A prisoner set free

Irony alert, irony alert.

Today I read a letter that was in response to a column I wrote a couple weeks back for the Eunice News.

The column was essentially about witnessing, using Ray Lewis as the conduit to the subject.
The letter, from Pearl, Miss., was from a prisoner in a Mississippi facility. The irony comes when one thinks back to when I was sports editor of the Clarion-Ledger, the state newspaper in Jackson. We lived in, you guessed it, Pearl.

The prisoner, who had been incarcerated for 28 years he wrote, has many family members in Eunice.

He wrote about making terrible choices as a teenager, burdening his life, with loss and "anguish of great magnitude." He wrote that Jeremiah 29: 11-14 says it all.

So, I'll let Jeremiah speak for both the prisoner and myself. From the Message we read, "This is God’s Word on the subject: “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen.  “When you come looking for me, you’ll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.” God’s Decree. I’ll turn things around for you. I’ll bring you back from all the countries into which I drove you”—God’s Decree—“bring you home to the place from which I sent you off into exile. You can count on it."

When I was at another appointment, this time in Covington, La., I got involved in prison ministry, and it is the thing that I miss most about that previous time, eliminating seeing kids and grand-kids who live on the West Bank near New Orleans as a gimme.

What I loved most about prison ministry was seeing, and I mean seeing, people be changed right before our eyes. Conversion experiences were often the answer. But the main thing was though the prisoners weren't let go from their earthly literal bonds, they were freed.

Burdens were removed. Pain was lessened. Things were better. The Bible wasn't something to pass the time, it was the living word of God. And I was privileged several times to see this happening.

The memory that stands out is my first Kairos prison ministry session. It was at the end of a three-day entry into Rayburn Correctional Center in Bogalusa. We gave the inmates who joined the session cookies. On the third day (isn't it always on the third day), I was given the task of taking cookies to one dorm. I was taken by how close to each other the beds were. There was nothing, and I mean nothing, that one would describe as private. Even showers were communal affairs.

But on almost every bunk, there was a Bible. When you have no where to go, that's a pretty good starting point.

Brandon Heath has a song on his latest album called Dyin' Day. It's about a prisoner who will be executed that day.

Heath wrote, "Looks like this is my dyin' day
They tell me that's the only way
I'll ever see the other side again
But they don't know who's been in here
Every day the last three years
Yes, sir, I'm the one who let Him in
And He comes and sits down in my chair
Weeping, breathing this same air
And opens up His hands
Reminds me that He walked this mile
Suffered for a little while
And made me an innocent man"

My life, my incarcerated life, was changed by the man who walked in, wept with me, breathed the same stale air and made me an innocent man.

 

We have a duty to tell others our story, to live out our story of grace. I believe that Jesus still does that. When we give prisoners all over the world the opportunity to hear the Gospel, they have a more than reasonable chance to have their life changed.

And if we look closely, perhaps we'll see that our life has been changed more than they.