December 4 2017 – Click here to listen
I receive many letters from inmates whom I’ve met at various prison ministry events. Last week I received another one that was absolutely heartbreaking. This guy gave me a summary of his life of abandonment as a child, being moved from foster home to foster home, to the streets where he became an embittered hellion, to a life of existence in prison hell.
He drank hard, drugged harder, and committed violent crimes. But then he met a young woman with whom he fell in love and suddenly turned his life around. Everything went well until she was tragically killed in a car accident. It broke his heart to the point that he would go and sleep on her grave most nights.
He re-entered the terrible life he had lived prior to meeting her with a vengeance. He was filled with hate for God and man and roamed the streets looking for trouble. Trouble is not hard to find when one goes looking for it and before long he was in
prison for a long stretch.
He fought like a caged animal in prison and spent more than his share of time in solitary. He was bitter and miserable for several years and then somehow began attending chapel services and he discovered Christ. It was doubly hard for him as he was Jewish, but it seemed to make sense. He did not fully commit to living the life of a Christian, but did better during this period.
He did his time somewhat peacefully after that and got out of prison, and though still in love with his first wife, he remarried and had a child with someone he did not love. Predictably they divorced, and he went back to his drinking, drugging, and violent ways. He’d never gotten over his first wife’s death and even then, would occasionally sleep on her grave just to be near her.
He headed downhill for some years and you guessed it ended up right back in prison for another long stretch. After a few years his young son reunited with him and convinced him to seek God. He did so, and his time became much easier and for the first time in his life he actually began to feel a peace beyond his understanding. It was admittedly the most wonderful feeling he’d ever experienced. Then the unthinkable happened, his son was tragically killed in a car crash.
When it happened, he was out of prison and back on the streets. You guessed it, he went off the deep end and blamed God and man and once again used his marital arts skills to kick the heck out of anyone who got near him and he committed many crimes. He ended right back in prison. It was some time later that he told me that he met me at a prison ministry event out on the yard. He heard me speak and came up to me and we had a conversation on the prison yard, which unfortunately I don’t even remember.
He told me that no one could tell him anything unless they had walked in his shoes, but he knew I was the real deal and he had listened to my testimony with interest. I had done all the things he had and maybe even more so, and yet I had turned my life completely around. Most amazing to him he said was that I had a look of peace in my eyes that he had never seen before. He wanted what I had. He said that image of my peaceful eyes was imprinted in his mind forever.
I told him it was Jesus who turned my life around and any peace I have is solely attributed to Him and not me. After I left he thought of our encounter often, but it wasn’t enough and recently he attempted suicide and nearly succeeded. He wrote because he wanted to reach out to me for help. He told me he was not writing to try to secure early release, he didn’t want money, he didn’t want anything other than peace like he saw in my eyes.
He simply asked me to pray for him.
I wrote him a long letter last night assuring him that God loves him and He wanted to give him His peace. I promised I would pray for him each day and have added him to my prayer list.
I ask you to say a prayer for this man right now as well.
I told him that the peace, joy, and love of God can be his. I told him most important of all though was to completely surrender his life to God. Even when tragedy strikes he must turn to God and not alcohol, drugs, sex, and violence.
I told him that Satan didn’t want to lose him and would try his utmost to discourage and fill him with doubt. To combat it he must be filled with the Holy Spirit by praying, reading the Bible and finding other guys inside that were Christians and staying strong together.
Please pray for this tortured individual that he will find God and along with it peace, joy, and love. I told him that inside that prison he could win countless souls for the Lord; it is like knowing where to dig for gold. I pray that he will focus on that and not the past.
Do you know anyone sleeping on someone’s grave? Someone who cannot get over something bad (or several bad things) that have happened to them. If so, show them your peace derived from God and pray with them and for them.
Phil. 4:7
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.