Surrendering to a Higher Power
“My mom, she always taught us to protect yourself, fight back,” said Raittia Rogers. “She embedded in us, this madness and this anger, this RHAAA!! Come for whoever that’s coming out to get you. Get them before they get you.”
Raittia Rogers and her four siblings were on their own growing up. Their mother, who was addicted to drugs and alcohol, showed them more about fighting and shoplifting than she did the love they needed.
“I don’t remember her saying, 'I love you, you’re beautiful, you’re going to be somebody one day. You need to stay away from these boys, you need to finish school, you need to go to college.' I never, I never got that.”
Early in her childhood, she was close to her father, until he went to prison to serve a twenty-year sentence for robbery. “I missed my dad so much. I missed him so much. I loved my dad because he did not treat us the way the other parent did,” said Raittia.
Driven by hurt and anger, she looked to other places for love and acceptance. At 13 years old, she joined a gang, the Crips. She started selling and using drugs, skipping school, and was always ready for a fight.
Raittia said, “I wanted to get people's attention, and also to teach people to back off me. That was the thing to do, to be mean, to be cruel, to show other people that I'm tough and you just can't come and do these things to me. And that’s what made me feel more confident, like we were family and we had each other’s backs. It was the love and concern, the care that I didn’t have at home.”
There were some who cared: teachers who tried to encourage her and show her how she could create a better future for herself. Raittia wasn’t interested, and her rap sheet continued to grow.
"I couldn’t tame myself. You know I was untamed,” said Raittia. “When you get used to something growing up you just don't think it's enough, even though you might have gotten in trouble, you might have got fussed out about it. You might have had to face juvenile time, which I did. It just kept happening.”
By 14, Raittia was living in a home for delinquent youth. By 15, she was pregnant. It was then she was sent to a Catholic home for young mothers where a caring staff tried to help her get her life on track. “I saw the love and accepted it and it felt different,” said Raittia. “It made me feel pretty inside to have someone being concerned about me and so it was great.”
Then at 16, after her son was born, she’d fall right back to where she started. She’d moved into an apartment on government assistance, when her old gang started coming around. Unable to resist their influence and acceptance, Raittia would spend the next five years stealing, fighting, and now selling her body for drug money, while family members cared for her son.
Raittia said, “I'm going to do whatever it takes to do what I need to do because I'm affiliated with this gang. And at the time, I loved it. I love to do those things.”
Her days of running the streets would finally come to an end. After robbing a convenience store, she hit the manager with her car while trying to flee the scene. The crime was caught on camera, and Raittia, now 21, was later arrested. This time, no one came to her rescue.
“All the other times when I got caught I got bonded out. You know I had my sister got me out, there was an old pimp that got me out, there’s other times the baby’s daddy bonded me out. This time it didn’t go down that way.”
Sitting in jail, abandoned and alone, Raittia remembered the people who’d shown her love and kindness over the years. Out of all of them, the memories of her father would help her find her way. Up until his arrest, he had her pray the Lord’s prayer every night before bed.
“I cried out to God and I meant it from the bottom of my soul,” said Raittia. “All this stuff, this gang banging and selling drugs and fighting and robbing, it flashed before my eyes, and God, He just came. It was right there. It’s like, this is a miracle for me. And I accepted Jesus, and it changed me from the inside out, it changed my whole life. God told me that even though this happened, I'm still somebody. I'm valuable. It was out of this world. It was wonderful. It was peaceful. It was powerful.”
Serving an eight-year sentence for a robbery with a dangerous weapon, Raittia overcame her addictions, and grew in her faith, as she shared with others what God had done for her.
She recalls, "It filled me up with peace. It gave me a love I never knew about and gave me a love to love people, not with the love that I can give, but with the love of God that's on the inside of me.”
After serving 3 years, Raittia was released and later reunited with her dad after his release. She also reconciled with her mom. “It’s something God put in me. I just love my mom. It’s crazy. She can call me now and say, 'Hey, I need,' and there it is. Just to help my mom, I love my mom.”
Now married, happy, and proud of her grown son, Raittia understands God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness, and why she needed to surrender to find freedom.
Raittia said, “Everything was up. It’s like the cops coming in to bust a house, and you gotta put your hands up. It’s like, that was my moment, Holy Ghost arrest. Put your hands up. It’s Holy Ghost arrest.”
