In 2000 I was indicted by the Federal Government. I was partnered with someone and we had developed an online Pharmacy. The Government did an investigation and brought down an indictment against us in August of 2000.
This is not a story about jail house conversion. I was saved around the age of 12, there was never a time in my life that I didn't believe in Jesus. We're raised up on it in the South. Its part of the fabric of our lives. I went to church, sang in the choir, taught Sunday School. By all standards I was a "good" person.
I would learn in this journey that being "good" isn't what life with God is about.
So I was arrested in August of 2000. I was hand-cuffed and walked two city blocks, booked, mug shot, finger prints, the whole deal. I was released on bond to await trial. My life would never be the same. I walked through very dark days, I learned what it was to feel humiliated to your bones. I would go to WalMart at 11pm to avoid running into anyone. Somewhere along the way, God leaned near, told me to pick up His Word and find out what was there.
On December 17th of 2000, sitting on a log in the weak afternoon sun on a cold day I told God I would give my life back to Him. Honestly, my thinking was...it was pretty well ruined. I certainly didn't want it anymore. Funny, how we are that way, we make a mess of our lives then we'll gladly give them to God. But the amazing thing about God? He'll take them. So on that cold December day, I told God that I would go where He said to go, do what He said to do, say what He said to say, I would not tell Him no again.
My life did not magically get better. As a matter of fact, things were going to get real tough.
We went to trial in February of 2002. I was convicted of conspiracy. On June 18th, the day before my Dad's birthday, I was sentenced to 78 months in Federal Prison. That's six and a half years. The government asked the court to sentence me to 240 months. On July 31 of 2002, a group of friends drove me to the Women's Federal Prison camp in Marianna Florida, and I self surrendered.
But I did not go alone. One of the first things God made me aware of was that all my life I had heard about Him, now it was time to find out for myself. There would be no one to teach me, except His Spirit. And so began my "education."
It was difficult adjusting, but not impossible and as I settled into a very different life God began teaching me lessons through nearly every experience. I continued writing my daily devotionals, its was salvation for me mentally. It kept me focused in the Word, and I still felt some sense of connection to my old life. In time I understood the difference between knowing about God, and knowing God.
2003 and 2004 were nothing short of miraculous. I experienced an accelerated spiritual growth like nothing I had ever known in my life. I was at peace, rested and living literally in the hand of God. I discovered peace that REALLY did surpass all understanding, and God was so real I could "see" Him. I developed the habit of rising early in the mornings, around 5am, to go and find a quiet spot to sit with God. I had an NIV Bible, a King James Bible, a note pad and a pen. There was a spot on a concrete sidewalk where I sat every morning, no matter the weather. I would go and be with God.
On November 29 of 2004, on a Monday afternoon, I phoned my Mother, as was my habit. She answered and asked if I had spoke with my lawyer. No, I had not. She told me to sit down, she had news. We had won our appeal. I had been in prison 28 months, whole churches had prayed that we would win our appeal. God had heard us. Only 2% of convictions at the Federal level are reversed on appeal. ALL convictions were vacated. It was a miracle. Surely I would be home by Christmas.
I did not go home for Christmas. The Government was not pleased with the Court's decision, so they asked for the Court to grant En Banc. They were asking the Court to re-hear the appeal. They would not give me bond and release me. Time marched on in the way time does. Christmas came and went, so did New Years. Finally in March of 2005 the Court granted the Government's request for En Banc. We had to do it all again.
I can only describe the year of 2005 as the year of my suffering. Anger and bitterness came to stay with me. The devil was always near to ask me why I would serve a God who wanted nothing more for me than a hard cold concrete sidewalk in a podunk prison in Marianna Florida. How could I believe God loved me when He had allowed us to prevail in the Court but did not allow me to go home? What kind of God was that? What kind of joke was that?
The devil is a liar.
By then I had come so far with God I knew one thing, God could work good from anything, even this. So I stayed put on that hard cold sidewalk. I stayed in my faith even when I couldn't understand my God. My heart broke over and over that year. I was burning in the fires of affliction, and no one could help me but God. I learned a lot about suffering. And I took all that junk that wanted to weigh me down and I would just drag into His Presence. I took my anger and my bitterness, right with me. I would sit down with God and sit all that junk down too. I couldn't change it, but I knew the One who could.
In January of 2006 I would gain one of the greatest revelations of my spiritual life. I'll come back to that.
I worked off the camp in a warehouse as a receiving clerk. On February 14, 2006, the bus driver comes to the warehouse. Our Camp Administrator has sent her for me. I return to the camp, walk into the Administration offices and she's waiting for me. All she says is that my lawyer has phoned and he has news. We go into her office and she dials his number, and hands me the phone. The Court had finally returned a decision. We had won...again. He said he would have me out in seven to ten days. Praise God.
I did not leave. The Government asked for an extension, they wanted to take this case to the Supreme Court. They needed 30 days to decide.
As those 30 days came to a close, they asked for 30 more.
Then 60 more after that.
They were stealing my life from me one day at a time. I just stayed with God this time. There was no crisis, oh there were days I wanted to rage but it was a waste of energy. God gave me a wonderful group of women and my friends rallied around me and I waited on God with their support and encouragement.
The United States Marshals finally showed up for me on a Friday, August 25, 2006. They shackled my hands to a chain around my waist, they shackled my legs together and put me in a van and drove me back to Montgomery, Alabama. They put me in Autauga Metro jail and left me for four days. I had a court hearing to attend. Finally on Tuesday morning, August 29 the guard at the jail told me to get my stuff, I was "all the way". I was not coming back.
Shackled up again, I was taken to the Federal Courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama. There was a short hearing, and after signing a piece of paper, they took the chains off of me and after 49 months of incarceration, I was released.
I don't share my story so that you might feel outraged on my behalf, or to reveal our justice system. This is just the journey I made, and for all that's wrong with the way I was treated, in this journey I gained a life with God. Nothing can ever make right what they did to me. There is a saying that justice delayed is justice denied. Its true. But what they meant for harm, God has used for good. This is how God shaped me, this is my testimony because within this story there is so much that God has done. This is the source of the words that God allows to pour through me in my writing, these are the hard won lessons that I share in conferences and guest speaking. As long as I lived in the world I was never going to know God, I was always going to just know about Him. God wanted so much more for me than that. So God took me from the world. He did not lock me away from the world all those months in prison, God had locked the world away from me. He gave me the greatest opportunity of my life to have the time with no distractions to seek Him with my whole heart. I wouldn't trade it.
I told you I would come back to January of 2006, it was on those cold mornings that God taught me the truth of Paul's words from Romans 8:38. You see, I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation is able to separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I am convinced. So as they played their games with extension after extension. As the days of my life ticked away, I could rest in the full knowledge that God was in control, and if God is for me, who can be against me?
I live a very different life now. And I'm real glad about it. I have started archiving Grace notes in a blog, you can read past Grace notes
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