Life Without

I visit a level 5 prison about once a month as a volunteer chaplain, along with several others that are a part of the same ministry. We go in to share Christ’s love for the inmates and spend time with them listening to their concerns for their families, personal safety, and fellow inmates. The institution we visit has approximately half of it’s population serving life without parole. So, when there is no hope of getting out, sometimes “anything goes” on the inside.

Inmates are beaten, stabbed and/or murdered for as little as a pair of tennis shoes or drugs, or even a snack cake. All of us in ministry believe these guys deserve their sentence, they have earned it. Commit the crime and do the time. The problem lies when inmates serving lesser sentences are obedient and behave well, and simply want to serve their time and get out, yet they become targets of the lifer gang members and thugs who feast on the compliant.

Why should we care?

Well, it’s odd, but many of the guys have become our friends, so who wants a friend beaten and robbed?

Not me!

Also, I believe that it may help to know that most of the guys in our group that go inside the prison are 60 to 80 years old and white. They drive an hour to three hours to visit for five hours. The prison population we visit is 80 percent black with a sprinkling of white guys and Hispanics. Most of the inmates are 35 years old and younger… a lot younger.

So ask yourself, how does an old white guy love a young black man who would have killed him in a robbery or raped his daughter before cutting her throat? Only Jesus knows!

Over time, I will share a few stories from guys I have met who shared them with me to sort of clear the air and get some answers as to what Jesus might say to them. The names and much of the stories are altered to prevent anyone from figuring out who and what exactly was said. I will tell you that the inmate has or is serving time for the crime. I don’t know of any crimes committed by anyone who has not or is not serving time for it.

For those of you who don’t know, I have to roll over on an inmate who shares a crime he has not been prosecuted for.

This is the first story that impacted me in a grace-filled way. Johnson was a middle-aged man, handsome and articulate, but very quiet. He didn’t want to like or trust me, but as we spent several hours together he realized I had no judgement over him. So, he began to ask questions about how I felt about certain things and how I thought Jesus would respond.

Then one day he asked about grace and forgiveness. I knew what was coming as I had walked down the same trail with many others.

He asked, “Can I tell you a story?” “Sure.” I said, “But don’t tell me about a crime you haven’t been sentenced for.”

He began by telling me that he loved his brother and would do anything for him.

And he did.

He told me that one day while visiting his brother’s public housing apartment, he watched two little kids as they were watching a show on the TV. The reason that he was watching the kids was that his brother was in the bedroom having sex with their mother. Well, as things will happen, the woman’s husband shows up at the screen door in front of him and asks where his wife was and that he came to get his kids and her. The bedroom door opens and out walks the woman putting her clothes on with his brother standing behind her in his shorts.

Johnson sees the husband draw a pistol and he begins yelling at his wife and her lover. And believing the husband was going to shoot his brother, Johnson draws his pistol from beside the cushion in his chair and shoots first. As he was pulling the trigger, the woman had began running toward her husband begging him not to shoot her. She was faster on her feet than Johnson was on the trigger and by the time he shot, she was in front of her husband and Johnson shot her in the back, hitting her in the spine.

As the story progresses, the woman ends up in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Her husband divorces her and Johnson’s brother marries her and takes in her kids.

Stranger things have happened I guess.

But this just gets more interesting.

Johnson calls his sister-in-law’s cell phone every Saturday to check on her and his brother and the kids, and after he talks to her for a while, he asks the same question that he has asked every Saturday for the past 10 years. He would ask, “Sarah, will you forgive me for shooting you?” And her response was always the same… silence.

She would hand the phone to his brother and they would talk for a while before hanging up. And Johnson would return to his cell with a pit in his stomach.

After telling me his story, he asked me if the Lord could forgive him. So, I asked him this question. “Johnson, you repented to the Lord and to your sister-in-law, is that right?” he said, “Yes sir, I have repented to both several times.” And I said, “In the name of Jesus you are forgiven.” He said, “But she hasn’t forgiven me?” And I said, “That’s her burden, not yours. Your burden was lifted the moment you earnestly repented.”  And he broke down and sobbed for several minutes as other inmates looked on, wondering what was said between us.

In that moment, Johnson and I were bound together for eternity with Christ as the Holy Spirit had set the captive free.

How could Jesus love such a dirt bag as Johnson, or better yet, a dirt bag like me? I should have served between 15 to 20 years for crimes I committed but escaped prosecution.

And just think, how odd it is, that I’m one of His favorites… and so is Johnson!

 

THOUGHTS OF THE HUNTER KIND:

I have often been asked what possesses me to want to go into a prison and hang out with the guys. I guess it’s because I enjoy seeing my friends who have no one else on the outside who will visit them.  And sometimes I hurt for them, as they made one poor decision and it changed their destiny on earth. I have a question for you. Have you ever made a bad decision that had it gone the other way, could have had terrible repercussions? I can’t count the times.

 

PRAYER OF THE HUNTER KIND:

Hebrews 13:3 Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners…

Lord, I know who I am and I know there are better men than I who are incarcerated, and I know your grace is sufficient for all of us, so teach me to see everyone as worthy.

Set us all free!