Finally Home

I heard a song tonight that got me thinking about the days I used to wonder how it’d be like coming home from prison. It’s called Finally Home by MercyMe. I had to take pause tonight because I remember listening to it while I was incarcerated and thinking about home. I had been in prison as a saved man since December 2000. I was released in April, 2011. That was a long time to be incarcerated living for Christ. People have had it much harder – martyred for their faith – I realize that. Still, 10 and a half years understanding what it was that I did, why I was in prison, and loving a God whose mercy knew no bounds was long.

It seemed longer still as I began inside, for the first time in my life, to want to leave prison and head home. It wasn’t like some immediate, overwhelming feeling that hit me suddenly, but it crept upon me month by month until it was undeniable. I wanted to come home.

Trying to reconcile that with the guilt and shame that I felt for my crimes was difficult.I can honestly say that I never have reconciled it, as of this day. I understand that my freedom is a precious gift that I cannot take for granted. I also understand that I deserved every last day that I was sentenced to serve.

Prison gate opening

While I was in prison, there were 2 significant chapters to my life. Before my salvation, and after my salvation. I guess that’s true for anyone, really. Before and After Christ. The consequences for my living like an animal in prison was significant. See, when I was sentenced to 50 years in prison, the DOC took away 25 years under the assumption that I would behave myself during those 25 years. Therefore, if I did, and took a few classes, maybe got a college degree or vocation, I could trim my time down even further to like 21 years.

So, when I was 19 years old, there was the potentiality I could be out by the time I was 40. There was a light at the end of the tunnel. It was only 21 years. When I was given that scenario by my attorney and then by my counselor when I got to prison, it wasn’t appealing. 21 years seemed forever, and because of that I treated it like forever. I acted out, I got in fights, sold drugs, ran gambling rings, hoarded pornography, smoked weed, cussed out the officers and staff when I felt like it and many, many other things.

For nearly 13 years I acted out like that. I lost my time by degree. They gave me back 30 days here, 45 days there, 6 months at other times. Inevitably, I lost a lot of time and the state gave me back 3 years of the time they took from me.

At the end of my sentence, after my time cuts for college, vocation, and therapeutic substance abuse I should have been released in December of 2008. Instead, my out date was April, 2011.

The years I acted out stayed with me even when I was saved. There was no avoiding consequences because I found Jesus in prison. I was still very much accountable for my actions. To think anything else would make a mockery of everything that I believed Jesus stood for in my life.

In December of 2010, two years after I missed my first ‘outdate’, I learned that my father had a massive stroke through a phone call at the Chaplains office at New Castle. I laid on the floor crying ‘I almost made it home. I almost made it, dad.’ Deep, guttural sobs came out of me. I understood in that moment that all of our actions had consequences. There was no escaping them. We are all accountable.I will carry that moment, so vividly, in my memory forever. I was crushed.

I’m gonna wrap my arms around my daddy’s neck 
And tell him that I’ve missed him

And tell him all about the man that I became 
And hope that it pleased him

There’s so much I want to say
There’s so much I want you to know

When I finally make it home 
When I finally make it home

Mercy Me, Finally Home

For the next 5 months, my mom visited my dad at the hospital and the rehabilitation center where he learned to use the right side of his body for things that his left side could no longer perform because of the stroke. I would talk to mom on the phone in the evenings, and hear the exhaustion and fear in her voice. Her soul mate was paralyzed. Her son was in prison and couldn’t help. The despair and sadness was overwhelming. I cried more in those 4 months than I ever had the entire 24 years of my incarceration.

Eventually I came home. Eventually I was able to put that time behind me. Eventually I was able to help my mom care for my dad.

Then tonight came and I heard that song by MercyMe and everything came flooding back. The phone call, the despair, the pain, the years of selfish living and losing time. The evil behaviors and taking my wonderful parents together.

This is a ReEntry blog. I try to keep it real when it comes to the hard stuff. The things you are doing to yourselves now have a lasting impact on your lives. These are things that you need to learn. Your past will impact your future for the better or the worse, the choice is entirely up to you.

I want you guys to be better than me. Don’t deny that time with your family just because you think it’s good to probate with a gang, or act like a goon, or smoke pot, or bust that dude in the face for changing the TV channel. Those choices have actions, and the will impact you in the long run. You can take this experience and wisdom and  apply it to your life.

My parents have now been married for 56 years. They are alive and I get to spend every day with them. These hours are precious gifts to me. I never thought I would have them again. But God has shown me mercy. Awhile back, my dad even told me he was proud of the man I had become. We cried together.

God will do the same with you, all you have to do is lay your life down and accept Him. And if you don’t have your dad, I know a Father that will tell you how proud He is of You to have come home.

And that’s ReEntry to me.