Thank You Heavenly Father
All my life I’d been the center action of ridicule, rejection, and abuse; but, as it’s been told, all things are done for a purpose. I hated my life, I hated everything about who I was, I prayed so many times that God would take my life. Being the only son of a woman who cared only for herself, I was rejected and unloved, I was never accepted as my sisters were. There was physical abuse also for not wanting to participate in her manipulative games with men. She tried to claim I was the son of this man or that man, but I always knew that the man who lived with me, played with me, who taught me, and who loved me was my father. After being rejected so much by my bio-mother, I created my own little world.
My father was all that I had. Even as a child I was not allowed to have friends or play sports. My father tried, he was not always there to protect me, but he tried. I never used drugs or drank, I promised my father I wouldn’t. I had been baptized in a good Christian church when I was a baby. Because of mixed religions and conflicting family structure, I was trapped by confusion about God. What I knew I learned from my father. As I grew up, I learned to follow the code of the streets of St. Louis, MO.
I grew up in poverty, oppression, violence, and death. My life took it’s turn after the death of my half-brothers. Then my father passed on in 1989. I believed I had lost the only family I would ever know. There were times I attempted to commit suicide, I wanted so much to leave this world, I just wanted to forget it all and be free. But then my hell got even hotter. In May 1990, police came to my mother’s home and arrested me for a crime I knew nothing of. I was convicted and sentenced to serve the remainder of my life in prison.
I was now in prison. I was about to commit suicide but I got to thinking about my father. I sat down and asked God to come into my life and accept me into His home. I promised God and my father I would live until I’m able to see them. I saw for the first time that Someone wanted me to live, but for what reason, I wondered. While in prison, I started to go through a transformation spiritually. I joined the prison churches and became active in every program that was offered. I started to work on my own personal problems and in the process I was able to assist others. I learned the truth of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
God was working in my life. After some time in the year 1992, on December 11th, I received a letter and birthday cards from a woman named Elizabeth Michael. It was the day before my birthday and those two cards I will never forget. I wrote her back and thanked her, not knowing that we would be writing for over 7 years. She and her husband did something I couldn’t believe, they became my new family and accepted me into their lives. I felt the concern, love, and support of those two and I remember her scolding me for wanting to give up my fight to regain my freedom. I started to fully open up to them and then I knew God had sent them to me.
I wanted to spread the love and the joy that I have come to know, and feel, and accept. My eyes opened wide with the possibilities of beginning a pen pal program to help other inmates throughout the incarcerated communities. I presented the idea to my Mama and Pops and they agreed. Mama and I were already planning and compiling a prisoner resource directory helping needs in various fields. We placed our Pen Pal Connection information and address in the directory and started sending it to prisoners and chaplains.
Another reason for this, I want to involve the people of society because they fail to realize that we are human beings too, and someday we will return back into society. While most people give credit for lower crime to the government and the politicians for harsher laws and punishments, it is really the people in society who make the effort to reach inside these walls to help men and women to grasp hold to the possibility of achievement. You have given us hope and love through your prayers and sharing Jesus.
As God opens my eyes and heart, I give thanks to Him each and every day that I wake up and see this world. I was once blind and bitter, but now I am what God wishes for me to be, His child. God has entered my life and I want to never disappoint Him.
THANK YOU HEAVENLY FATHER!!
E-mail: freekristoffer@gmail.com