REGGIE: You Can't Change Your Past, but You Can Change Your Future

by Reggie Dabbs, John Driver (With)

Overview

I don't have to see your home to know your shame . . . I have my own.

But someone loved me just the way I am, and someone loves you just the way you are.

Meet Reggie Dabbs.

Born as the result of a heart-wrenching decision made by his then sixteen-year-old mom, Reggie offers hope and inspiration to those who are stuck in the despair of their broken beginnings and are crying out for help. It is this first chapter in his life that sets Reggie on the journey of a lifetime--one filled with fear, regret, sorrow, and, ultimately redemption. Taking a chronological look at his life, Reggie reveals the transforming power of faith, weaving in personal anecdotes, biblical principles, and ten ways to discover everything from your voice and your name to your hero and your passion. Prepare to discover, as Reggie did, that although you cannot change your past, you can change your future.

"Reggie Dabbs is one of the strongest, most influential voices God has raised up to speak to this generation."--Jentezen Franklin

"Reggie not only will inspire you but also will lead you on a journey to the core elements of life--and the potential therein to change."--Mark Batterson

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780849946264
Publisher:	Nelson, Thomas, Inc.
Publication date:	03/28/2011
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	1,007,334
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Reggie Dabbs has been one of the most sought-after public school and event speakers in the United States and around the world for more than two decades. From professional athletes and stay-at-home moms to high school students, Reggie shares his own astonishing story of tragedy, redemption, and hope with millions of people each year. An acclaimed saxophonist, Reggie lives in Fort Myers with Michelle, his wife of thirty years. They have one adult son, Dominic.

John Driver, M.S. is an award-winning writer and collaborator of more than twenty-five books. A former teacher with a history degree from the University of Tennessee, he lives near Nashville with his wife, Laura, and their daughter, Sadie. He serves as the executive and teaching pastor at The Church at Pleasant Grove and hosts the weekly podcast Talk About That.

Read an Excerpt

REGGIE

YOU CAN'T CHANGE YOUR PAST, BUT YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR FUTURE

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By REGGIE DABBS John Driver

Thomas Nelson

Copyright © 2010 Reggie Dabbs with John Driver
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8499-4626-4

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Chapter One

THE PIGSKIN POET KNOW YOUR STORY

A REALITY CHECK

I don't have to know your name to know your pain ... I have my own. I don't have to see your home to know your shame ... I have my own. But someone loved me just the way I am, and someone loves you just the way you are.

I have recited this particular stanza to millions of people on every continent of the globe, even Antarctica! People so small they think no one sees them. People so much larger-than-life they sometimes forget the world is not, in fact, revolving around them. It does not matter who it is; these words mean something for everyone.

The author of this little piece of poetry may surprise you a bit. Yeah, that's right ... it was me! Hi, I'm Reggie.

You should probably know that I am considered one of the most popular public school and motivational speakers in the world. These are not self-proclaimed titles. A self-proclaimed title might be "The Ultimate Ice-Cream-Eating Champion of the Universe," and I wear my cone-shaped crown with pride! Nevertheless, each year I speak to more than 2.5 million students face-to-face. Little faces. Dirty faces. Hopeless faces. Faces that wear invisible masks to hide their anguish. Faces that reflect stories of heartache and despair that are beyond comprehension. Faces of apathy.

I meet these faces every day. I speak to them in huge assemblies and sometimes in smaller, quieter venues. The size of the room does not matter; the size of the truth in this poem does. Why? In it is the key to helping wounded kids—and wounded people in general—understand that they are not alone in their pain. Someone cares. Someone loves them. Someone wants to be their Daddy when their real daddies have rejected, abused, and abandoned them. Over the past decade I have been called Daddy by more of these precious students than I could ever recall. In letters. In emails. In Facebook messages. In person. Even though I may not tuck them in at night or hand them lunch money before they get on the bus, you can rest assured that they have a father (in more ways than one) who loves them. You see, understanding my story helps them delve deeper into their own stories and rise above the tragedy of living in this nasty world.

