– Mardi Ford

The Observer

When Chuck Robinson was asked to talk a little about the Son Light Fest and Jesus, he was inclined to say no.

Not only did he dread being interviewed, but Robinson hates having his picture taken. Fortunately, God had the final say.

“I’ve swung a pretty wide loop in this valley. Raised up a lot of hell. God’s done so much for me, I didn’t see how I could say no,” Robinson says. “I decided I’d raise up Jesus for a change.”

At 52, Robinson came of age in the 1970s. Say that to someone who was there, and that’s about all you have to say. But for those who weren’t, well, Robinson was a hippie cowboy whose life revolved around rodeos, women, drinkin’ and drugs.

After a stint in the service, he decided it was time to settle down and be a dad. He also went back to church, but for much of the time, he says now, he was a hypocrite.

“There’s nothing good about it. Being a hypocrite’s like having a cancer eat away at you bit by bit,” he says.

Then the ’90s hit and brought his life to a screeching halt.

In 1992, he lost his youngest son in a shooting accident.

“You never get over losing a child. Eventually, you learn to live with it. But back then, it crumbled me,” he says. “My oldest son was my backbone for a couple of years. I wasn’t there for him when he needed me. I let him down. He’d lost his brother and then he had to watch me slipping away.”

Five years later, Robinson found himself in the middle of a divorce he never saw coming. That same year, his dad died.

“I was in a really bad mood for about four years after that. But it’s easy to hate everybody else when you hate yourself,” he says.

Robinson thought about killing myself more than once. Until God stepped in and spoke to him about it.

“By then, I had let go of everything in my life. But I had hung on to God. With my fingernails,” he says, a steely glint in his eye.

“I think He honored that. He said, ‘Chuck, you’re not doing this for me. Is there any reason to be doing this?’ Man, it was deep. It cut me deep.”

That was the last time he ever thought about suicide.

Robinson doesn’t know exactly what brought him to the first Son Light Fest, except he remembered both Kemit Knight and Armen Woosley, festival organizers, from the old days when they all had long hair.

“I’d heard Kemit had become a preacher. Maybe I saw him at the Son Light Fest, I don’t know something pulled me in. I figured it was a place I could hang around with the right kind of people, for a change,” he says.

For the past few years, he’s been in charge of security for the festival. And although he knows it’s going to mean long hours after working his day job, it is something he looks forward to.

“The Son Light Fest has been an anchor for me,” he says. “I look forward to it every year.”

He attends Damascus Road Ministries, the church where his old friend Kemit ministers, and even joined the worship team.

“Man, when they asked me to do that, I just didn’t feel worthy. I’d played in so many bar bands,” he says.

He prayed for months before he felt the peace he needed from God to say yes. Music has become one of the greatest joys in his life again.

But as if God couldn’t bless him enough, six years ago he met the love of his life after resigning himself to being single.

“I knew who Denice was. I knew her and her husband before he was killed. So when I sat down in church and was looking around, I spotted her and thought, ‘I know her.’ She saw me, we made eye contact, and it was a jolt. I mean a jolt. For both of us,” he says.

Denice was raising her 5 year-old granddaughter, Kennedy, who’d told her that she thought it was about time she had a daddy. So Denice prayed about it.

“She told Him, ‘I’m not dating, so if You want me to get married again, you’re going to have to do something for me to trip over him.’ And I was the log she tripped over,” Robinson says.

“Denice’s initial reaction was, ‘Uh, uh.’ She knew all about me. But she couldn’t argue with God.”

Or the jolt.

And Jigger, Robinson’s pet name for their now 11 year-old daughter, got her daddy.

“I praise God for what I’ve been through. It set a foundation. He brought me out of the darkness. I was definitely one of those guys who could have ended up on skid row,” Robinson says.

“If God can love me, He can love anybody.”