Shelby County Chief Deputy Chris George speaks at annual prayer breakfast

Shelby County Chief Deputy Chris George shared a message of faith, family and forgiveness with the Greater Shelby County Chamber of Commerce this morning.

George was the speaker for the chamber's 18th annual prayer breakfast at the Pelham Civic Complex. During his speech, he shared the story of his life and how he learned about forgiveness through his faith.

George’s mother was 19 years old when he was born, and she struggled with addiction until she died in her 50s. Right after he was born, George went to live with his grandmother, where he said he learned the cornerstones of faith.

“If it was not for those cornerstones,” George said, “and I’m telling you this if you have young children or you are raising young children or you have influence on young children, those cornerstones you put in place now are so important, because even though I lost my way coming up through my teenage years and early 20s, every time I fell down, because of those cornerstones, that house was so solid, I got back up.”

In his grandmother’s house, there were financial troubles — they were on food stamps for a time and went through a few winters without heat — but George said love and faith helped push through difficulties.

“I never look back, thinking times were hard, because there was so much love in that house,” George said.

George’s mom came and went throughout his life, and he did not know his dad was absent for many milestones. As he has grown older, George said he realizes that his circumstances have made him a better cop and father.

As he saw his mother battle with addiction, he learned a lot, he said.

“It makes me understand what addiction truly is,” he said. “See, anyone who is an addict, they weren’t always an addict. You may hate the fact that they’re an addict, and yes it’s a bad thing, but at some point they chose to consume what now consumes them, and it’s no longer a choice.”

One of his first thoughts when his son was born, George said, was how could his parents have left and not been in his life. Their absence, however, was one of the greatest gifts, he said.

“That was the best thing he could have done for me because that’s why I’m there every step of the way for those boys,” he said, pointing to his three young sons in the audience. “I know what it’s like to not have it, so I’m going to be there of them.”

George said he also had times where he struggled with forgiveness. When he was young, his mother was held captive by a boyfriend who raped and beat her for several days. The man was put in jail, but George harbored hate for him for several years.

“As I grew up, I started thinking about him, and I started thinking about what I was going to do to him when he got out of prison, and I was going to kill him,” George said. “That’s how much it was in my heart, that dark place in my heart. Even though it was a small place, there was a place in my heart that I knew exactly how I was going to do it.”

When that man was released from jail, George said his grandmother reminded him that he was not the one responsible for bringing justice. The message to not sink revenge did not immediately resonate, he said, but it soon sank in because of the lessons his grandmother established when he was young.

“It sunk in because those cornerstones were in place,” George said, “and I began to, I’m not going to go so far as to say I forgave that man, but I began to see that what caused him to do that was the same thing that was in my heart, and that was sin.”

George encouraged those at the breakfast to let things go, no matter how large or small the problem or dislike.

“You’ve got to let it go because it will consume you and it will build up, and it took from the time I was a kid to just about 15 years ago — that’s a whole lot of hate that was built up in my heart,” George said.

As a nation, state, county and city, George asked the crowd to live justly, humbly and lovingly.

“That means you’ve got to love people you don’t even like,” he said. “It’s all the same to God, the love that he has for us, and the sin that we have in our hearts is all the same to God.”