You cannot change what has already happened. Good or bad, what is behind you is finished—you cannot take it back. That is a fact we all know, except maybe those who are spending their lives trying to get their DeLoreans up to eightyeight miles per hour! The rest of us, though, live in reality. If we were to take an honest look within, we would all admit that the "reality house" does not always have the best view. Sometimes we pull back the drapes only to find a brick wall. Bummer. For most of us, our world is skewed by the reality of what dominates our vantage points. Our shortcomings. Our weaknesses. Our ineptitudes. Our fears. Our insecurities. Our inescapable family situations. Our pasts. So we usually just pull the drapes, turn on the television, grab a quart of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and let ourselves get whisked away into someone else's reality.

Hmmm ... I wonder why reality television is such a huge part of our culture? No doubt, we are mesmerized by the prospect of other people's realities being better places to live than our own. We long for their world, lusting for it with all we have within us. We fantasize about what it would be like to walk in their more expensive shoes, to drive their luxury cars, to sleep in their perfectly made beds. The grass is always greener, and whatnot. If I had their life, then my life would be livable. I would not have these scars. I would not have this home life. This marriage. This addiction. This disease. This crippling fear of movement. This past.

You can't change your past, but you can change your future by changing your present reality. The reality you have the potential to experience is not someone else's either; it is designed to fit you perfectly as if a master Italian tailor has taken your exact measurements and produced a personal masterpiece that is just your size. That is what I want for you. That is what I want for me.

In this book I have opened up my heart by honestly and candidly revealing some key details of my own life story. At times I skip around, but the "big stuff" does come in some semblance of order. Simultaneously I share some anecdotes and ideas that will bring symmetry to my personal narrative. Some are humorous; others may make your eyes glisten a bit. But as we go along, my goal is to explore ten specific aspects of life that I believe are keys to finding the present process that can renovate our futures. The following pages will not magically produce the fulfillment of these truths in you, but they hopefully will jumpstart some dead batteries that might be under your mental and emotional hoods.

I cannot change your reality, but I would love to journey with you through it. By the time you close this book, I hope you will have stumbled upon what it means to find a new reality by coming to grips with your story, your truth, your pain, your hero, your choices, your voice, your name, your passion, your future, and your Father. Let's begin the journey to knowing your own story by taking a look at mine.

PIGSKIN POET

In 1980 a young, handsome black boy of sixteen—that would be me—found himself living in Knoxville, Tennessee, home of the Tennessee Volunteers. Knoxville was the ultimate southern foot ball town. I attended Fulton High School on the north side; it is no surprise that I found some of my adolescent identity in football.

Why football? Uh, if you knew my size, you would under stand. I was not exactly going to make it in ballet, although I can still fit into the tights I wore in high school. Seriously, football was just my speed. With my height and weight, I could pulverize anyone who dared to cross my path. Put pads on me, and I was in heaven!

If you have ever seen Adam Sandler in the movie The Waterboy, then you should understand why football was an escape for me. Just like Bobby Boucher, I found ways to visualize and attack. Who were the objects of my aggression? Every kid who had teased me about my weight over the years. Every locker room moron who had made a stupid joke about my family. Every skinny little punk who had ever smarted off to me became my opponent on that field—and I executed my wrath upon them play after play. Yeah, it was awesome!

Football was my ultimate passion, so you can imagine my dismay when my English teacher told us that we had to write a poem for an assignment. Poetry? I eat poets! But "Mrs. Grammarstein" made the unfortunate mistake of telling me to write about something I loved. Hence my first work of poetic art was skillfully penned. It went something like this:

I love football, yes I do. I love football, how 'bout you?

I was shocked to learn that my teacher did not exactly share my enthusiasm. I guess my football poem was not quite Shakespearean in its quality, so I was given a second chance—one of many second chances granted to me in this life. She instructed me to write a new poem that night and turn it in the next day.

