Justin was addicted … until God spoke
Justin Keene’s legs were on fire. He’d been running from police for miles, bolting through neighborhoods and wooded areas of the northern Twin Cities suburbs. He heard a helicopter searching from above, and the sound of barking dogs hot on his trail.
“I was getting bloody from running through the woods,” Keene recalled.
Exhausted, he stopped and hid. While hiding, he listened closely to determine how much ground the authorities had gained. But he didn’t hear anything.
He quickly realized there were no cops, helicopters or dogs. Keene, high on crystal methamphetamine, had hallucinated the chase.
“I thought an entire task force was after me,” said Keene, now 38. “It was hardcore.”
The imaginary manhunt began when Keene, then in his 20s, was driving out of his neighborhood, hyper-paranoid. He saw a police cruiser and convinced himself that he was about to be arrested. He pulled his car over, got out, and started running.
Indeed, Keene had been running for years. His rap-sheet includes multiple drug arrests, four DWI convictions, and 15 minor-consumption violations. He spent his late 20s living out of his car, strung-out on meth. He’s been to treatment 10 times since age 13.
His life of destruction ended at age 30. One night, while in jail for driving a stolen car, God spoke to him.
“I heard Him, plain as I’m talking to you,” Keene said. “I was willing to do whatever He asked me to do.”
Keene’s first order of business was to enroll at the Salvation Army Rehabilitation Center in Minneapolis. After graduating from the free, faith-based program in August 2007, his life has become joy-filled, purposeful and productive.
This is his story.
Troubled beginnings
Keene grew up in Anoka, Minn., with his parents and two sisters. His family owns one of the largest commercial printing companies in the state.
Despite growing up in a family that seemingly had it all, trouble found Keene at an early age.
“I was drinking regularly at 9 years old,” he said. “I remember in the sixth grade, I’d miss Saturday football practice because I was hungover. My first detox was in the seventh grade.”
His parents felt helpless. “I could not be controlled,” Keene said.
At 16, he transitioned to marijuana. He smoked it every day. “That cut my drinking back during the week,” he said.
He was a good enough student in high school, earning what would have been A’s in several advanced-level classes. Problem was, he skipped school and was suspended so many times that many of his grades were reduced to incompletes. His truancies also rendered him ineligible to play his two favorite sports – baseball and football.
At 18, he graduated not from high school, but to harder drugs – acid and cocaine. “I’d snort cocaine before detention,” Keene said.
He dropped out of high school during the final quarter of his senior year.
Free rein
Fresh out of high school, Keen’s newfound freedom of living as an adult produced disastrous results.
“I was always messed up on something,” Keene said.
He started working at the family printing business, but was fired less than six months after for being late and not showing up.
At 21, he got married and was hired back by the printing company. He and his wife bought a home in Andover.
That same year, he started smoking crack. “I’d bring it to work,” said Keene, adding that his wife did not use drugs. “I’d buy it in ounces, sell some, and keep the rest.”
The printing company fired him again after he was arrested for DWI.
At some point during his marriage, Keene switched from crack to meth. He can’t recall when, because he can’t remember much of anything from his 20s.
“I remember bits and pieces of my 20s, but that’s all,” Keene said. “It’s like I didn’t even live.”
His wife left him after four years of marriage.
“That’s when everything really went south,” he said.
Four-year bottom
At age 26, Keene existed to smoke meth, and nothing more. He would spend most of the next four years living out of his car. Occasionally, he slept on somebody’s couch. He made money by selling drugs.
“I’d be up for days, hanging out in someone’s garage, tweaking out on things,” he said. “There was always a house or a garage to sit at. A lot of people were doing meth.”
He rarely ate. He looked emaciated, standing over 6 feet tall and weighing a paltry 160 pounds, about 70 pounds lighter than today.
“I maybe ate a cheeseburger every other day from (a fast-food) value menu,” he recalled.
When he slept, he did so for days at a time.
“If I couldn’t find any drugs, I’d lie down and sleep for four or five days – I’d just be out,” Keene said.
