#201 Faith of an inmate (retro)

Prison talking: faith of an inmate

Sometimes those two words don’t seem to go together, does it; faith and inmate. But today I want to talk a little about that, if you don’t mind.

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So today I wanted to talk about the idea of an inmate having faith. Now, I can imagine that a lot of people are not gonna agree with me on this, especially those who don’t see inmates as being “worthy” of faith.

But let’s break that myth right now by me asking you a question. Do you, in all your intelligence, believe that EVERY single person in prison now was guilty of their crime.

Not 50% or 75% or 90%…do you believe EVERY man and woman and juvenile was guilty? Can you say that the justice system is perfect, in that all innocent people are justified and all guilty are condemned?

Can you say that without knowing even 1% of that population?

If not, then you have no right to judge those you don’t know.

Now even further, do you believe that those who ARE guilty of a crime were all at absolute fault, or is it possible that some cases are circumstantial?

Now I cannot defend all inmates, because I knew some guys in prison that need to stay in prison. I am not talking about that. There is absolutely a need for prisons, and to protect law-biding citizens from those who do not respect the law. And I also have a great sincerity to victims of crime. So don’t twist my words here to make it sound like I am glorifying prison or inmates.

But do you, in all your intelligence, believe that every guilty person is 100% accountable, or can there be other factors that led to the situation? It would be hard to defend a man who robs a bank just for the heck of it, but what of a man who shot and killed another person in self defense? Yes, the law still must be served, but you can see that sometimes circumstances play a major part.

My point here, before even getting into faith, is that no person living and walking this earth can honestly condemn every single inmate in prison…because you are not God…so stop acting like it.

But once we get past that point that not every person is as “evil” as society says, we can start to get to the point where every person has value which can be changed for good, if nurtured. And a lot of that nurturing comes from faith, something a lot of inmates have looked to, some more successful than others.

Faith for me was a road of discovery and understanding about myself and what God thinks about me…not what YOU think about me, not what my neighbors think of me, not what society thinks of me, not even what my mom thinks of me. We’re talking about when an inmate spends time trying to understand God, and his place in life.

I spent almost 17 straight months in a single cell, all but the first 10 days, and of those first ten days, my very first day was in a cell for suicide watch. I spent well over a year in a cell, coming out to go on the jail “yard” and rare times to use the phone. Outside of that, I was alone in that cell.

In that time, I felt broken and useless, imagine how a college grad with everything looking up can have everything broken in front of his eyes. And yet, a lot of people will sit there and ASSUME that I didn’t start looking for God until I ran into this trouble…

Not true at all, and second, it’s none of your business when a person seeks God.

I was not a stranger to faith, because it helped me to graduate from college, and I also knew God answers prayer. But for awhile, I wondered if a jail inmate (soon to go to prison) could gain an audience with God. At the moment I had no faith that God could care about me, just like society might.

But something inside me stirred me to do something I was always used to doing… writing. One day a person shared with me a faith-based booklet and I decided to write to the organization, and just talk about myself and my need for faith. From there I got another booklet, and then a magazine, and I started to write to every ministry I could get an address to.

In short time I was getting responses in letters, booklets, books and magazines from numerous ministries. One of the books I got was a small gold covered booklet called, “The Promises of God”. It shared scriptures of promises God mentioned in the Bible, and I poured over it and the other books I had.

After awhile, I had a nice little collection of books on faith, and I read them multiple times, while reading my Bible too….

“Well, that should have been the ONLY book you should have been reading”

I disagree.

Lots of people think that if the words wasn’t read straight out of the Bible, then it is not helpful. That is incorrect. Have you ever tried reading Romans? I tried to read it, and was so confused because of all the talk about the righteousness of the unrighteousness and the uncircumcised of the circumcised and the unrighteousness of the circumcised and the uncircumcised righteousness when the uncircumcised is unrighteous after the righteous….

Come on folks, even for a college grad like myself, it was hard.

I just could not get it, and I remember closing the Bible in that cell once thinking, “Lord, I just don’t understand it, I am confused. You’re gonna have to help me understand it”.

It wasn’t like a lightning bolt came through the cell to “show me the way”, it was help from those other books and magazines. By reading other forms of faith messages I was able to understand a bit more about Romans, which led me to a very powerful understand, which is Romans 8:1...

(I could tell you, but I’d rather you check it out…)

That scripture became a very strong source of faith to me and helped me start to understand where I stood, even in my darkest days. Even though I had faith, I was still very troubled about me personally and my future, but that scripture was one of several that really gave me strength.

That does not mean things all of a sudden turned bright and cheery. I mean, I was still in jail, and I was very afraid of my future. In fact, there were times where I gave up, and attempted suicide. But each time I failed in it. There were times where it felt like my insides were just turning upside down, because I had fear, doubt, stress, depression, and every negative emotion inside of me. And when those times happened, I had nobody to turn to.

All I had was those books, the Bible and God.

Now don’t get this twisted folks, I am not trying to tell you that I can turn water into wine, I am just as normal as anybody reading this, and I am certainly not perfect. But deep down inside of an inmate can be a sliver of hope, based on how much they know God.

There were times I was so frustrated that I fell on my knees against my bed in that cell and read that little booklet, “The Promises of God” in tears. I blogged before about how I actually had a friend in a juvenile who had a cell beside me, and we chatted all the time. When they moved him back to juvenile population, he was afraid because he knew that juveniles often prey on one another (a sad story in itself that I may share one day). I was afraid because at that time, he was the only friend I had that I could talk to.