When English class rolled around the following day, some how, amidst the massive amount of responsibility and study in my life, I had forgotten to write the new poem. I have a little disorder called A ... to the D ... D D D ... oh, sorry, I trailed off there for a second. You get the point.

So I grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled the first thing that came to my mind and turned it in. After a review of my seemingly ridiculous effort, she stood up and read the poem to the whole class—the same poem you read at the beginning of this chapter. She praised me for my obvious hard work and tedious planning. The secret was safe with me—now it is also safe with you.

That particular moment in my story was significant. Somewhere in the recesses of my adolescent mind—a mind cluttered with random and frequent thoughts of football, girls, and all-you-can-eat buffets—I saw a glimpse of my future. Why did that matter? Because in every school into which I walk all around this world, I encounter kids right smack-dab in the middle of their cluttered adolescence. Their generation is expected to do nothing but embrace a self-centered existence of trouble and insignificance. They are called ignorant, worthless, and other corrosive labels by influential figures in their lives. The words become self-fulfilling prophecies as these students live up (or should I say, live down) to the expectations.

NOT-SO-GREAT EXPECTATIONS

When kids realize they are not expected to be anything or do anything significant, their lives can become stagnant pools of distracted water. There is no flow—nothing of value coming in and nothing of value going out. We have taught a generation that their teen years are just "practice life." Sure, we might give it other names like "sowing wild oats" or "finding yourself," but what we are actually telling them is that what they are doing right now does not count.

That is where Reggie (that's me in third person) differs from the rest of the world. I tell students that the life they are living right now, at any age, is not at all a practice run—it counts. I am not saying that mistakes cannot be forgiven or that detours cannot be rerouted. I am saying that students in their teen years can positively influence the world right now! Conversely, they can also set themselves back for years to come, or even permanently, by their actions or inaction.

Just ask a young single mom or a sixteen-year-old drug addict. They will tell you their choices are already impacting their lives for the long haul. Or even more tragically, stand over the grave of a young man who checked out of this life early because at that exact moment he did not understand the value of who he was. Someone needs to tell these kids the truth, in many cases, before it is too late.

Sometimes when I am speaking, I randomly pick out four young men from the crowd—guys of random age, size, and ethnicity—and have them stand up. I then tell them that they are now all my sons, which is usually pretty humorous, especially if they are white. I have always wanted white kids! At this point you can bet their friends will begin to tease them and laugh. Typical. I tell them to ignore everyone around them for the next three minutes and just listen to the words I am about to speak into their lives. For these few moments only my sons and I are in the room.

I point to the first young man. "I've always loved nicknames; maybe that's why I want all of my children to have them. You, my son, will be called Champion." The room gets quieter as the kids assembled try to figure me out. I continue, "I want every person in this room who has lost a loved one to cancer to stand up."

Immediately there is an alarmingly loud reverberation of hundreds and hundreds of chairs squeaking or bleacher seats creaking as a great number of students slowly rise to their feet. A sobering shiver ripples through the now silent crowd. The impact of this modern plague hits home with kids who were laughing hysterically only thirty seconds earlier. I continue to speak to my Champion. "Somewhere in the recesses of your mind, there is buried the knowledge that will cure this epidemic. You don't realize it now, and maybe you think that you don't have what it takes, but listen to me, my son: I believe in you! You can do it!"

With no hesitation I turn to the next young man standing. "And you, I'll call you World Changer. Listen, son, sometimes I travel to the continent of Africa. There is one area of Africa so decimated by violence and bloodshed that I'm not allowed to be inside the borders after sunset. I literally have bodyguards who escort me the entire time. I begin speaking to kids in the twelfth grade at 6:30 a.m., and by the end of the day, I'm speaking to preschoolers."

The student is obviously curious about why I am telling him such a long story while he is still just standing there. I don't miss a beat. "On a trip I took a few years ago, I had spoken all day long, and it was starting to get dark when a little boy took my hand, and through a combination of broken English and a translator, he asked me to come help him with his mother. His eyes were piercing, and my heart was moved. So with bodyguards in tow, I began walking across this field of wheat with this little boy toward his home, not knowing what I would find when we got there.

