm like this isn't for me.

So then he he had me try crystal meth and that was it and one-sided crystal meth. It was there is no having to take Xanax to go to sleep. There is no drinking whiskey to mellow out it was just it was wide open and already at this point I started doing math already had my first felony arrest. I was arrested with 1/2 ounce cocaine and had bonded out, got probation, all those things and didn't slow me down and I continue to use drugs continue to party didn't get my probation chemist and do any of those things and I got to a point where I was very well known in Cara Springs for my ability to sell drugs into a number of other things in armor, get a phone call from a girl named Camille and she said I got some pretty serious guys that I know that want to talk to you about how kind you partnering with them are working with them and so I came to her apartment and walk in her apartment. Remember it is, an uneasy feeling and there was some very mean looking dark, nefarious looking individuals that were Hispanic guys Mexican guys that handkerchiefs all over their faces and but they were in suits. It was weird and I might well I'm either getting it killed or this is going to go really well and now they set out and just talk to me and asked me a bunch questions asked what I could do form and I think they were kinda new to coming in Cara Springs to do with that. It was they were want to do. They needed something to help him so they asked me to do that and and I did that and not long after that I ended up getting a high-speed chase of the cops ran out a briefcase with math and a pistol got pullover that got arrested and spent four and half months in jail, County jail on that got probation again got out went right back to it and by that time, a lot of my connections either gone back to Mexico or had been arrested as well and I got into basically any I guess what looked like was we would steal four wheelers and motorcycles and things like that and give them to Mexicans were bringing back across the border into Mexico and then they would pay us some drugs. I was supposedly that the ringleader of that whole thing. I don't know how true that was. But that's the way it was and that in the cops eyes and they busted a house that had some of those motorcycles in them and they pressure the guy who was there and he told me and said you know it was me I was on was doing this I was writing all these rings so he and a bunch of other people had told the cops that I was responsible for all this crying is going on and I eventually got arrested and I did another four months in county jail and ended up bonding out after those four months and in that time I got my discovery and it said that you know who it told me I was out driving around up to no good.

I've been up for four days, we drove by the guys house who told him he was the main informant.

In the case and the guy was with to pump me up on all we have to go in there, you know, we can't let them know just let until and you and you not do anything and so we went yelled went up to the front door knock on the door and he opened the door and walked in the house asked him.

I told him and he said you told me why I didn't tell you.

Rhino never telling you I knew that he had when he was informant my case so I began to beat him up really really bad and the guy was with him in the head with blunt force object is called a blackjack and he cracked his head open and I thought he was going to die so we we grabbed a few objects out of his house and we left. And by the time I got back to my house. I ended up getting arrested and charged with attempted murder, aggravated robbery and extortion. And on top of all that this was a guy who estates evidence, so he was an informant that I did all these things to so that aggravated my goodness, what a story. When we come back believe were returns and where it goes. Brian Dawson story. One of our staffers in our American stories more after these meth Brian Dawson story on our American stories. You must pick up less house was on the run bonded out again and I was out like a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of bonds and I was was to go to court date and I ended up not going to court date. So I became a fugitive and shortly after that I became more Cara Springs most wanted criminals most wanted fugitives and it was intense. I mean they were grading houses. They were setting up parameters all throughout Cara Springs is if you ever seen them like they basically have roads blocked off measuring pictures me to record stops and goes through their home. If you ever follow dog the bounty Hunter dog the bounty Hunter did most of his chosen collar to spring some and why do most of my Cara Springs and dog the bounty Hunter was on a 72 hour 72 fugitive sweep when I was on the run and he said he wasn't to go after me because I was supposedly now to threatening or menacing or whatever for him to go after me. So got it became very real and there's a couple near misses where they they almost had me and I was able to escape from them and then they finally caught me and I was in my safe. I just caught a safe house was 1/3 story apartment in Cara Springs and they finally closed in on me and I remember sitting in the apartment that day I was watching the Chapelle show is my last day out. July 19, 2007 March the Chapelle show cooking bratwurst in this apartment. I look out the window. I'm on the third story and I see the front end of a cop car, and I know that it's a cop car. I knew that was it.

I just knew I knew okay well this is it and there wasn't much in the apartment. But there was a recliner that was wider than the window was so I taken a nylon rope repelling rope and I tied it to the bottom of the recliner. I hear the door pounding Cara Springs police, open up their chicken indoors making their way down to me so I take out the window and wrap my out my hand around the rope. I jump out the window and the recliner sticks and wedges right window just like I wanted to and and as I'm hanging there around both sides of this apartment building these police come flooding and there's 40 or 50 cops made up of El Paso County Sheriff's deputies cover Springs Police Department. They come pouring around the side with their guns pulled and drawn on me now get on the ground, get on the ground, get the F on the ground and left click on the Wilson to go and I look up and there's cops you about makeups blow me so I pulled up a little bit on the rope unwrapped the rope in my hand and dropped and I dropped three stories and I landed and it's a miracle that I didn't get hurt there but I landed and rolled and then there was two K-9 units right there with the dogs barking in my face and I remembered laying there.

