Courtesy photo. Richard Martin Jr., right, and members of the Trail Church hike together.

A second chance at life is perhaps an understatement when talking about Richard Martin Jr.’s life today. Richard and Tina Martin’s story sounds like a Hollywood script with more twists and turns than a person might think possible. Only when Richard developed a personal relationship with God did he get his new chance.

Richard gives his testimony regularly about his “wayward” ways. He tells about how he chose drugs, drinking and other women over his wife Tina and their two children. Tina would leave him and remarry while Richard continued his reckless ways.

Alone, jobless, bankrupt and facing decades in prison for dealing drugs, Richard was finally forced to tell his father, Richard Martin Sr., the truth about the life he had been hiding from them. The family rallied behind Richard and hoped the judge in Texas, where he was arrested, would show some mercy. The judge gave Richard a list of ultimatums that seemed impossible.

“I knew my dad was such a good man and I knew he had a direct line with God. I always thought of my daddy as Moses, my whole life. I’d never prayed with my father. I never shared a prayer or never did anything to pray together. He said, ‘Come on, lets hold hands right here and pray right here.’ I said, ‘OK, I ain’t got nothing else.’ So we hold hands and he prays, ‘Lord Jesus, we need your help. Amen,’ and that was it,” Richard said.

Richard was allowed to return to Limestone County to serve four months and when he reported to do his time, Richard grabbed his clothes and his Bible.

“The stipulation was if I got arrested again in the next 10 years, I would have to do 20 years in El Paso, no questions asked. I told myself that I am going to quit. I was in there on my son’s 10th birthday,” he said through tears. “We always had big birthday parties for the kids and tons of cousins. I knew I wan’t going to be there and it was going to be a major deal that he would always remember that. I was hurt by that. I wasn’t going to be there for my son and I am not going to miss anymore time with my kids. I don’t care if I have to pick up tin cans or whatever I got to do. I didn’t have an answer so I picked up that Bible. I said, ‘God, if you’ve got anything for me right now, I need you to smack me in the face right now. I just need to know that you got me. I will just open this Bible right down the middle, I will point to something and I am going to read it.”

Richard pointed and when he looked, his finger was on Psalms 32:8: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go.”

This was the first thing Richard read from the Bible in his adult life. He flipped a few pages and did it again.

This time, he read, “‘The Lord keeps those who keep him. I will bless you and show you the way to go.’ I started reading the Bible and I read the Bible four times in those few months. I knew that God was real because there’s too many events and too much evidence. There must be a purpose for me,” he said.

Once out of jail, finding a job was difficult. Grayson Bailey, Richard’s cousin, finally gave him a chance.

He pulled Richard aside and said, “If you want anything out of life, Richard, you’re going to have to work hard for it and hard work will keep you out of trouble and get you anything you want. I promise you that.”

“I had no skills,” Richard said. “I started pulling weeds.” When he wasn’t working for Grayson, he would do yard work for people for free, just to keep busy. “Every day I was doing something.”

By this time, his children were in high school, and his daughter was playing soccer. He began taking care of the grass at the soccer field. Tina’s husband, Brent, asked Richard if he could use any help and soon the two men, who once could not even have a conversation, became unlikely friends.

“I had changed and I knew I had changed. We talked and we got to be friends and worked together,” he said.

Through time, Richard and Brent became close friends and because of Brent’s constant urging, Richard finally attended a Sunday church service.

“I told him the next Sunday that it rained and I couldn’t work, I would go to church. The next Sunday, that next day, it rained. The preacher started preaching and every word that came out of his mouth seemed like he was talking directly to me,” he said. This was the beginning of Richard attending church and Sunday School class.

Several years later, a short time after talking to Richard on the phone, Brent was killed in an accident on Highway 31.

“Brent was the reason I started going back to church and the reason I started praying again. When I couldn’t be a father and a husband, he was. It was hard,” he said. “During this whole time, it got me to learn how to pray and how important prayer and one-on-one time with God really is. It’s the most important thing you can do.” he said.

After a few more years, Tina and Richard rekindled their relationship and eventually remarried.

“My life … there’s is too much evidence that God exists and He is working for the greater good even during the worst. If you just open it up and accept it, it blesses you and everything is so easy when you do right. Honesty, truth and hard work is great blessings and give credit where credit is due- to God above,” he said.

Now, Richard and Tina have started Trail Church.

“We all just go out in the woods with and share the Word with one another. Just enjoy the hike and the surroundings. There’s just too much evidence of God and His creation- people, nature and all the beautiful things in this world. If you are really into what God wants, your discernment is through the roof,” he said.

There are many people along the way that Richard is grateful for but none more so than his father. “If anybody else had been my daddy, they’d of kicked me out a long, long, long time ago. I love that man to death. He and I … he’s the best. I don’t call him daddy. I call him Moses. He is a modern-day Moses. He is my rock and my go to. When I do not have an answer of what I need to do, I go to him every time. He’s always there and I have never met anyone like him. He is optimistic and as good as gold,” Richard said.

Today, Richard and Tina live next door to his father in Elkmont. They have two children and two grandchildren. He speaks regularly to church groups. He still works for his cousin and is also working on a book about his life.