I spent 10 years in prison because of the choices I made during the darkest season of my life. I was deep into drugs, anger, and pride, and one terrible night, it all caught up with me. I got into a violent fight that left a man seriously injured, and I was charged with aggravated assault.
For a long time, I blamed everyone else. But the truth was simple—I had become a person I didn’t even recognize. I hurt people, I lied, and I lived like nothing and no one mattered. By the time I was sentenced, I had burned every bridge I had.
Prison didn’t soften me. It hardened me even more. I carried anger like an armor. I woke up with it, walked the yard with it, and let it sit on my chest every night like a weight I couldn’t lift. Shame followed me everywhere, and I kept replaying the night of my arrest, wondering where it went wrong until the memory felt like a wound that never healed.
One afternoon, while I sat alone at a metal table in the rec room, the chaplain approached me. He didn’t preach or give a long speech. He simply placed a worn Bible in front of me and said, “Whenever you’re ready.” Then he walked away. I stared at that book long after he left, unsure why I didn’t push it aside.
That night, when the block went quiet, I opened it. I just flipped through and read whatever caught my eye.
The stories surprised me. They were full of broken people, men and women who messed up badly, who hurt others, who had every reason to give up. Yet God kept extending grace to them. Something in me softened for the first time in years.
Lying on my bunk, I whispered a prayer I never expected to say: “God, help me forgive myself.”
I can’t fully explain what happened next, but it felt like chains fell off my heart—chains I’d been dragging for so long I forgot what freedom felt like.
From that night on, I kept reading. I joined the chaplain’s group. I apologized where I could. Slowly, the old version of me began to fade.
When I was released, I walked out a changed man.
Today, I run a re-entry ministry that helps former inmates rebuild their lives—finding steady work, learning real skills, and earning a good living with dignity. And I tell them the truth that saved me: “God didn’t just free me from prison—He freed me inside.”
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