At our recent Board Meeting one of the Board members suggested that I include some pictures in the newsletter. It is very difficult to get permission to take pictures in an institution. However, I am working on it, but until then, I wanted to try to give you a couple of “word pictures” from men that I minister to. I want to let you know what we are doing and share some of the results. Rather than tell you myself, I have just copied word for word some of the feedback that I received during the month of July. Some are from those that I am currently reaching out to, and some are those that I have reached out to who have gone on to other prisons.
One of the men in my leadership class sent me a short version of his testimony. You may know a young person who might be facing the temptations to drink or do drugs, who would benefit from reading his testimony.
I am in prison, serving life without parole in a state penitentiary.
In here I have a lot of time to think back over my life, and in doing so, I can recognize all the many changes I have undergone. Every stage of my life has been marked by extremes: from a destitute hitchhiker sleeping under a bridge, to owning my own business, then back down to a lonely convict in a cold prison cell. Yes, my life has run the gamut of human futility, only to come face to face with the wretched soul I had become!
In an effort to fill the emptiness, I tried all manner of sin--drugs, alcohol, sexual immorality--only to experience deeper emptiness and increasing degeneracy. The mental and physical deterioration was gradual but nonetheless devastating. I began to feel there was no reason for living. Yet, I failed to realize that I was slowly and methodically killing myself by my uncontrollable addictions to drugs, alcohol and sex. I was also unaware of the self-inflicted wounds that were festering and oozing a bitterness that was consuming my heart, mind, and soul.
Then on a terrible and tragic night in December 1992, with my own hands I assaulted my wife and 15-year-old stepdaughter. To this day I am not sure why or how it happened, but on that night in a drug-demented state of mind I assaulted two women whom I loved and was to protect as a husband and father. If you are one of those who believes drugs do not cause harm, I can tell you first- hand: they will and do! A simple drink may seem harmless, "and everyone does it." I thought that once! It is not so much the effects of the one beer, but rather the pattern it sets in your life, which finally places you in the crushing grip of addiction and leads you down the road to certain destruction!
Fortunately for me, a miracle was wrought that broke the bonds of addiction, restored my life, filled the emptiness in my heart and transformed this once-wretched soul into a useful human being. A miracle only possible through Jesus Christ.
Friends, if there has been any purpose in my sin-filled life of misery, it must surely be to show others the wonderful healing transformation God will perform if we will only call upon Him.
If you, too, have felt as I have, or if you are at this time struggling with addiction, alcohol, peer-pressure, or plain loneliness, be assured there is One who can pluck you from the mire of self-indulgence, the grime of sinful lust, and the blackness of an empty heart and wash you white as snow. Your only hope--as was mine--is in the saving grace of Jesus. He and He alone can bring to your life this miracle of redemption and give you the peace you seek for your troubled soul! Trust Him!
I have the privilege of speaking to many different types of churches. When I am in these Churches I ask myself, “Why do these people come to this Church?” Most people would think that they attend a certain type of Church because they agree with the basic doctrines of that Church, but I believe that most people are in the Church they are in because of the people that are there. Relationships more than doctrine hold people together.
In the prison ministry I am related to many inmates who were in one of the churches that I minister in regularly and then they get transferred to a lower level facility. The only way our relationship continues is through the mail. The inmates have plenty of time to write. I have a stack of mail to answer. If you have written me and I didn’t write you back, it’s coming.
One of my former students from my leadership training class sent me this letter from another prison. He is a dear friend whom I should have written much sooner than last week.
“Enclosed are some stamps; in case you have lost my address - which by the way is on this letter; as it has been on every letter I’ve sent to you over these past months. Of course, you may not have noticed the address. If you ever even read the letters!!! It’s not that I care; I mean, why should I care? I mean, are you supposed to be important to me or something? Do you think I really care about you?”
“Now that I’ve vented and allowed my pain to be expelled, I want you to know that I had begun to get very concerned . . . ” My friend then goes on for three pages filling me in on his life at this new prison. Then these are his closing lines.
“...Call the Chaplain and try to set up a seminar for late August or early September. Whenever. It would be good to see you . . . You have a lot of demands on your time; too many! Give more of yourself to Pat and the children. Begin to reduce your commitments. Really do it!”“Many come and go. Only a few remain. I love you.”
If ever there was a man that I wish I could take his picture it would be the man who wrote me the following letter. He is an artist and the last time I visited him I asked him to do a self portrait. His face shows so plainly the hardness of a criminal, But in his eyes you can see he loves Jesus.
“... Thanks for letting me share a part of me with you from my old self. I’ll never go back to that old man again. I love this new side because now I care about people, even in this environment. (He is in the worst prison I have ever been in.) Jesus shows me how to love and think of others in a different way than my old self did. I love you in the name of Jesus because he loved us enough to die on the cross for us . . . Jim I’m not quite ready to do the self portrait yet . . . ”
Toward the end of July our three older boys went to Texas to spend two weeks with our friends, the Kerrs. While there, they attended church camp for a week with the Kerr boys, Ryan and Jason. While we noticed a tremendous drop in our grocery bill, the Kerrs noticed a significant “change” in theirs also! To give our boys “peace of mind”, we locked their bedroom door while they were away to keep Rachel and Jimmy from getting into their “stuff”. ( I also found that if I didn’t enter their room, I couldn’t be reminded of how quiet and empty it was in there!)
The younger children still managed to be quite “creative”, finding that there weren’t as many “eyes” around to keep them from it. Jim discovered them one evening in the upstairs bathroom with the water running, letting the sink overflow onto the floor. As he turned to send them to their room, he caught sight of the toilet. It was full of toys! (We found out the next day that they had flushed some blocks down the toilet...a plumber’s ticket to financial security.) The very next evening Jimmy proceeded to draw an unusual mural on the kitchen wall in literally a matter of a few short minutes. (He had both hands going.) Part of his punishment (There was another price to pay.) was to stand on a little step stool close to the wall and stare at what he had done. This, of course, gave Jim a breather, because he at least knew where Jimmy was going to be for a while!
Rachel, Jimmy, and I made a quick trip to Gainesville, FL in July to attend my mother’s retirement party at Shands Hospital. For “various reasons”, we had to make three stops before we had been on the road two hours! (Every man’s nightmare.) My sister arranged a babysitter at her home there, and then I surprised my mom at the hospital. It was really special to be at a party in her honor and to meet all of the people who’s lives she has touched over the years. We left early the next day to drive back to Pensacola, since I had to be at work at 3pm that day!
It’s now August, and we are getting “school minded”, I suppose like everyone who has school aged children. Jim is getting ready to go out of town this next week, and I’m trying to figure out how to cut down on my hours at the hospital. Is it “just us”, or did summer fly by faster than usual this year?
If I could let you meet those I reach out to, they would all say “Thank you for sending Jim.” I am grateful to be able to take the gospel to men and women in prison. Thank you for the part you have in sending me.
I want to thank Pastor David Kerr, in Arlington Texas, who designed, developed, and maintains a web site for Reconciled Ministries. You can visit us at:
http://www.flash.net/~go4crown/reconmin.htm