"Just ahead of us we saw that the wheat was flattened, so my bodyguards went ahead to check it out. They returned to inform me that the boy's mother had already died in the field.

"I turned around to walk away when I felt a little hand take hold of mine. In his best English my little friend whimpered, 'Will you help me bury my mother?'"

Pin drop. No one's talking now. The young man before me has suddenly forgotten the thousands of eyes on him. He is listening. "Son, somewhere inside you is the answer to the global decimation that is AIDS. You will end the issue. Your hands will heal the nations."

Next boy. "Your name is History Maker. From the deserts of Africa to the streets of New York City, there are millions of people starving to death. They lack clean water and adequate nutrition. But you, my son, you possess in your mind the ability to transform the science of agriculture. You will grow tomatoes as big as watermelons, and you will make miles of crops grow in the middle of deserts. You will solve the issue of world hunger."

Finally I turn to the last young man standing. "And last but certainly not least, your name is simply Legend. Your voice will transform people's lives. They will travel from hundreds and even thousands of miles around to hear the words from your lips. They will enter the room ready to give up—even to end their lives—but they will leave that same room with hope. Your words will mend the gaping wounds in the lives of a generation."

This is one of the solemn moments of my presentation for students—one of the few. It is solemn because most of those kids have never been exposed to the idea that they possess the potential to change the world. They think they are screwups. Misfits. Haphazard accidents stumbling through messy and mediocre lives.

Their age is irrelevant. Humanity itself is the common thread. They are you. They are your kids. They are me. They are my kids—kids that I want, even if no one else does.

THE TREASURE HUNTER

I did not start where I am today. I did not always possess the passion for students that now keeps me up at night. I started at the same place as most of the kids I just described: ground zero. Well, in my case, you might say I started at "ground negative."

That is the thing about life: you begin somewhere. Learning and accepting where you come from and what details of your story have initiated the sequence of events that has forged your path—the path that has led you to where you stand today—are the beginnings of the potential you have to make real changes to your present reality. Again, you cannot change the past, but you can face it. And you need to! It is impossible to live in today when your heart and mind still feel either painfully limited or foolishly overconfident by what happened yesterday. Either way, your story waits for you to acknowledge it. Within it is truth that needs to be brought inside from the cold of your past. That truth needs to live where you live—on the inside.

Don't panic; I'll go with you. For a minute, let's travel again back to my high school story and to the poem I scribbled on a scrap of paper in a moment of panic. When I recall that fateful day at Fulton High School when those words dripped improbably from my ballpoint pen, I am convinced there is hope for the kids I see every day. That moment in my story was a glimpse of a treasure few people in my life would have believed even existed. But it was there; and it is there in the lives of people all over this spinning globe. So what is this treasure they all possess?

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from REGGIE by REGGIE DABBS John Driver Copyright © 2010 by Reggie Dabbs with John Driver. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments....................xiii
CHAPTER 1: THE PIGSKIN POET KNOW YOUR STORY....................1
CHAPTER 2: TUESDAYS WITH REGGIE KNOW YOUR TRUTH....................19
CHAPTER 3: ENGLISH TEACHERS KNOW YOUR PAIN....................37
CHAPTER 4: BUS STOPS AND BATMAN KNOW YOUR HERO....................59
CHAPTER 5: OLD-SCHOOL PEAS KNOW YOUR CHOICE....................81
CHAPTER 6: PINKY-TOE IMPORTANCE KNOW YOUR VOICE....................101
CHAPTER 7: THE "BORN" IDENTITY KNOW YOUR NAME....................121
CHAPTER 8: FROZEN PLANES AND FAKE EARS KNOW YOUR PASSION....................145
CHAPTER 9: GOMER'S ODYSSEY KNOW YOUR FUTURE....................165
CHAPTER 10: BIG DADDY KNOW YOUR FATHER....................185
Notes....................217
About the Authors....................221