#199 Fear not failure (retro)

Fear Not Failure

Somebody needs to hear this, so I am going to try to take my time talking about this, even on this Thanksgiving Eve.

This may not be for everyone, but there is a chance that somebody reading this needs to hear what I am about to blog about, for someone who has a loved one in prison.

Today I was checking my emails, since I wasn’t on the computer Tuesday, and was answering some of the emails. One of them came from a reader who made some very wonderful comments about how so many readers on these prison support sites worry and fall down in stress, depression and failure of trying to help a loved one in prison. Another person in her email told me of the difficulties of her son being moved from one prison to another, and how they tried everything to try to get him moved back closer to home, and it all seemed like a failure. Nothing worked. Sure, people listened, but nothing was done.

It’s hard when you as a parent or wife or loved one WANT to help someone, and you really think that if you can just do your part, and have some faith, then things will work out…

But what happens when they don’t?

“That’s an awful thing to say, you have to believe!”

Well, I agree, but who amongst us has ALWAYS gotten what we desired? Sometimes we fall short. Does that mean we are failures? Let’s examine that.

What I want to talk about is how to keep you from fearing, and failure. You notice these are two different elements, but we could also put them together, and say “fearing failure”. And we’re talking strictly about prison issues. This is only for those with a loved one in prison, or a loved one who WAS in prison, or even a loved one GOING to prison.

As you know, I have been there, been in prison, and been out since 2001. Has life been easy…well, you know the answer if you have been reading my blogs. In fact, the last couple of months have been a very difficult time, one where I was inches away from deleting every blog I ever wrote online.

Why? Because I was starting to believe I was a failure. In fact, there was a blog I wrote called, “My Final Blog”. I posted it on I think 13 different blog sites that I used to have, but recently removed that blog. I don’t even think it’s on this one. If you find that and happen to read it, you will see how I really felt about prison blogging and how I really felt that there just was no support for a guy like me, so why bother?

But when it comes to fear, or failure in prison, a lot of you are in a vice-like grip, something that can bring a strong sense of defeat and even spawn off hopelessness. You try to help your son in prison, but nothing is working. You try to help your husband in prison, but nobody cares. Your boyfriend just got out of prison and he seems to be the same old person, doomed to go BACK to prison. It all just seems like a waste of time.

Why bother? Why not just give up? Well, you can’t do that because you love them too much. But you fear their failure, you fear for them and it shakes your faith in the idea that he CAN get help or be helped.

What can you do about that?

If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to you about that.

I do a lot of blogging on prison issues, and one of the reasons for that is because somehow, I have to believe that I can help you get through these tough times. This is not by my supreme wisdom, I am nobody great. But as I get a kinda…nudging of what to write, I do it. Again, I am nobody special, just a guy trying to do something good, but also a guy that did time.

So my idea as I type these words is to do my very best in some level of faith to get you to hang in there. So many of you are terrified, living in fear, of what MIGHT happen to your loved one, and in fear of failure that once a con, always a con. Many of you have tried to help a loved one in prison, and have fallen flat on your face. Others have loved ones who, once they got out of prison, did not change. There is such a great fear from readers, and a sense of failure. I have been part of both, and I will share an example:

Some of you have read of this before, but I went through something like this back when I was in Sanford Correctional in Sanford, NC. If I ever get so far in my “Grades of Honor” books, this will be a very interesting scenario to write about.. During this time, I had gone from finding peace in prison to fighting against the rules that some prisons twist to their own advantage. On one situation I was retaliated on by the warden, his lieutenants and a case manager by them putting me in chains and handcuffs and putting me in a state car, and sending me to the hole in Guilford Correctional.

Now, I KNOW lots of times guys like to say, “ I didn’t do anything wrong” and people are like, “yeah, right”. But this is very true. I was being retaliated against because the prison didn’t like the fact that I wrote many letters about how the prison was not treating inmates like human beings. So I found myself in a cell in Guilford Correctional, not even knowing what my charges were.

Days later, I found out that I had been given some serious charges that not only would demote me, but could possibly add more time to my sentence by taking away my gain time. And because I was never told my charge before I was sent, I had no way to prepare. Things did not look good for me.

So I did the only thing I could do, I pulled out a Bible and started looking for scriptures to get me through. Now, if you read my first book of “Grades of Honor” you will likely find this most odd, but believe me, things changed from the first day in prison and months later.

I needed a miracle, because we all know that most times when a prison says something against an inmate, and the inmate says the opposite, the inmate usually loses, not because he is wrong, but because he is an inmate.

So I spent time working on building some faith, because I had nothing else to believe in. I was alone, in a cell, and under false charges. There was very little chance that I could win this unless something miraculous happened. I spent as much time as I could trying to stay in faith, trying NOT to fear….

