Prison stories: A young Iraq war veteran's story S was a 19-year old when we met him at Alpha in prison. He served 9 months in Iraq, his story is sad and deeply moving. He told me: "I struggle to sleep, because I have vivid flashbacks of my time in Iraq. I am plagued by pictures of the bloodshed I saw in Iraq among civilians, US servicemen and especially of some of my friends who were killed and maimed in front of me."
I was moved and troubled by this deeply wounded young man's story The next week he was transferred to another prison, I...
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| Stories from prison
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"I feel really free, for the first time in my life."
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When S first came to Alpha, she was angry and highly volatile emotionally, alternating between tears and emotional outbursts, which she struggled to control. Her life is a sad but rather typical story of most women in prison, a story of physical and sexual abuse as a child and as a teenager. Her personal suffering lead to attempts to deaden her pain with drugs and alcohol.
I had just asked my small group: "Do you have a story to tell of what God has done in your life?" S was one of the first to jump in, she asked the group: "Do you remember the evening when I spent almost the whole session in tears?" Another woman replied: "How could we forget, you used up yards of roller towel from the bathroom?"
That evening was a turning point in her life. She reminded the group that the topic that night was; "How does God guide us?" "I was struggling to make a very difficult decision about a relationship which I knew was wrong for me. Once I made the decision to follow God in that decision, I was able to turn without reservation to Jesus as my Lord and Savior."
She went on to describe how her deep-seated anger often turned into violence. She had a reputation among inmates and among staff for being violent and almost uncontrollable. A lot of her time was spent in the segregation unit for violence against other inmates. She was even on the verge of being transferred to a prison in Maine for attacking and injuring two prison officers.
In desperation, she asked God not to let her be sent to Maine and to help her deal with her anger. God answered her prayer and began to work in her life. By the time she came to Alpha it was clear to all of us that God was already at work in her life.
She told us: "Although I still get frustrated and angry, I don't feel the urge to act out and hurt others; Jesus is giving me self-control. Others have noticed it, the staff who never spoke to me except to give orders are now starting to have little conversations with me."
"I feel really free, for the first time in my life."
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