by “Larry,” an inmate at Green Rock Correctional Center
I was raised in a Christian family and gave my life to Christ, asking Him to come into my life when I was 14 years old. However, by age 18 I had turned from Jesus, choosing to follow my own worldly desires and to “do my own thing.” This “freedom” eventually led me to hit rock bottom and to be arrested. I was sentenced to serve 10 YEARS in prison! After my incarceration, a strange thing started happening. Every month I would receive a daily devotional in the mail – one that I certainly hadn’t ordered, and yet it came addressed to me in my cell. At the time, I wasn’t the least bit interested, so I would just set aside each one that arrived and then quickly forget about it. Then one day after several months, I was just bored and picked up the latest copy of the devotional and read that day’s devotion. As I read it, something stirred inside me. That particular scripture verse intrigued me, and suddenly I wanted my own Bible so I could look it up. So I asked my family to order me a Bible (which they graciously did). Once I received the Bible, I wondered where to even start reading it, but somehow I was led to Psalm 51. For some reason it spoke to me, and I began to read it every day (a habit that I continue to this day).
After that, I began to read the Bible stories that I had been taught as a child. But each story seemed to now have a new, deeper meaning to it – a meaning that spoke to me and that I could relate to. I began to experience a hunger to know God and to walk with Jesus again. So on December 9th, 2019, I asked the Lord to forgive me and to come back into my life. From that moment on, everything began to change. I got this crazy idea that I was going to read the entire Bible all the way through. So in January 2020 I began with the Book of Genesis, and by the end of that year I had read the entire Bible through – right to the Book of Revelation – all in that one year!
Over these last four years, I seem to have developed an insatiable hunger for reading and learning more about God’s Word. Since I asked Jesus back into my life, I have truly grown spiritually (though I know I have a LONG way to go!). What’s more, as I have grown in God’s Word, I have found that I am a much more humble and gentle person. I have developed patience, and now I listen to people, learn from them and try to follow the good examples of the prison staff members and volunteers that I admire. And for the first time in a LONG time, I actually have PEACE and JOY in my life. Nowadays, I even have fellow inmates coming up to me and saying that there is something “different” about me, about the way I act and the way I react to various situations. I believe that it is JESUS living in me, shining His LIGHT for others to see. Even here in PRISON, Jesus can use ME to touch and impact the lives of others. I could never have imagined that God could forgive me, that He would help me grow spiritually, and that He would even use me to reach out to others. Praise the Name of Jesus!!!
