Parallel Worlds – So Different Yet So Similar

Our Prison Ministry Team standing outside the Prison
Photo taken by Juan Rios

The Preacher and I were finishing up working in the office on a Friday evening when I received a text from a friend asking if we would like to meet for dinner. We had not been with them in quite some time and they wanted to reconnect. They were dealing with life changes and wanted some advice on life choices and prayer was much appreciated. We met later that evening. We laughed, we ate, we discussed what if's, we reconnected. The Preacher and I then went home with our stomachs full of good food and our hearts full of love for our friends and for each other.

Early the next morning our Prison Ministry Team met to go to a men's correctional facility 60 miles from our church. We were going to this prison to bring songs of praise and words of wisdom through the Message of the Bible. We entered the front doors of the prison and while going through our security checks we were told of a lock down that had occurred the night before. We were to wait for the guards to check and see if we would be able to see the men, the men who are the church inside these barbed-wire, concrete walls. 

We were given the okay and proceeded down the locked door hallways to our little room we use as a chapel and began to set up. The men slowly made their way to the room. They have smiles on their faces, they are happy to see us. One of the prisoners begins to tell us of the events that took place the night before.

While the Preacher and I were having dinner in a restaurant with our friends a man was being stabbed in the prison. The prisoner's cells were being ransacked by guards who were on high alert. They were ripping apart men's beds and personal belongings looking for more weapons. After the confusion and danger subsided, the men went back to their torn up cells and began the clean-up. Sleep did not come easy nor did it come peacefully.

Did this prisoner, who was telling the story, go on to tell us what a horrible, scary place this prison is? No, he went on to say how he loves the Lord and how he asks God everyday for His discernment. This is something he had never done before walking behind those thick, iron gates.

Upon hearing the prisoner praising the Lord, I stopped and reflected on all I had heard. I thought of the events that took place in my life, in my world, the night before. 

Here this man is living in a world where he is confined to small living quarters, his comings and goings are monitored 24 hours a day, and where danger is around every corner, and yet he sits before us proclaiming his love for Christ and is content where he is. Do I proclaim my love for Christ when life throws hard choices, hard situations and hard people in my life? Would I praise Him if I lived in constant danger? I would like to say that I would but I know better. Many times I don't praise Him in my hard days.

I saw our parallel worlds that morning, the prisoner's and mine. Two completely different worlds and yet so similar. Similar in the since that in some ways we can find ourselves imprisoned by our sin. 

His words changed my perspective of my world. In the eyes of God I too am a sinner just as the prisoner. Even though we live in two different worlds, we both still need a Savior. The prisoner is finding his Savior behind barbed-wire fences. I have no fences keeping me locked away, but I still need to find my Savior. We think our life is so much easier, but is it really?

I never would have thought a man locked behind prison walls would ever minister to me but the Lord always finds a way to show His glory, especially in the least likely places.

Love from the Preacher and I