When he was taken from the cell back to a group cell, I immediately grabbed that little booklet and fell to my knees, crying quietly and praying. I was afraid for him because I knew that juveniles are often beat up and sometimes sexually advanced on by others, but I was also afraid of losing my friend. I was doing so well handling my time in jail, but with him gone, all the fears of my future came rushing back.

So I prayed and then read every scripture in that book, as if reminding God of His own words. Over 55 pages, each with about 5 scriptures per page, I read with tears for my friend, and myself. Scriptures of deliverance, strength, fear and many others I read. From Isaiah 54:17 to Psalms 20:6 to John 10:27-29 and Romans 8:37...and many more.

I prayed because I had nowhere else to turn. Even as a guy in jail, I believed that God would hear me and see my grief. That was a very rough day, but not long after I finished praying, the new guy was put in my friend’s cell, and for some reason, he wanted to talk to me. I told him about my friend being in that cell, and as if knowing the right things to say, he told me that he know how it is to get to know somebody while in jail, and then to split apart.

Maybe without him knowing it, he was consoling me. He even encouraged me to go outside, just to get out of the cell for awhile. Broken hearted, I went out on the yard, and I tell you, it just SEEMED like the most beautiful day I have ever witnessed.

Now you gotta understand where I am coming from. The “yard” was an area in the jail that technically is outside, because there is no ceiling, but you are surrounded by high walls all around. Yes you were outside, but still in jail (obviously). Add on to that the emotional feelings I was going through.

But something about the day, it just felt perfect. Just the right breeze, the skies were so blue, it just felt so…peaceful. When I got back inside, I felt much better about things, especially since my new cell partner told me that the juvenile would be fine. That guy actually turned out to be a very nice person…

It appears I got answers to my prayer. Not only did I get the peace of God, but also a very cool cell partner to talk to about stuff. No doubt, God heard me.

And that’s not the only time either. While in prison at Robeson Correctional, there was a lot of stuff going on that would later get me kicked out of the prison (imagine that), and I was having a very, very bad day. The prison lied on me about wanting to get out of kitchen work, and put me on road squad. I hated the idea, but never said such because it isn’t about what you like or don’t like.

But I got on road squad, absolutely determined to write letters in a grievance and to any prison official I could find an address to. I had learned by then that one of the things prisons fear most is not the violent man, because they can thrown him in a seg cell, but rather the inmate who can write intelligently and get his point across.

I was very good at that.

So on the day I was put on road squad, I was very upset, and to make matters worse, I had no privacy to pray because in minimum custody there is virtually no privacy at all. I was upset at almost any prison officer inside, and determined to “raise hell” in writing when I got back.

But when I got in that van with the other inmates, they told me how cool the officer was, and once we got to where we were supposed to start picking up trash, the officer called me to the side.

I was expect some “high and mighty talk” but instead got the opposite. This man talked to me not like an inmate…but like a person. He said some things to me that I won’t say now, but maybe for a later blog. At the end of our talk, I could see why those other inmates really respected him, and I did as well.

And further, on my first day on that road squad was one of the nicest days I had ever been outside. The weather was near perfect. I LOVE cloudy days with a nice breeze, and that is what we had. To me, perfect weather, and the work was not hard at all. There was that peace that was more than I could understand, but most willing to embrace.

So don’t tell me that God does not look out for inmates.

But these things won’t happen unless there is some nurturing of faith in an inmate. I think we spend too much time talking about judgment and not enough about love and mercy. As an inmate, I didn’t wanna hear about that, heck, I am already overburdened as it is, what do you accomplish by adding judgment to that? It’s almost like thinking that if you beat a person enough, they will change into what you want them to change into.

But what part did love have to do with it? Or mercy?

I think I have not even scratched the surface of what can be said involving faith and inmates, even with all the posts and blogs I have written, I don’t believe I have even gotten started on that. But that does not mean that there is nothing to be said. People in prison have just as much a right to seek God as anybody singing hymns in church. It’s not man’s job to decide who gets to seek God, that is on the individual and them only.

There is not a lot of faith in prison because most inmates were never taught to believe in it. I actually started believing in high school, and developed it while in college, never knowing how important it would be to me. But I might guess that maybe God knew, and He kinda set me on that path. Couldn’t it be the same with your loved one?

I say all that to say this; don’t give up on your loved one. You don’t have to be a Bible-thumping Christian to understand what I am saying, you just have to believe that there is a God that wants to help…if you want Him to. But there are also many that will try to convince you that the pain and suffering you are going through is necessary, and maybe even the will of God, so you suffer with a loved one in prison, thinking it is right to do.

I am not saying to have a party because your son robbed a bank and got 30 years! I am saying to get some understanding so that you can get your life back, and to then help encourage a loved one in prison. We cannot ignore the charge, but we can build faith to help a loved one doing the charge.

If you have faith in that, then it’s quite possible other things can happen too.

That is, if you have faith. And I am not an angel, as I have been kicked out of prisons and even prison support sites, but I know faith well enough to know God is no respecter of persons.

Anyway, I could say more, but I better not, otherwise this starts to turn into a novel. Email me at derf4000 (at) embarqmail (dot) com to ask about prison, prison issues or ask about my prison projects. If you wish to support my blogs, feel free to ask me about that too.