I wasn’t what you call a bad guy.  I was active in my church and sincere about what I was doing…but that didn’t mean that I still didn’t have things that I wanted to do or to have that went against what I knew to be right.

By being selfish, by putting what I wanted ahead of everything else, I earned myself five years upstate as the property of the New York State Department of Corrections.  As if that wasn’t hard enough to handle, I also hurt every single person that was important to me, including my wife (who has since divorced me), my kids and all the people I had sincerely told about God’s love and his ability to change lives.

Now I sit in prison. Daily I deal with the consequences of what I’ve done. Consequences that will, in many lives, continue through the rest of my life.

Dispair? Discouragement? Sometimes, but unlike the “department of corrections” God is not just into punishment, he is really into “corrections.” The first verses I took to heart while in the county lock up were Hebrews 12:5-6 which say:

  5. ” And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6.  because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”

You see, “punishment” is used to get back at someone, making them pay for what they’ve done. New York State punishes. “Discipline,” while difficult and often painful, instructs and develops the one who is being disciplined. It is done to help the offender, not just to hurt them.

God is just, so he must punish sin. The bible says in Romans 6:23a:

   23a.  “For the wages of sin is death, ”

But the believer’s punishment has been taken by Jesus when he died in our place. We are therefore free to live eternally with the father in heaven as his children, as the second part of Romans 6:23 tells us:

   23b. “but the gift of God is eternal life in  Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Now, as his children, he disciplines us, correcting us so we can be more intimate with him, our loving father.  Remembering this helps to keep me going. He is not done with me yet, will he ever be. I’m guilty, but pardoned! And he has graciously used me here in prison to minister to hurting, searching men around me.

If you think I can help you somehow,  I’d be honored to try. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do know that God still loves me and he loves you too. I also know that if we trust him and his word, we will be alright!

So how can I help. Ask me in the prison life forum.

While growing up there was emotional, physical and mental abuse. Then my parents divorced. Then I graduated and got married, and went through more emotional and mental abuse of twenty years. Then I was divorced by my husband. By this time I was depressed with low self esteem. By now I knew Jesus as my savior, got treated for depression and saw a psychologist. I came out stronger. In 2002 I lost my job and ended up on social services for a year. In the meantime with the help of a friend I made it through all the bad times. If I didn’t have God I could not have made it. Been there, done that!

My name is Jennifer. I am a 19 year old college student in New York. I am an only child, adopted at a very young age and I am blessed with an amazing family.

I enjoy arts and crafts more than anything. I am also crazy about animals!! I would love to work with them but I think it was take way too many biology classes then I could handle. So I’m going to major in psychology. I have always been interested in psychology, especially on the biological level.

I like to think of myself as a good listener and a good advice giver. I have been through many trying situations in my life, but have pulled though, and am now much stronger for them. The one good thing about going through rough times is being able to help others get through them.

Geeky kid, unpopular, got into drugs in my teens, wasted alot of time, the usual story. Talked about suicide for years until I tried it. Not all it’s cracked up to be, but one good thing came from it. I found God. I guess I always knew where to look if I wasn’t running so fast in the other direction. After 36 years of hurting everyone around me while I tried to hurt myself I finally took a good look around and realized – WOW- what a jerk I was. I’ve known the Lord for 8 years now and wish I had found him sooner! I decided to call myself The Searcher beacuse I’m still looking for God’s perfect will for my life. In the meantime, I’ll do what I can to prevent others in the same rut as the one I tread for years from making the same mistakes. I have a wonderful, loving wife, a caring family and a Savior that gave his life for me, what more could a guy want. If you feel that you could use the help of a self-proclaimed “old guy”, then let me know. I’m not a bad listener.

Bob (Kimmy’s husband)

In the South- discrimination, bigotry and injustice were obvious and were faced in many forms.  The Colonial Laws and the system had diriment standards for my People.  I was living in Americus, Ga. 9 miles from former President Jimmy Carter’s house (Town Of Plains, Ga.) (1.) The Emancipation Proclamation had no effect profoundly on our suffering (of 1863), but supposedly liberated us from bondage.  That was 100 years before I was locked in the Georgia Stockade, and yet the Constitution read one thing-but society showed another. (2.)  We were struggling in a two fold circle, a twice burdened people.     (A.)  Was the color of our skin.     (B.)  We were at the lowest stratum in society. Socially, politically and economically speaking, making us feel like a second class citizen.  The Jim Crow Laws separated us rendering us useless and defenseless in terms of better jobs, Education and the right to Vote; lack of Education confined us unskilled. The Colored People, as we were called back in the South during the 40′s, 50′s and 60′s were condemned to move from a small, only to a large one. We were governed by the White System to be in a culture of poverty. At an early age I had heard so much about my struggling Ancestors as well as my Parents struggle.  They were a passive people. I also heard about Mrs. Rosa Park’s arrest, too. All about the Boycotts in the Montgomery, Alabama during that time.  She refused to give her seat to a white male passenger on a Montgomery bus (December 1955).  I was five years old. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was appointed the spokesperson for the MIA. There was a custom for getting on the bus then for Blacks/Coloreds.  Was to pay at his front door, get off the bus and reenter through the back door to find a seat.  Blacks weren’t allowed to sit in the same row with whites, nor near them. I had heard of violence against the Coloreds/Blacks such as lynchings, rapes, unsolved murders and severe beatings. At a young age, say about or 8 years of age, I could read very well, and I saw the “worded” signs over Public water fountains and bathroom doors that read “colored or white”. Black people could not enter the front doors of Stores, department stores, no public places, Parks,  We could not go the only Library in Town, nor eat in any restaurants with white people in public according to the Laws in Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, North and South Carolinas, Texas and  Florida.  But Georgia and Mississippi were worst states of all. Most Black people did not have decent jobs, some of them worked in the white man’s home for menial pay. Also I remember the disrespect toward little, men and women especially in public largely from the White Supremacy Group better known as the KKK.

