CrimeSon

By Justin Gardner

CrimeSon is the extraordinary story of Justin Gardner's life. Saved from the dark streets of death and crime in Melbourne, he was called by God to reach out to the broken hearted with a message of restoration and hope. CrimeSon is the hard-hitting story of one man's miracle. Justin's journey from the trauma of a dysfunctional childhood, the pain of being suicidal and 'dream-bankrupt' and the fear of being close to death, to seeing his life turned around and his dream machine being switched on and working overtime will make a positive difference in your own life. A rough and raw backstage pass into the heart and mind of a broken man's life, this story provides the heart warming twist that proves that people can overcome extreme obstacles. With God in your corner nothing is impossible. CrimeSon is an emotional journey and Justin's honesty and faith will give you an insight into just how powerful second chances can be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781626759312

Justin Gardner

Justin Gardner did not have a happy childhood. Abuse, violence and rejection led to a life doing and selling drugs as early as 12. By 14, he was out of school and out of home and was living a life of crime on the streets of Melbourne. In fact, some of the people that he grew up with are characters portrayed in the Underbelly TV series. At the age of 22, Justin was not only suicidal, but found himself heading down the path towards murder. He realised that the destructive life he had been living for so many years was only headed towards death, and he called out to Jesus to save him, who has since turned his mess into a message. Today Justin is the senior pastor of Destiny Centre Christian Church in Hoppers Crossing, Victoria. Destiny Centre has a heart to help people and under Justin's leadership it is has established 3 children's homes and a school over in Kenya, and a drug and alcohol rehab in Hoppers Crossing. Justin is also an accomplished author and has currently had three books published. 'CrimeSon' is his incredible life story, 'Small Change Big Change' is about the financial principles he has learnt over his life and how they can help other people and 'Be Inspired' is full of practical leadership tools and encouragement that he has learnt from millionaires, business leaders and world champions. Justin has an insatiable love for God's word. His passion to see people grasp and apply God's principles and promises clearly comes through in his razor-sharp yet humorous speaking ability. Justin's focus never fades from his two-fold mission to see “the lost found and the found crowned”. He loves to help people become all that God created them to be and for them to live an abundant life that will bless and impact other people's lives. Justin travels nationally and internationally, preaching to build and inspire people and sharing his miraculous story to thousands of people from many different walks of life, from youth to the elderly, parents to prisoners and from murderers to millionaires. Justin loves to laugh, loves fast cars, steaks and shopping and he trains kickboxing to stay fit. Justin has been happily married to his wife Kim since 1999 and has two sons Davis and Oskar whom he adores.

Book preview

introduction

My reason for writing this book is to let people know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I am convinced of this one thing: no matter where you go, what you do, or how bad it gets, God is in love with you and will never give up on you.

God is definitely more than just the God of the second chance; that’s why grace is truly amazing. Receiving His forgiveness that is always on offer is the only way we can truly find wholeness, joy and peace.

You are a one-of-a-kind masterpiece and God is not finished with His brilliant, perfect and thoughtful brush strokes on your life yet. God is never going to make another one of you and He doesn’t make mistakes. When He made you, He smiled and He is still smiling when He looks at how awesome you are.

God is an incredible creator and His ways are definitely mightier than ours. His infinite wisdom makes our minds hurt if we even try to understand some of the basic truths of His word.

For example, take, While we were still sinners, Christ died for us, from Romans 5:8. This is a hard thing for Christians to grasp. While we were up to no good, He was up to good concerning our lives and was deeply in love with us and still is, even when we fall short of the mark. Now how good is that?

God is also the only one we can ever be truly 100 percent honest with all the time. We can be brutally honest with Him about the way we feel towards people, life and even Him at times, and even so, He doesn’t change His opinion of us at all.

Imagine living an entire month where you told everyone in your life how you really felt about them. Imagine telling your bus driver how annoyed you were with him when he missed your stop. Imagine telling your unappreciative boss at work how little you respect him. Imagine being completely honest with everyone—drivers on the road, your pastors, your school teachers and even service station attendants. You would probably need to take some self defense lessons before you did it. I suspect that doors of favor, opportunity and peace would quickly slam shut in your face.

God is not like man. He will not change his mind about you because of your performance. He loves you and wants to give you His best.

I’m sure you feel you have disappointed God many times in your life. I have felt like that many times too. But think about this. I once heard a teacher say, It’s impossible to disappoint God because He doesn’t learn. To be disappointed means you have just learned something new about someone that you didn’t expect him to say or do.

God already knows the mistakes you are going to make and loves you in spite of them. That’s why He sent Jesus to die for your sins—past, present and future. His love for you is a done deal if you have put your faith in Jesus. He is the only way to heaven—not your works, your people pleasing, your church attendance, your pastor pleasing or even your charitable deeds.

Two thousand years ago, the sacrifice that takes away the sins of the world was made and He was hung on a lonely cross. He rose again from the grave victorious. Then, He punched a hole in the sky and made a way to heaven for you and for me. His name is Jesus and He alone is our means of salvation. Why not take a moment and let this amazing fact sink into your heart and mind?