I could feel the heat from the dogs on the site Of these dogs don't bite me, but that was it. And officer stuck his knee in my back and cuffed me. They put me in the back of a cop car and the craziest things I remember the relief that I had as I sat in the back of the cop car because I knew it was all over her from Rihanna's umbrella song was on in the cop car. As we were heading out to County jail. I just had a sense of peace. For whatever reason and I end up getting into County jail where I would find out that I was facing 384 years in prison with facing that much time.

I started to get involved in with some some rough groups and in the jail, thinking that I'm going way to prison for the rest my life have to make a name for myself. I have to be tough. I have to be this this guy, this prison guy so I get no bunch of fights, you know I'm going up to these older tiny gangster guys nice and whiny. Jacoby discovered I need you beat that Doing These Things, and I Eventually End up in Administrative Segregation, Which Is When You Are in a Concrete Cell Is about 8' x 12'. There's a Bug in There There's a Metal Bunk with a Fire Retardant Mattress and a Fire Retardant Pillow and a Sink That Is Attached to a Toilet. It's a One Piece Toilet Sink and a Desk and That's It That's All You Have in There and I Was in There for 23 Hours a Day and I Would Get One Hour Rykiel Make a Phone Call, Take a Shower and I'll Go Back to My Cell and I Was There for Several Months and in That Time Frame That I Was in Administrative Segregation.

I Had a Revelation. It Was One of the It Was an Epiphany. It Was an Aha Moment in It and It Seems Silly but It Was It Was It Was It Was Huge As I Look Back on It. It's the Point, As I Try and Counsel People Who Been through These Things before. Are There Going to These Things Now It Is People Come to Me Because I've Been through Them before They Asked Me, You Know, What Would You Tell Them, and This Was the One Thing That Happened. I'm Sitting in Administrative Segregation. In This in the Cell by Myself. Been There for a Couple Months and All Of A Sudden I Realized This Is My Fault.

This Is All My Fault and I Know That Seems Silly That Sounds, You Know Stupid or Whatever but Really Know This Is All My Fault Because up to That Point, I Blamed It on My Mom I Blamed It on My Dad. I Blamed It on the Judges.

I Blamed It on Everyone but Me. I Blamed It on Corrupt System You Know All the District Attorney's and You Name It.

I Blamed Everybody but Then All Of A Sudden I Realized This Is My Fault. It Was so Liberating You and It Was so Freeing Because I Realized If My Choices Created This Circumstances.

Certainly I Could Make Better Choices That Would Create Better Circumstances and I and I and I Came to This Realization That My Choices Are What Create My Circumstances, Not the Other Way around. I Was in a Victim That I Graded the Circumstances through My Choices and from That Moment Forward, I Made a Decision I Was Going to Do Things Differently.

I Did and It Wasn't Easy. I Had Habits. I Had No Thought Patterns at All These Things That Were Wrong, but I Knew That I Can Make Better Choices That I Was Responsible for My Choices and I and I Started Doing That from That Moment I Got on the Phone. I Called My Grandma with Tears in My Eyes and Told Her That That I Was Going Away Forever and and She Said You Know, I Can Tell There's Been a Huge Change in Your Life Brian I Can't Put My Finger on. I Don't Know What It Is but I Can Tell There's Something Very Different about You Because up to This Point, They'll Cut Me off. I Burned Every Bridge in My Family. They Were Done with Me. She Said Were to Get You an Attorney and She Did. In the Next Day I Went to Court. Someone Was Supposed to Show to the Court Court Date to Be a Witness in My Trial If I Want to Trial That They Didn't Show up so That the Postponement for Two Weeks Total Miracle. The Attorney Was Able to Take My Case and Get Me in What's Called a Mediation Hearing Mediation Hearing As Is Where You Basically Going to Arbitration with Your Sentence. It's like a Used Car Sales Will Argue This Will Know We Want That.

Will You Be This and That We Want That and They Started 32 Years. I Started Eight Years and That Mediator Went Back and Forth between the District Attorney. My Lawyer and I Back and Forth, Back and Forth.

They Finally Cannot a 15 Year Sentence with a Crime of Violence since the Answer I Told Him I Don't Want That Sentence Answer.

I Don't Be Labeled a Violent Criminal. I Don't Want to Go to Some Hard-Core Prison and Then up the Swastikas on My Face and Turn into That Guy. I Want to Change My Life. I Want a Chance a Change in My Life. I Should Tell Her I'll Give Her Year She Drops Her, While so I Know That Getting Sent Sentence to 16 Years and They Drop a Crime of Violence. I Went Back to My Cell. After That Mediation, I Knew That God Had Moved in My Life so I Got Sentenced to Get Sentenced to 16 Years and Then I Went to the Denver Reception Diagnostic Center.

