Chris Singleton shares how unspeakable tragedy sparked his relationship with Christ and a mission of love

Liberty University kicked off its Spring 2024 Convocation schedule on Friday, welcoming award-winning author, inspirational speaker, and former professional baseball player Chris Singleton to the Vines Center stage to share his story of overcoming grief with the message of love and unity.

Prior to Singleton’s message, Chancellor Jonathan Falwell recognized a group of 11 from LU Send that spent part of Christmas Break in Maui, helping recovery efforts from last year’s wildfires. Additionally, he prayed over the roughly 1,000 students from Liberty University who made the trip to Washington, D.C., early Friday morning for the annual March for Life.

Singleton was introduced on stage by Liberty President Dondi Costin, who previously served as president of Singleton’s alma mater.

Singleton’s journey as an inspirational speaker and author has taken him across the country, he said, sharing the story of his mother, the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, who was one of the nine people killed in a racially motivated mass shooting on June 17, 2015, at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.

Singleton was an 18-year-old baseball player at Charleston Southern when the tragedy occurred. He shared how through the game he loved, a Bible verse was presented in his life that would shape more than just his playing career but also the life that he would live in the wake of his mother’s death.

At the time, Singleton said he mostly maintained his relationship with God because his mother wanted him to, and while riding to an away game at Clemson University, he saw one of his teammates writing a Bible verse on his athletic tape.

“I thought maybe it would give me superpowers,” Singleton said. “So I pulled out my Bible app … and Scripture came to me; it stopped me in my tracks — Proverbs 24:10. It says, ‘If a man falters in the day of adversity, he is a man of little strength.’”

Singleton said he wrote the verse “everywhere” on his athletic gear and prayed that God would allow him to have a good game. Although Singleton had the self-proclaimed “best game of my life” that day against Clemson and continued to write it for the following games, he said he didn’t know at the time that God was preparing his heart with that verse.

“I didn’t realize that God gave me that verse for something totally different,” he said, “for when I couldn’t rely on just my grandparents’ faith, or I couldn’t rely on someone else’s relationship with our Lord and Savior. That Scripture was given to me for June 17, 2015.”

He recalled receiving a phone call that prompted him to rush down to the church. After getting to an area where families were told to go to, he was told by another woman at the church that his mother had been shot.

“I thought to myself, ‘Maybe she got shot in her hand or her leg. But there’s no way in the world someone took my mother away from me. We have Bible study tonight’,” he said.

Later that day, Singleton had to describe his mother for medical officials on site, and he was told that she was one of the nine killed in the shooting that day.

“That Scripture was given to me for when I had to tell my little brother, 12, and my little sister, 15, that we wouldn’t see our mom again,” Singleton said. “That Scripture was given to me for when I found out that it wasn’t just my mom, but that she was one of eight others that were taken away because of a chemical in our skin, the same chemical that makes me the color that I am.”

The tragedy, he said, “sparked my personal relationship with our Lord and Savior,” and led him to “love the way my mom does,” by seeking to forgive the man who took his mother’s life.

“How can I not forgive when I’m already forgiven in Luke 23:34,” Singleton said. “(Jesus) is talking about us (in the verse), ‘Forgive them Father,’ the perfect example of forgiveness that was placed on my heart.”

While his journey has taken him all across the country, Singleton recalled a particular interaction at a retirement community in South Bend, Ind., where he was living while playing minor league baseball. While talking to residents about his journey of love and forgiveness, he met Esther, who showed him a picture of her two great-granddaughters — one white and one black. After Esther’s biological great-granddaughter’s twin died during delivery, the family decided to adopt, and Esther said she often tells the girls that “even though they’re different on the outside, on the inside, where it counts, they are just as sweet.”

“I thought to myself right there, ‘What a beautiful example of God’s love,’” Singleton said about the love that family showed through adoption. “If my mother’s killer had a grandma like ‘Grandma (Esther)’… my mom would still be here.”

That type of love, he said, is why he continues his mission of speaking truth and unity at companies, schools, and all that will let him proclaim his testimony.

“When we talk about love covering a multitude of sin, my mission and my heart is that we can love people even if they think differently than us,” Singleton said.