Today, I am a blessed man. I have an incredible wife, Kim, and two wonderful sons, Davis and Oskar. I pastor an amazing church in Hoppers Crossing, Victoria, that I love very much and I have a passion to see the lost found and the found crowned. What that means will be become clearer later on in the book.

But my life hasn’t always been like this.

Thirteen and a half years ago, before I ever thought of writing this book, I was stressed out, washed out, drugged out, kicked out and locked out of living a meaningful life. I ended up wanting to murder someone. I was suicidal to the point that the hope of living was almost non-existent in my life.

But then something truly amazing happened that changed my life and the lives of other people forever. This defining moment was so transforming and mind-blowing to me that I sometimes think about it and can’t do anything else but cry.

I now invite you to come and share in my story as I go back in my mind and revisit the events leading up to God finding me, saving me and crowning me as a child of the King.

Some names in this book have been changed to protect identities.

Chapter 1

Dark Seeds Sown Young

My first memory was a good one. My older sisters told me that we used to live in the white house. I knew it sounded very important but I didn’t know why. Of course, I was getting confused. Our ‘white house’ was just that—a little white house in a suburb of Melbourne called Coburg. I was mixing it up with the White House, where the President of America lives, but it felt very important to me. I was innocent and happy.

Unfortunately the innocence and happiness didn’t last. My childhood memories from then on are full of fear, rejection, anger, violence, abuse, darkness, disorder and extreme sadness.

After living in Coburg, our family moved to Sunshine. It sounds beautiful, but it wasn’t. Sunshine, a suburb which included a lot of housing commission homes in the western suburbs of Melbourne, was a very rough and dangerous place.

I never really felt like I fitted in, at home or at school. I was the only boy in my family with five sisters. We were a Catholic family, which explains all the kids, and we lived in Sunshine in a three bedroom brown brick home with a white bungalow out the back.

Some of the most famous criminals that Australians love to celebrate have come from Sunshine or at least hung around there doing ‘business’. If you don’t know what I mean by Australians celebrating criminals’, have a look at the likes of Ned Kelly, Chopper Reid and all of the Underbelly TV series celebrities. We write books about them, tell stories about them and make movies and TV shows about them.

I grew up with some of the people who are depicted in those shows. I was involved in crime with them and I did drugs with them. As a child, I ate meals and played billiards and amusement games with them and I witnessed the damage caused to the lives of many people through their dealings with them. I am not proud of that fact and the only reason I will even talk about some of the things I saw while I was growing up is to bring glory to God and to brag about God’s love and kindness that He has lavished on my life.

Our street in Sunshine was a cul-de-sac with a small paddock or field at the end of it which we nicknamed the ‘Workys’. The paddock connected to another street and another cul-de-sac. It was the place where kids from the connecting street would meet to play football, set up BMX bike jumps and hide to experiment with cigarettes, alcohol and drugs.

There were always people hanging out in the Workys. If I ever walked through it at night I felt scared of the large groups of older kids sitting around smoking, drinking and drawing graffiti on the concrete path that wound through it. I would look straight ahead and avoid eye contact with anyone and pretend that I couldn’t hear the terrible names the kids yelled out at me.

Sometimes the bigger kids would walk up behind and follow me, tormenting and pushing me. Once or twice I would get a smack in the mouth or the head, but most of the time I would just keep walking, pretending that I wasn’t scared, until I turned into my street and got out of their sight. Then I would run home with my heart beating out of my chest.

Our house was on the corner of the cul-de-sac and another street. It was a place where people hung around outside the front of their houses, getting up to no good and I knew that there were at least three or four houses from which you could buy dope.

As I got a little older the realization of how many people sold drugs in my area was an eye opener. The money they had and the latest Adidas track suits and sneakers that they were wearing were very attractive to a young boy from a poor family.

My dad was in the Merchant Navy, away at sea traveling the world for months at a time. Dad was a very tall, handsome man and he was also very charismatic. People were very drawn to him and he was always the center of attention where ever he went. He was, however, a very selfish man and always made sure he had the best for himself. When he was home, he drank a lot of alcohol and was very violent. He was also a gambler—and not a very good one at that.

I loved my dad no matter how abusive he was and, as a little boy, I just wanted to make him proud of me. However, I discovered later on in life that this was an impossible thing to do.

My dad was a chameleon. He could change and fit in to any environment he found himself in. He was always dressed well and in public, he was very polite and gentlemanly but at any moment he could lose his temper, snap and knock someone out. He was a public angel but a home devil. It was a drastic change.

Sometimes Dad would take me to the horse races with him. If he won money on the races I would be treated well and would get soft drinks and chips. If he lost, though, it was scary to be around him. I wouldn’t talk in his presence. I would even make my breathing quiet because I was so scared that he would snap and smack me.

