Pastor To Prisoner

My wife loves her job; she is a nurse who works with cancer patients. Given the location of the hospital at which she is employed (near a regional prison facility), her job entails treating many inmates with various health issues. She usually isn’t bothered by this but she was telling me this morning that recently, while changing the bed in one of the prisoner’s rooms, out of nowhere the two officers in there guarding the man, at one moment, just jumped quickly out of their seats—though, probably just for precautionary measures. This kind of freaked her out. (She says that security is poor. The majority of the time the convicts are left un-cuffed and at night, the officers fall asleep.) She wanted to know what this guy was in for and if it might be in her best interest to be aware of his crimes and tendencies. So, this sent her looking for information on the Internet about the convict, unfortunately, the details concerning his detainment were not listed.

Well, after searching for information on this patient-convict, I searched for the name of a minister I used to be friends with. Some time ago, he got locked up and convicted of sexual abuse. He’s serving 6-years. Unlike the search for the other guy, the search for the person I knew turned up a lot of results. In fact, there was even a picture of him provided. It was the traditional mugshot with him holding up his #SPN under his chin.

When I saw this, my heart just sank; I instantly grew depressed. His head was shaved, his face was unshaven—he looked bad. There was a huge scar/bruise on the side of his face and head, which was not there before, so, something bad must have happened while he has been behind bars. This guy who used to be so happy, outgoing and full of joy was just dejected. He was spiritless. He was empty and I could tell he was aching. Man, talk about putting a downer on my day. Even as I type this, I feel so out of it—I am upset. From an outsider’s point-of-view, the mindset is: "Don’t feel sorry for him, he got what he deserved.” Actually, from a legal standpoint, he probably should have gotten worse. But from an insider’s viewpoint, it is still hard to see someone you know—especially someone whose ministerial influence was as tremendous as his—in such a cracked out situation.

All I can do is ache for this guy and pray that God would bring him a sense of redemption. The family should be prayed for too. But right now, I’m in one of those moods where I just don’t feel like praying. Maybe I will later.