Metro Voice News Celebrating Faith, Family & Community
Four years ago, Kwame Kilpatrick, the disgraced former Detroit mayor, faced another 20 years in federal prison in a pay-to-play scandal. But just before President Donald Trump left office in his first term, he commuted the rest of Kilpatrick’s sentence.
“Every day, I wake up and walk around, and I’m just like, ‘This is crazy, Lord,'” he told “The Epoch Times.” Kilpatrick now works as a political consultant, has launched a Christian ministry with his wife and speaks out for criminal justice reform.
None of that would have materialized, he said, if not for his spiritual transformation and the intervention of those who believed in his redemption.
“I believe that God definitely overwhelmed him and turned his heart toward me,” he said. “I don’t believe that there’s a person on earth, besides my mom and dad, that has given more grace, mercy and blessings to me through God than Donald Trump.”
While in prison, Kilpatrick signed up for a course at the chapel. After the first session, its instructor pulled Kilpatrick aside for a soul-searching talk. And, on that date, June 9, 2014, “I truly gave my life to the Lord,” he said. “I had no expectations of freedom. I just didn’t want to be the guy that I was anymore.”
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Although Kilpatrick had been raised as a Christian, he said his past spiritual life had been superficial at best. His revelation in that prison chapel ushered in a rebirth and transformation that led to his current ministry work. “The Bible says, ‘By their fruit, you shall know them,'” he said. “That’s what I tell people.”
Now, each day represents “the blessing of having another chance to make a difference, not just in my life, in my family’s life, but in somebody else’s,” he said. “So, whatever I’ve done to hurt anybody, whatever I’ve done to disappoint anybody, I’ve apologized seven million times, because I wear that. It’s not about what I say, it’s about how I live now. And if people don’t believe me, that’s OK. Time will tell.”
–The Epoch Times