Some of the race meetings were a few hours’ drive away. On the way up, dad would drink a number of beers while he was driving. Then he’d pull his big V8 car over for a quick stop in some of the small country pubs, have another couple and get a few more for the journey. It was the same routine on the way home. Dad was not a happy drunk and when he went off and lost control, we all knew we’d better run.

Dad was the hardest man I have ever met. Just being around him made me feel weak on the inside. Spending time with him meant listening to all his negative thoughts about me and it was my task to take these comments on board and try to change myself in order to please him.

I always failed.

My first swimming lesson involved my dad throwing me in the deep end of the pool and yelling at me to swim back to him on the side of the pool. In grade four, when I was about nine or ten, dad would make me swim 30 to 40 laps of the local indoor pool before I started school, even in winter. He would make me dive into the outdoor pool and even though I couldn’t breathe when I hit the icy cold water and I felt like I was going to drown, I kept swimming because of the fear of my dad and because I wanted to make him proud of me.

As I swam my heart out, I listened to him screaming instructions at me from the side of the pool. He timed my laps, but if I didn’t get the times he expected he would tell me I was no good and that I would never amount to anything as an adult with such a lazy attitude. After that he would make me have a freezing cold shower in the changing rooms while other people had steamy hot showers. I cried in the shower and hoped that the cold water dripping down my face would disguise my tears so dad couldn’t see them.

My father loved nice things for himself like big shiny cars with V8 motors, good steak and nice Italian suits. At least that’s something good I think I got from him!

He also used to box when he was younger. Maybe that’s something else I got from him. I had boxing gloves when I was little and would spar on the front lawn with boys in the neighborhood. Sometimes dad would stand on the front porch and coach me.

Put your hands up and punch straight! he said. When he did that I felt a surge of power well up inside me. All of a sudden it didn’t matter whether I was getting hit or not—I was not scared.

When dad was watching me box I felt like the Incredible Hulk without the green skin. When he yelled out commands I became so indestructible that the friendly sparring usually ended up with either me or one of my friends getting hurt.

When I started to play junior football, dad would watch me play and scream out from the sideline, Run harder, tackle him, don’t be scared, hit him! but I never felt like dad was pleased with my performance. He talked about what he saw as my weaknesses with a disappointed and angry tone. I constantly said to myself, I will try harder next time, but deep down inside I felt that I was no good at footy, or anything else for that matter.

When the end of the football season came, the team gathered to eat meat pies and give out the ‘Best and Fairest’ award for the season. I thought for sure that a blonde-haired boy that everyone always made a fuss over would win. I didn’t like him. I thought he was a show off and a try-hard hero—and he didn’t like me much either.

As the votes were being read out, the boy with the blonde hair and the fan club had his name called out, as I expected. But then I thought I was hearing things. My name was called out as well! I nearly had a heart attack. There was another vote for him, and then another for me. On and on it went. I was speechless, and in shock. My dad had made me believe I wasn’t a good footballer and that I was useless but here I was in the running for the ‘Best and Fairest’ trophy. My dad also seemed speechless. His face didn’t convey any look of excitement at all as my name got called out and the votes were read, one by one.

Finally it came to the last vote. The blonde haired boy with the fan club and me were tied. The next vote was going to decide who would win. I felt frozen on the outside while a million butterflies were bumping around on the inside as I waited in anticipation. The

Reviews for CrimeSon

[carpe_librum · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Crimeson is the true story of Justin Gardner's life. Growing up in the gritty suburb of Sunshine in Melbourne, his father had a penchant for gambling and violence and home life was never stable. Consequently, Justin was shoplifting and committing crime from a very young age. By age 14 he was no longer going to school or living at home; instead he was doing and selling drugs and later associating with men depicted in the notorious Australian Underbelly TV series.By the age of 22, Gardner was a broken man, suicidal, depressed and spending hours every night plotting to kill a man for revenge. It was at the moment of his deepest, darkest despair that he called out to Jesus, and his life was changed from that moment on. Gardner was able to find a reason to live again, turn his life around and is now giving back to the community in his work as a senior pastor in a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria.Crimeson delivers Gardner's childhood history in an honest no-nonsense first person narrative. However part of me wondered whether Gardner's tone was bragging a little when it seemed to be lacking a little remorse or shame in certain sections. Perhaps this is because as a teenager, Gardner was lacking it himself, although I am also wondering whether the author has intentionally adopted this tone to make the novel attractive to YA readers - perhaps beginning to face some trouble of their own - in order to deliver the Christian message contained within. The choice of front cover does tend to support this theory.However what was missing in Crimeson was how the Underbelly crime figures - referenced a few times in the book - and others within the crime network, reacted to Gardner's sudden withdrawal from the scene. Did they make threats? How did Gardner sever his ties with these dangerous people?Gardner is now leading a fulfilling life giving to others, bringing people to Jesus and seeing 'the lost found and the found crowned' page 172. He tells us much about his dark past and his current work for the Church and his love of God's word, however I would have enjoyed reading much more about his transition, and the challenges he faced within.Many readers will find Crimeson inspiring, however I just wanted more.