Lulu is the moderator of the Civil Rights forum.

Read more about Lulu at http://dansville.lib.ny.us/express/1999archive/ex021199.html#five

My life started out rough.  While in the hospital I was taken away from my parents, by child protective.  I spent the next 4 years in three different foster homes in Canandaigua.  At age 4 I was sat before a judge and asked if I wanted to live with my parents.  Any child at that age would say yes to that question.  I was then sent to live with my parents before age 5 I was witness to my father breaking my mothers nose.  My father had a real problem with beating women.  He never beat or even spanked me.  He got me high plenty of times before I went to school.  My mother spanked me as a young child but not really abused me.  My father and mother split when my father accidentally pulled hair out of my head.          We lived with my Grandparents for awhile then moved in with my mom’s new boyfriend.  The beatings started maybe a year later maybe longer I was young.  My mother sometimes beat me till I could barely stand.  When I was 13 I was arrested for the first time.  This was a way to get away from my mother.  It also started a new form of abuse in my life.           Three 1/2 years I spent in D.F.Y.  They don’t really let you be a kid so you are forced to grow up to fast. Some time during the time in there I decided I need to forgive my mother.  During all this God was always there I would pray study but never really surrendered control to Him.  When released I went to live with my grandparents.  They loved me let me be a kid again but I could not deal with authority at that time.  I got into drugs again Pot , beer, LSD, and sometimes cocaine.  I left my grandparents went to live on the other side of the state.  Did drugs every day.  I would steel anything I could sell or use.  I was arrested on 12 felony counts and some petty stuff did 2 years in county jail.  This time I spent a lot of time in the Word.  I got to know my Lord.  Still after release turned away to drugs a lot of coke.  In 1996 God took my need for coke away never touched it since.  I say God because there was no other major change in my life just lost the taste for it.  That’s a big change from $600-800 dalliers a weekend.  I began to drink more a little while later.            Then I met my son’s mother I quit everything.  Even smoking.  Turned 21 and she got pregnant.  It all went down hill from there I started drinking every day.  We split I had unwittingly given her up for drugs.  She went with my best friend.  I was destroyed I tried giving up drinking to get her back when that didn’t work.  I drank 10 times as much. I met the love of my life in a bar.  We were drunk the first three months together.  She became pregnant so I was a one man drinking party again.  My daughter was born she is so beautiful.             One night I drank myself into a stupor.  I went to a party drunk out of my mind.  A man there had a problem with me started a fight with me.  I still to this day don’t believe he lived God once again protected me.  Not without a cost I went to prison for 3 years for that.            The first year I spent all my time studying Gods Word.  Three or four hours a day.  Then I decided I needed to convert Muslim to Christianity.  I began to study there religion.  God moved me out of a comfortable prison into a less comfortable one.  I decided some how to become Muslim.  I really though it was the truth. The enemy really had me.  I followed this faith for four 1/2 years.  Even trying to make my wife Muslim.  Thank the Lord she never did.  2 years ago God aloud me to crash this triggered my return to my savior.  Still I didn’t walk upright. Months ago God filled me with His Spirit so much I thought I would burst.  Now every day I try to surrender to Him.  God has been telling me since I was a child to come to His ministry.  I have always ran.  Now I need to let Him use me.  I was told awhile ago If you can avoid ministry to do it but, if you can’t then you must.  God has made it a must to the point that if I don’t surrender I can no longer use the gifts he gave me.  I have been a people person my whole life but, when I crashed I lost that.              Now that I am turning back to Him it is returning.  I must say in closing I have always feared the Lord enough to never consider suicide.  Some times I didn’t want to live but the fire of hell would never allow me to take my life.  Another thing I have learned God may punish you in you life for the wrong things or not using what he gave you but he is also there to hold you in His arms while you endure your punishment.  Christ loves us all and, I love you all to.  I could never love the way he does.