This Is a Maximum-Security Prison and You Roll up in a Van and There's Roles upon Rules of Razor Wire. There's Gun Towers with Armed Guards in the Gun Towers They've Got These Little Mirrors That Going to the Vans That See If There's Bombs into the Vans and Is Just It Was Very Sobering. It Was Very Real. That Hey, I'm in Prison That's Happening Now, and I Went in There and I Was There for Little While They Sent Me to My First Facility in Warfield County Correctional Center Was Baltimore Colorado and It Was a Private Prison and There's A Lot Of Bad Things That That Surround the Ideal Private Prisons, but I Had Nothing but a Very Positive Experience. There Was Very Evident That Every There Was Involved with the Staff Members There from Our Case Managers to Teachers and Things like That They Wanted Criminals to Be Rehabilitated and Have A Lot Of Program so I Might Merely Start Taking Programs. I Got My GED Always at Walsenburg and I Started Taking College Classes and That I Became a Guy That Helped Other Guys Get Their GED, That's What I Did for Work and There's I Was a Tutor. I Hope People Get Their GED's and When We Come Back the Final Installment. This Remarkable Story, One That Hits Close to Home. Our Own Find off Story Continue Our American Store Will, and We Returned to Find off the Story and What a Story It Is When It's Close to Home Is One of Our People and by the Way That You Showed Anything. It Happened in a Person's Life, Here Is Prison Already You Can Hear It Is a Changed Guy Wants to Just Get through This and Come out on the Other Side. So He's Reoriented Himself and His Life Right There.

What May Be the Very Worst Pl. in America to be as a young man.

Let's return to Brian story.

I was there for about nine months, but the very first person I met while walking. Walsenburg was a guy with the name of Charles Frederick comes up means big guy big burly guy and he says hey my name is Charles and I'm a Christian and this is a faith pod. So these prisons.

They had these pods are called fake pods and was basically pods or units made up about hundred and 20 inmates was dedicated to discipleship and know how I landed in there while landed in their but I was there and Charles began to just tell me about Christ, tell me about who Jesus was.

Tell me about the gospel.

I told him Charles.

I don't hear that stuff you know I don't care and you know EP said okay and then we begin to talk about other things he met my physical needs. Gimme coffee gave me short to give me things it you get in the you got nothing other than a couple pairs of underwear and a green suit so he help me with some of those things and just became my friend and as conversational permit. He would tell me about Christ, and that would go on for about nine months he got shipped to another prison I left that prison. They shut that prison down in my security level dropped. I bounced around a little bit for couple years and I did up in Sterling correctional facility in Sterling Colorado. First person I see there's Charles again and he starts telling me about Jesus Christ again and like man I don't hear the stuff will come were there for little bit and he is a you know you got woken up in a couple years will be good for you to have some certificates to show the parole board like okay and he is well on the chaplain's assistant I get you in some programs like okay a good sign. So he signs me up and they end up being faith-based programs, and like you, Charles the very first program I went into was a come as you are. You have everybody you know, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, whatever, just come as you are.

I went there and it was it was okay but I experience fellowship. I met other Christians were like trolls were true, genuine Christians who live this out. They didn't just say they were Christians with their mouth they lived in in you can see the wisdom in things that they had and I was was attracted to that and that went on for about 13 weeks. That class was over and then Charles got me to another program called the truth project which is put out by Focus on the Family and and Dr. Dell tech amazing program but when I got in there it was. Not come as you are. It was this is what the Bible says and I did like that. I would sit, we watch a video for now and then we would have table discussion at the table discussion, I would argue with everyone there until how stupid they were for believing what they know that they believe these things and almost got a couple fights of those guys and about three weeks into it we were walking back to the unit and Charles just asked me says Brian want you just give him a chance I would ask that question before and and and and fought it and fought it and fought it for whatever reason I said okay. Charles so I went back to my cell. That night, and I prayed okay. Gone. If I need to believe these things to have a relationship with you. Give me some time to sign and I went to bed that night member being really deep sleep and I had a nightmare and in that nightmare. I fell off of a cliff, and I woke up startled out of a nightmare in Canada and I looked, and it's really dark in the cells and we had were allowed to have digital clocks in there and in the digital clock with the red numbers in the cell said 316, the only Bible verse ever known as a kid at all was John 316. And if you know John 316. It answers the question I asked him that's exactly right.