I said, trying NOT to fear.

You see, it is a choice, and however tempting, you can choose to fear, or choose faith. I knew I was right in this case, I knew it, but nobody cares about what an inmate thinks. So I prayed until I built faith to believe that several things were gonna happen:

First, I would win the case and not have one charge against me.

Second, I would be released from the hole and sent back to the prison that kicked me out.

Third, I would even get my own bunk back.

I had faith in that, and I stood on that every moment I could. I prepared exactly what I would say in my defense, and rehearsed it often. Then the day came, I went before the disciplinary board, and as I stood in the hallway with other guys awaiting their fates, the sergeant said to us that we were probably all going to be found guilty, but if we take the plea, then the punishment would not be so bad.

BUT I WAS NOT GUILTY!

There was a half of a second though, that I figured, why gamble, why not just take the guilty plea. But my heart would not let me do this. I prayed for help, and to bail out now would be an offense to God. I didn’t pray for His help just so I can take the easy way out, especially since I was innocent of those charges. No, I had to stay the course.

I went in that hearing, prepared to do my arguments and speeches…but found that I didn’t need them. Having said very little, I came out of that hearing completely innocent of ALL those charges. Although in prison, I was “free”.

I went back to my cell and fell down on my knees in rejoicing. God answered my prayer, and soon they would have to let me out of the hole and send me back to Sanford Correctional. I was not afraid of anyone there, because I believed that if I go back, all the guys that knew me would see how the prison tried to kick me out on false accusations.

So now I was expecting to go back to Sanford, as per my prayer.

The day came when I was released from the hole and put on a bus to Sandy Ridge, the central hub of all prison transports, and waited for my destination. I believed I was going back to Sanford, and it would be a glorious day for my faith.

And then they called the names for the prison bus to Sanford…and I was one of them. I got on the bus, which was crowded with other inmates going there, and was excited (imagine…being excited while in prison). I looked at some of the other guys there who had no idea what Sanford was about or looked like. I could see myself talking to them about the camp on the way there.

But then, at the very last minute, just before the busses started to pull out, the back door opened and my name was called. I stepped out the bus to find out I was NOT going to Sanford.

I was confused. I prayed to go TO Sanford, and in fact, prison rules state that if an inmate wins his case against any charges, he is supposed to go back the camp where he got those charges. By rite and by prayer, I was supposed to go back to Sanford.

So why am I not going?

I got on another bus, not knowing where I was headed. I started to fear, but then I decided that I would think scriptures in my head, to not allow fear in. I prayed to go back to Sanford, and maybe I just needed to keep believing.

So I kept thinking faith words, all through the long trip, which took many hours. I believed God would answer me, as He did before. I just had to go back to Sanford. At every stop the prison bus made at other prisons to let inmates off, I prayed that they would not call my name. They didn’t. Finally, the last stop seemed to be Lumberton, at a prison called Robeson Correctional. I prayed inside my heart that they would not call my name, and they might realize they made a mistake, and maybe I will be sent back to Sanford.

But the very last name called…was mine. My heart seemed to sink as I started to realize that this was where I was sent. I dragged my self out, and sadly made my way into the camp for orientation, feeling defeated.

Even then, I tried to fight it, thinking that maybe tomorrow they will call me and realized that I should have been sent to Sanford. Somebody must have made a mistake. I mean, I prayed for answers, and I know God heard me. Maybe tomorrow would be different.

Tomorrow was no different, and I woke up feeling defeated. My prayers were not answered, and it left me in a spirit of failure. How could God answer my greater concern, but not my lesser?

I remember walking on the yard that next day, thinking about it towards God. I thought, “Lord, why didn’t you answer my prayer? You saved me from false accusations, but didn’t I also ask to go back to Sanford?” I didn’t understand how I missed out on my prayer.

And I remember thinking this too, I said to myself, “If I ever get to see God face to face in Heaven, I am going to ask Him why I was not able to receive that prayer, when the Bible says that the promises of God are “yes” and “amen”.” What went wrong?

Even though I had beaten the charge, I still felt like a failure.

Years later, I see perhaps a part of why I never got to go back to Sanford.

Every now and then I pray about that situation, because it is critical that I understand why I did not receive that answer. If I cannot understand why I did not receive that, it will always be a problem when I pray for other things. There will always be the question of “what if it does not work, like that time in prison…”. I needed an answer to help my faith.

From then to know, what I do know is this; the warden at Sanford saw the list of who was coming to his camp, and saw my name. I have to believe he did NOT want me to come back to that camp as a victor over his charges, and refused me. Imagine that… being refused by a prison.

I was not wanted back on that camp, which obviously was why I was taken off that bus, no telling what was put in my inmate jacket for case managers to read. But spiritually, I guess the other answer could have been that the devil did not want to admit defeat, so he did what he could to keep me from obtaining all my prayers.

