From Poverty, to Prison, to Praise: “If Any Man Be in Christ . . .”

By Lamar Snowden

From Poverty, to Prison, to Praise is the journey that I was allowed to take in life in order to be a witness to all those incarcerated or one who may have simply lost hope. I grew up in the poorest neighborhoods in Las Vegas. As a teen and young adult, I became very sexual with countless women and developed a terrible anger problem due to a lack of patience. That anger ultimately exploded one spring morning, and I found myself facing a murder conviction. During my fourteen years in the state of Nevada prisons, I was overtaken by Gods sovereign grace and tender mercies. I made the decision to follow Christ and allowed him to change me and rule over me with his unconditional love. I said yes to Jesus and began to live a life of spiritual standards that can only be achieved if I would trust him and go through whatever was necessary in order to fulfill my calling and ministry of edification to a lost, dying, and confused generation of young men and women who remain incarcerated or living a life in society but having no hope nor direction. This book is to inform you that you can make it! Give God a try. He can do all things but fail. Know undoubtedly that God is able. God can. And God will. If you let him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532045103

Lamar Snowden

The writer of this book is currently living in the state of Nevada with his wife and small daughter. From poverty to prison to praise takes the reader through the struggles and ultimate victories of a balanced life of crime, lies, sex and violence. As one reads the accounts of the writers journey, it is the writers prayer that the spiritual influence of the God of heaven would cause you to consider trusting in Him no matter what you may find yourself up against. Some of the contents of this true story may even be too graphic for some. But its only intention is to show that God loves us all and that with faith in His plans for our lives, Hell bring us through victorious. We fight from the victory, not for the victory. And that victory belongs to God through the obedient death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. From poverty to prison to praise is the true story of I who had lived a life that was completely contrary to the life that I was created and ordained to live by God. While raised in a poor inner city community on the west coast of the country, I witnessed various behaviors and characteristics of people with all kinds of backgrounds. With no positive male figures present I found myself engaging in multiple unhealthy relationships with different women. There was violence, cheating, lies, and enevidably prison. Convicted of a crime that took the life of my then wife, I served fourteen years in a state prison where I ultimately surrendered my life and will to the only wise God of the universe. Through my faith in Him by the presence and indwelling of His spirit, I was called to minister forgiveness and reconciliation to a hurting, lost, blind, and confused world that has appeared to have given up all hope on life. The journey within the pages of this book is to testify on behalf of Gods sovereign and unconditional love for His called people.To also inform every man,woman,boy and girl that you can never go out so far to where God cant bring you back. I pray that youll be blessed and encouraged by the struggle, the journey, and the victory in this book that I was called to write. Jesus lives. Be strengthened and trust God not because of, but in spite of.

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Copyright © 2018 Lamar Snowden.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-4509-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4510-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018903057

iUniverse rev. date: 03/08/2018

A journey of poverty which led to a 14 year prison sentence and to emerge victorious through Christ while living a life of perpetual praise.

Is it ever too late for one to tell his story? Or does that person have to be an elite member of the world of entertainment, politics, or social status? Well, I am none of these. I am an everyday, ordinary American of African descent. My life’s journey has taken me to places, and in the company of people, I wish upon no man. Concrete walls, killings, rapes, lies, cheats, hustlers, racists, gays, gangsters, and corruptness at such a high level that nothing short of a miracle from God will cause men to believe.

Today, it’s only by God’s amazing grace that I am who I am and that I’m still here to share my life’s story. There are some who could care less what I have to say and then there are those whose life, I’m sure, would be forever changed if they’d heard of the saving grace and delivering power of the living God of heaven and Father of Jesus Christ, my savior, whom I serve and live for. To behold the glory and newness of life that God has given me, this finite being, which is enough to change the heart and mind of anyone that has ever considered giving Him a chance, but just wouldn’t surrender their heart or will. My life’s journey begins at the age of ten in a well

Known city on the west coast of the country.

G rowing up on the West Side, my four brothers, two sisters, mom and I were probably more loving, functional and strong minded than any other family of our small, confined community. It was a community housing development that was very well known in my community at that time, the 70’s to be more precise.

We were not the poorest family, but oh, did we rank fairly high. Welfare, food stamps, government cheese, WIC and medicaid were as common as breathing to all families in our hood. What strikes me in a very odd way, is that as young children, we didn’t know we were poor because we’d never seen nor been on the other side of the tracks.

Our world was just that, Our World. There were no fathers in this public housing development, just mothers, big sisters, aunts and grandmothers. And yet, out of the teachings, and disciplines from these remarkable, strong loving and determined women came a new breed of men. My mom raised seven children on her own. She started having children at the age of fifteen and stopped at twenty-three. And in all the years of my life, have I not known nor heard of another single mom whose strength and love compares to that of my mama.

Mama worked understandably hard to provide for her seven children and with five growing boys, who were very active in the community as well as scholastic sports; groceries were hard to keep in our cabinets and fridge.

The first job I remember my mom working was a fast food restaurant. It was the first one of its kind in the state. She would, at times, walk to and from work which was about three to four miles from our home. I couldn’t wait for my mama to come through that door so that I can take her shoes off and massage her aching feet. While I massaged mama’s feet, my brothers and sisters began to devour the leftover burgers and fries that she would bring home from work almost every day. I didn’t mind though. Although I was a small boy, I knew that mama worked hard for us, and that she was tired all the time. That’s why I didn’t mind rubbing her feet and pampering her the best I could.

At the age of twelve, I began spending more time with a cousin who lived in another set of projects in the north part of town. I loved going over there, I thought that the two story apartments were the most Richey-Rich thing for black people to live in. My cousin would take me to the basketball courts in the projects. I was very fascinated with the bigger and older guys’ playing skills. A couple of those guys went on to become professional players But the projects introduced me to more than just pick up basketball, It also had a variety of girls. Young girls who were, as the old folks would say, very fast, meaning loose or easy. And I, not being from around there, was the pick of the litter. There were two in particular that had my attention. One was extraordinarily sweet as pie; she had the character and personality of a southern belle. The other, however, was a very well known girl. Well known as to have been with lots of boys, especially the older boys that were in high school, even though she was only 12. It was that fast, dark chocolate, grown woman body girl to whom I lost my virginity to. A choice made way back then that I deeply regret to this day.

I wish I could have held out a little longer with experiencing sex. That first time set off such a chain reaction of sin in my young life.

So on Saturday night, as I talked to these girls on the phone, I would invite them to Church for the following morning. It was very obvious that my motive for doing so was to sneak out of Church and go somewhere to have sex. My siblings and I were to walk home immediately following