Understandably, he didn’t have much more to say about this period of his life.
“My story is so crazy, I’m not even going to touch on a lot of it,” he said.
Redemption
In early 2007, Keene was being chased by police. Only this time, he wasn’t imagining it.
He was driving a car he’d recently purchased from another drug dealer, unaware the vehicle was hot.
“I threw my dope out and didn’t get caught for it,” Keene said.
Nonetheless, with a rap sheet as long as his, being caught by police while driving a stolen car was enough for the judge to throw a hefty sentence at him.
“At my first court appearance, the judge said, ‘You’re going to prison this time, that’s just where you’re at,’” Keene recalled. “While I was in Anoka County Jail waiting for my sentencing, I accepted the fact that I was headed to prison.”
He accepted something else – Jesus Christ as his personal savior.
While in jail, two inmates began ministering to him. Their message was somewhat familiar, as Keene grew up attending church with his family on Wednesdays and Sundays. But he hadn’t been inside a church, or thought about God, for 13 years.
The inmates’ message captivated him. One night, as Keene was lying on his bunk, he prayed: “I told God, ‘You really want my life? Take it. Do what you want.’”
God answered immediately.
“At that moment, the Lord started speaking to me,” Keene said. “He said, ‘My son, I know the plans I have for you. I know your future wife. I have all of this taken care of.’ He spoke that clearly. I remember knowing that God had my life in His hands if I allowed Him to. In that instant, I felt changed. I remember waking up the next morning and not even wanting to swear anymore.”
Rehabilitation begins
Keene arrived at his sentencing in February 2007, fully prepared to go to prison.
“I had no qualms about going,” he said. “I figured it would give me time to read the Bible and get to know the Lord more. Whatever happened, happened.”
Thankfully, God’s plan for Keene did not involve prison.
“For some reason, they let me off to do treatment,” Keene said. “In jail, somebody came to talk about The Salvation Army. I didn’t even know they had a treatment center. I come from a family that could have afforded to send me to Hazelden. But I was fine with The Salvation Army. I was willing to do whatever God asked me to do.”
The rehabilitation center is a mostly free program funded by sales at Salvation Army stores, providing six to 12 months of food, shelter and residential treatment services for up to 130 men. The men receive counseling and spiritual support every night. By day, they perform volunteer “work therapy” for 36 to 40 hours per week. Most of this work involves the organization and distribution of clothes, furniture and other donations made to Salvation Army stores.
Keen spent six months at the rehabilitation center, graduating in August 2007.
“It was the best six months of my life,” he said. “I call it my honeymoon period with God. He showed me all kinds of new things every day, supernatural things I don’t even want to say because people will think I’m crazy.”
“I was set free,” he added. “I’ve never had any struggles thinking about alcohol or drugs.”
Keene today
Just under a year after Keene graduated, he began working at the Salvation Army store that’s attached to the rehabilitation center.
He hasn’t stopped. After starting off stocking shelves and pricing items, today he is manager of the lower level, where only brand-new items are sold.
Indeed, God made good on His promise about Keene’s “future wife.” Five years ago, he married one of his sister’s closest friends, a financial professional with two daughters, ages 8 and 11.
“I’d known her my whole life,” Keene said. “She called to see how I was doing one day. We started hanging out, and I ended up witnessing to her. I helped bring her back to Christ. One of my mentors said, ‘That’s your future wife.’ He wound up reading scripture at our wedding.”
The family lives together in Blaine.
Keene has two children from his first marriage, and another from when he was a teenager. He does not know the whereabouts of the latter. He would like to have a relationship with all of the children. After all that’s happened in his life, though, he’s learned enough to know that everything happens in God’s timing.
“God’s not going to give us everything we want right when we want it,” Keene said. “You have to go down tough roads to build character.”
“God has blessed me so abundantly,” he continued. “He has done things in my life I never could have imagined. The greatest thing God did for me was give me this testimony to minister to other people. He’s on the throne of my life, working out His purposes.”