But that should not have prevented me from going back, who are those people to prevent God from moving on my behalf? That bothered me for many years until I got another understanding.

In the time I spent in jail and prison, I have helped a lot of guys. If you can see how I write my blogs, you can get some idea of how I often helped other inmates while I was in prison. Again, I do not say this to be a saint, just somebody who cares. Could it have been possible that me going to Robeson was “my next assignment”? Lots of things happened there for me, which also ended up in me being kicked out and sent to another camp. That is a longer story to tell at another time.

But maybe the best answer came from something I realized recently. I was listening to some faith tapes and a pastor was talking about how he was believing God for a new car, and set a date on it. He said that he and his wife really needed a new car, and believed that God would get it to them in 30 days.

He said they believed and believed and believed…all the way up to the last day. Even up until the last few moments, they thought maybe the phone would ring and the answer would be there…but it didn’t. Midnight came on that 30th day, and nothing. They felt defeated because the prayer didn’t work.

But then the pastor said something that is interesting….

He said a lot of time passed after that, and one day he was praying and asked God why he did not receive. He said that the answer came to him this way…

“You were doing fine…up until midnight”.

The pastor didn’t understand.

“Why did you wait for a man-made machine to make a few turns, make a few clicks and figure that MY word was no good anymore?”

The pastor got it…he realized that faith is not based on the time limit you set, it is based on believing that it WILL be done.

When I heard that, I realized that maybe God was saying the same thing to me. I wanted to go back to Sanford, but I gave up the first night there. I gave up because I felt the TIME had run out on my prayer. Had I continued to believe that I would go back, I now believe that I would have…regardless of what the warden thought or the devil.

And I say all that to help some of you understand that faith isn’t based on a calendar or a clock, it has to be there until your prayers are answered. If you have been trying to help a loved one, and things have not been going so well, don’t think that it will never happen. What is your faith in? If it is in the solution, then don’t give up on it.

Fear and failure are two very destroying effects of doubt. If you fear for a loved one in prison, you cannot have much faith that he will be ok. If you feel that you have failed a loved one, then you cannot have much belief in the eventual success for that same person.

I say to you, fear not failure, you have to find just a little strength to hang in there, to believe that things CAN get better. You have to believe that, otherwise you are fearing the worst…and I warn you, be careful for what you wish for. Many times you will get it. If you fear something long enough, it can come upon you. If I was so worried about catching a cold, I will likely get one because fear is actually FAITH of something bad. And if faith is the substance of the things hoped for, then fear is the substance of things dreaded.

Folks, I will never be anyone of great importance, and I can live with that, but as long as I write prison blogs, there has to be some level of strength that I want to impart to you. I know what it’s like to feel like you failed, I have been there many, many times. I know what it’s like to fear, I have been there many, many times. But so have you. If you are worried about somebody you love in prison, then change the feelings to something positive. The problem is, with Thanksgiving being tomorrow, and Christmas just down the road, it is even harder for some of you to understand and receive what I am saying to you.

I stopped writing here several times because I felt this was a big failure, that almost nobody was supporting my writings. I feared that this was a waste of time, that I stood a better chance making a living working at McDonalds than writing prison blogs to give people hope.

But each time I stopped, there was something that kept bringing me back. And each time, I come back thinking that maybe this time, people will support my writings, so I can share even more. There is always that fear of failure, but today it didn’t prevent me from writing 7 pages for you guys.

Most sites don’t give you that, just a quick sentence or two, or a link to some news story.

Listen to me. Do not fear failure if you are trying to help a loved one. It’s gonna come, but you do not have to embrace it. If you love that person in prison, or that person that is now out of prison, don’t give up on them. It just might be that his or her season of change has not come yet. Don’t limit God to a time frame, I am quite sure He knows what you need, and how to make it so. Does this mean you will never fall down…of course not, we’re human. I have fallen flat on my face several times in prison blogging because I feared poverty in spilling my guts for thousands to read. But there must be a reason I keep writing. And if there is a reason, then I have to believe God is not going to let me fail. Though I might fall, I have to believe He is holding me up.

That goes for your loved one too. I mean, you’re not the only one who loves them you know. So don’t fear failure, keep at it, and don’t give in. If your plans to help get your loved one a transfer didn’t work, don’t give up. If you are worried that your son has not written you, don’t give up. If you are depressed because your boyfriend has not changed like you want, don’t give up. Heck, if it means emailing me to ask me to talk about it, then do that. But don’t give up and don’t fear failure.

Oh well, enough about that. Happy Thanksgiving, and email me at derf4000 (at) embarqmail (dot) com to ask about how to support my writings or to ask me a question.