Sarah’s mental health issues and drug addiction led her to make many terrible choices – and eventually she ended up in a Virginia state prison. Sarah is now estranged from both her mother and her young adult daughter. They have given up on her (won’t write her, visit her, etc.), and really she has given up on herself. One day Chaplain Renee stopped by her cell, introduced herself and gave Sarah a blank notebook, suggesting that she start writing about her life experiences and her feelings. First tossing it aside as a “stupid idea”, one night Sarah was bored and started writing a few lines in the journal. As hours and then days went by, Sarah found herself filling page after page of the journal. This would lead to a radical change in her life – something she never would have expected.

GraceInside is a ministry that has 33 caring Chaplains, serving in all 40 Virginia state prisons, ministering to 24,000 incarcerated men and women – people just like Sarah. But without YOUR support, there simply would be NO “grace inside.” This Christmas, would you reach out and help us offer love, grace and hope to those that Jesus listed as being among the forgotten – among “the least of these?”