False Accusation Has Ripple Effect

“I was so caught off guard, you know, you're going to jail for lewd and lascivious acts upon a minor. And so, I mean, I just was, I was destroyed. I'm spending my 10th grade year in jail for something I didn't do.” Scott Revels never imagined his wild partying could destroy his life.

As a young boy tossed between two broken homes, Scott felt isolated and unloved. That ended when he started hanging out with his older stepbrother and his friends. He recalls, “I'm a kid in elementary school getting to talk about hanging out with high school kids, and I'm getting to go to parties and I'm at bonfires till one in the morning. At the time I thought this is a blast.”  

By middle school he’d found another way to belong – sports. Coming from a lower-middle class family, he dreamed of earning a college scholarship. Scott says, “I had something that I was good at. I think that part of it was, refreshing to know that like, hey, someone's actually cheering for me on the sidelines for what I'm doing, and they're announcing my name with winning this game, or hitting this home run, or making this tackle, or, it was just fulfilling.”

Then, at the start of Scott’s sophomore year, Scott was arrested. A girl had accused him of sexual abuse after a game of truth or dare at a party. Sitting in jail, Scott imagined the worst. He says, “It wasn't the life that I was supposed to live. I just made varsity football as a 10th grader. It was a big accomplishment. And, yeah, I'm spending my 10th grade year in jail for something I didn't do.”  

Despite a lack of evidence, Scott was advised to plead ‘no contest.’ While he only spent 10 days in juvenile detention, he was sentenced two years of psychosexual therapy and returned to school. Although he became a standout on the football and baseball fields, he carried the stigma of being a “sexual offender.” Ostracized by his peers, Scott felt isolated again and angry. Scott recalls, “It was a never-ending pit of anger and wrath that, you know, was there and just kept producing more and more. I'm releasing it through sports and covering it up through, you know, weed. It always worked in the moment. And then, you know, I'm left with me at the end of that high, at the end of that game, I was still left with me and that was a lonely place.”

After graduation, life began to look brighter when Scott earned a baseball scholarship. However, when he became ill his freshman year and was redshirted, Scott was enraged and had some choice words for the coach. It cost him his scholarship. Scott dropped out of school and started a concrete pouring company. Soon, he was drinking more and using harder drugs. He recalls, “So, the rage and outbursts just became stronger, and stronger, and stronger. I would have these outbursts where I'd just start crying in front of my friends and wanting to just punch and fight people and just getting random fights.”  

In his late 20s Scott decided to join a friend’s softball team that happened to be a church league. Scott had never thought much about God, yet he noticed something different about his teammates. He says, “They weren't judgmental, they weren't pushy with their religion. They just loved me. And even when I got kicked out of a game one time, they went to bat for me. It was just like an unconditional love.”

Still, it would take two years for Scott to accept an invitation to go to church with some of them. Scott says, “I didn’t know how I was going to be viewed and I walked through those front doors of that church, and it was so refreshing. It was just like instant relief that like, wow, church can be done like this. This is amazing.”

Scott started attending church almost every Sunday and began reading his Bible. The message of God’s love resonated with him, yet he still couldn’t shake his drug habit. Then, one Sunday, Scott realized he needed to surrender everything to God. He recalls, “I just knew that in that very moment, God was doing something in my heart, and I could just feel something different in the atmosphere. And I knew I needed to respond. I said, ‘Jesus, if you are alive and you're real, I need you to show me right now.’ All of a sudden, I felt a touch on the top of my head. God like gave me a new heart. That's the best way I can describe it. Like, He just gave me a new heart. He truly placed in me a love for people.”

Now that his heart had changed, Scott no longer had a desire for drugs or alcohol. He quit cold turkey and started the process of forgiving everyone who’d hurt him, including the girl who falsely accused him. Scott says, “I had no anger in me any longer. Anytime I would run into like, people that I did wrong, I just would apologize and make right, like God just transformed my heart and it gave me, gave me the ability to just like forgive and love.”

Today, Scott’s past is truly behind him. He is happily married with two wonderful children. Scott is excited to be a living example of Jesus’ power to change lives. He says, “My relationship with God is my lifeline. It's my, it's my love. It's my hope. It's my joy, it's my faith. Like He's everything to me. He can redeem you from any situation and circumstance no matter where you're at. He's greater and He's larger and He's bigger and He's so loving that He could transform you in a matter of seconds.”