From Crip to Christ

Drew Cotton of Cincinnati used to be a Los Angeles gang member with the Crips -- until a bullet changed his direction.

Cotton was watching a boxing match on TV with people who he thought were his friends. When Cotton went closer to the TV, one of the men shot him in the back of the head with a .22.

The bullet went through his neck, grazed his spine and finally stopped below his right eye. Cotton told the Cincinnati Enquirer what happened after that:

Cotton knows how lucky he is - how close he came to being killed or disabled. While he lay in a hospital bed, 'I wept like a baby for two days, repenting and thanking the Lord for saving my life,' he said.

And God spoke to his spirit, he said. 'He said very clearly, 'Surrender your life back to me and I'll show you who your true friends are. I will make your body better than it was before.'

All that happened. Cotton found friends and recovery at the Lord's Gym in Over-the-Rhine. He's gone from gangbanger to working man, from homeless to his own apartment, from thug to anti-crime counselor, from Crip to Christ.

'I could have had hate for the guy who shot me, but God imparted his love to me. That's not of my doing.'

Cotton now approaches young thugs on the streets to tell them about the alternatives to being killed or in prison forever.