Yes you do need to believe those things and I try to go back to sleep. Just brush it off, but I guy I look back at the clock I felt like it was 316 for like 30 minutes. I'm like okay maybe there's something to this end was a Sunday morning at 316 so I got up and and I went to went to the church services that they offer in the prison and I went on my friend Ramon always had this idea in my head. The Christians were weak and my friend Ramon was a big black former gang banger that had become a Christian, and there is nothing soft or weak about this guy so Mike I'll go with him and I'm sitting in the very back row in the very far side as he goes through the sermon and at the end of the sermon on the Pastor does what he calls an invitation look at Ramon say what's an invitation, and he goes and sale. Three. Go make a decision for Christ or you invite Jesus in your heart in saying that stuff.

He said if you got something in your life it's hindering your relationship with God. You can go up there and pray with them about it so I went up there and I prayed with chaplain Davison to tell you little about him. He's a hard man calloused man cowboy is a man's man is a prison chaplain and he'd undo hugs even do any of those kind of things and then he grabbed my my hand to pray. I could feel the calluses on his hands and he slaps me on the shoulder with his other hand and he says how can I pray for you. I told my salute you know I don't.

I'm not here make any decisions. I just I need you to pray that God would remove this callus from my heart because it's hardened and it's angry and it's angry towards Christians so I will.

I want him to soften my heart so that the truth can come in and chaplain Davis prayed that and I remember looking up after were done praying when he's in front of 130 inmates with tears pouring down his face and I knew something was very real about this and I did not describe it, but it was it was it was very real and I would later find out the chaplain Davison Charles had been praying for me for about a year and 1/2 that I would get saved from that moment forward, I began to read my Bible read my Bible every single day I get up and read my Bible read my Bible.

I was at every single church service that they offer any faith-based program. They had that prison. I was there. There is a huge change. I went from telling these people. They were stupid for believing what they did to absolutely believing a basically overnight on that one for about a year and my friends all had penpals that they were writing when they were in prison so I prayed and set Oregon I like to have a penpal I got on the phone with my mom and she was running a Facebook page for me. She says you had a friend request from a girl I'm like okay cool. Who is she is.

Do you know a girl named Christine a human might yeah I know Christina you know why she is what she sent your friend request.

She remembered you and that she's been trying to find you, for you all and all for the last 10 years, said digital is imprisoned naturally in prison.

She doesn't care.

She wants to write you Michael, that's crazy. So I got her address and everything we did all of our correspondence was based on Christ and what God was doing in our lives and that was it, and that went on for several months and I just knew this was too crazy for it not to be God lining this up for something bigger, but I was scared to death because she's rejected me so my times in the past and I had to write a letter and I sat down and wrote this letter and said look you know I just I feel like know this. This is kind of something maybe meant to be and that that you know, I know it's asking a lot of you but know this is meant for something more. I get the letter back. I remember hearing it mail call in saying that the letter was from Christina knowing that the answer was gonna be inside of that envelope and I opened the envelope and pulled out the letter and begin to read it and in the very first paragraph she said Brian I been thinking the exact same things.

And I know God wants me to be with you and I'm supposed to be here for you through this time and you know that were meant to be together and I remember reading that sitting in prison and I could've floated up the steps to go back to my cell. It was as amazing so but I put in for a halfway house about six months after that so I know that getting accepted that program. My very first time putting in for halfway house which almost never happens with the severity of my sentence in the size and scope of my sentence so it was it was a very, very tough two years, but I graduated and Christine was there for the graduation and the first visit I was allowed to go on.

I should before I graduated. Christine and I got married we got we eloped. I guess you could say we got married at my grandma's house so my wife and I now have three daughters plus my stepson Brendan who is an absolute stud brilliant smart kid does very well in sports. My girls are three years old is Gracie. Two-year-old is Reagan and R1-year-old is Abigail and we have another one on the way so not only do I have fences, cold caveat to the story. I got a little piece of property with the little house, the wife of my dreams and beautiful children for beautiful children about to be five but I just moved my mom's. She is a camper and I just move her tamper onto my property and my mom who I had obviously all that resentment and animosity towards. She now lives on my property and she's Mema to the kids and she got saved about two years ago and she's a completely different person so again like I could not have sat in jail, five, six, seven years ago whatever wasn't said okay and the five or 10 years. This is what I want and never thought it would be what it is now and what a story folks and tearing up here because I know Brian and imagine that that can happen in people's lives. Anyone listening to someone in prison someplace. Just don't think they can come back from my goodness it's possible we do faith-based stories here folks. We don't shy away from it their all kinds of things that can get people out of a jam. Sometimes it's God. Sometimes it's a it's a secular counselor. We don't shy away from religious aspects of people's lives here and show we don't preach we don't proselytize, but we don't.

My goodness Brian Dawson story is unimaginable without God and send your stories by the way, if you have a story like this and I know you do is my goodness, this country is filled with stories like this were tired of the negative stories are stories of real hope. The silly Brian Dawson story, beautiful family, beautiful story of love and