Troubled youth beats the streets of Cleveland to find purpose
April 2007
How does a boy go from playing little league baseball, to stealing
cars, selling crack cocaine, robbery with a firearm, and
kidnapping five people? That's the question Patrick Davis
has asked himself over and over again after being in and
out of prison and having his brother murdered while he was
locked up all before the age of nineteen.
"I can't say I remember a certain time when
things changed,” says Patrick. “Some people say you are
a product of your environment. To an extent, I agree with
that. But I think a lot of things contributed to my downfall
- my father leaving the five of us, the abuse, the desire
as a kid for acceptance but never receiving it. I never
would've imagined one day I would be facing 45 years in
prison for aggravated robbery with a gun, and five counts
of kidnapping.”
As he sat in his jail cell awaiting trial,
Patrick had much to think about. He pondered the time he
and his friends broke into the wrong car only to see a guy
come out with a 9mm in his hand. He thought about his overdose
on L.S.D. and being comatose for three days. His mind raced
to the time he was pushing crack on an opponent’s turf when
a rival dealer chased him off and ran his car off the road
with Patrick being thrust through the windshield.
"It seemed like at one point there were
so many people who wanted to kill me, I didn't know how
much longer I would live,” he confessed. “Sleeping with
a gun, the paranoid feelings followed me everywhere.”
Suddenly, the sound of a key in his cell
door brought him back to reality. It was a C.O. (Corrections
Officer or Guard), "Patrick, I've got some bad news for
you. Your brother, Larry, was stabbed to death last night
in downtown Cleveland." The news didn't seem real. As hard
as it was for Patrick to accept, his brother, Larry, was
gone forever.
Immediately, he went into an animalistic
rage, throwing chairs all over the room. It took about ten
guards to get him back into his cell. He spent the next
month in solitary confinement without having the opportunity
to attend his brother's funeral.
What happened next is something that Patrick
says he would never have expected. He had an intimate encounter
with the Creator of the Universe. After crying out to God
in utter desperation, "Jesus Christ revealed Himself to
me in a way I never dreamed was possible. It was purely
supernatural. From that moment I was forever changed, and
miraculous things started happening almost immediately."
He began to study the Bible and cultivated
a personal relationship with God. He began writing to relieve
stress while in prison - a therapy that would ultimately
lead to his artistic destiny. "I never had a dream to be
a musician. It was therapeutic to me, like a release. I
never would've believed that only 10 years from the day
my brother died, I would be writing this and things would
be the way they are now."
After serving three years in a youth prison,
Patrick left the Department of Corrections with a new vision
for life. In the last few years, he and his wife Jackie
have had the privilege of traveling all over the United
States and other countries performing their music and sharing
what Christ has done in their lives.
Patrick's core passion is for people who
are where he once was - "the broken, the lost, the outcasts,
the rejected and forgotten, the imprisoned, the addicts.
Who would've thought that one day someone in the United
Kingdom would buy my record, or someone in Sri Lanka would
be inspired by one of my songs. Or that Australia would
welcome me to do a month long tour. Who was I? Just a kid
from the streets of Cleveland that society had written off
as a lost cause."
Who is Patrick Davis?
In his words, "I am the rose that grew from
concrete. I am a survivor of the cruel streets of southeast
Cleveland. I am someone who has shattered statistics, broken
the curse, lived through death. I am a warrior who triumphed
over my enemies, I beat the odds, I walked through darkness,
only to find the light. I've engaged in a battle that's
been raging since the beginning of time. I've overcome my
past, my pain and my struggles. I should've died, overdosed,
been hit by bullets, been sentenced to life, I should've
went back to jail, I should've stayed in the streets, fulfilled
statistics, stayed hooked on drugs, became what they said
I would be… nothing. But I became something. He had a plan,
a future, a destiny that He placed inside of me since the
creation of the world. No bullet could stop it, no drug
could sedate it, no person could steal it, no prison could
bind it, no demon could hinder it, because greater is He
that is in me than he that is in this world."
Patrick sums up his musical aspirations
with these words: "My music is reality, not entertainment.
So when the lights go out, you will still hear my voice.
The trends will die, the images pass, but His word will
continue through the corridor of your mind and soul. It
pierces and divides, it rips through lies. It brings men
to their knees, the proud resist it, but the humble receive
it. Amazing grace how sweet the sound... that saved a criminal
like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind but
now I see."
