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Introduction

Anyone who knows anything about world history will tell you just how blessed we are to live in twenty-first century America. Most of us have suitable housing, jobs that enable us to pay our bills, and enough free time left to enjoy some of life’s pleasures. Very few of us have ever truly been without food, without a home, or without hope. I think it’s fair to say that most of us could characterize life as a somewhat tame roller-coaster experience. That is, reasonably smooth – perhaps even “normal” – with occasional hills and valleys with their twists and turns. Through it all, by the grace of God, we admit that we are reasonably unscathed.

And yet, I’m sure you’ve read about individuals whose lives have been almost completely changed by difficult circumstances.  People who have been pulled out of normal life, with all its support mechanisms, and subjected to trauma fierce enough to break apart a family, or even one’s sanity. Consider, for instance, one who has been taken from his home in 1942 to be dropped on a remote island on a battlefield under fire.  Those who have experienced the horrors of war are afterward expected to return home to resume “normal” lives. 

I’ve never been in a combat situation and would never compare what happened to me with an experience like that.  And yet, I did go through an experience that was indeed traumatic, testing myself and my family and changing who we once were.

I was a person with a “normal” life who managed to be what you’d call a “success story.”  I had earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering, got married to a beautiful Christian woman.  We bought a home in a safe, peaceful community, and we started raising three children. Soon after, I was offered a dream job as a College Professor. After many years of hard work, I became a tenured professor, which locked me in with a high level of job security, an attractive health care plan, great salary and benefits, and a pension for retirement.  In a sense, I had made it.  I had the perfect family, a great job, and I was in good health to boot.

Suddenly, on a sunny day in early Spring, tragedy struck my little family. In an instant, my life was completely changed.  My 16-year-old boy was dead due to a drowning accident.  A week later, my daughter was taken from us and put into foster care.  I lost my job. My career was taken away from me. I was being investigated for murder.  Me!  A law-abiding, conservative Christian, who had never been in trouble with the law, was being looked at like a common criminal.  A family member close to me was maliciously feeding the county prosecutor and news media slanderous accusations that painted us as horrible parents.  The media ate it all up, turning the community and hundreds of students I had worked with for years against me.  And my 15-year-old daughter was so traumatized at being apart from us that she started cutting herself.  And, on top of all this, I was very likely looking at serious prison time. Prison time!  All on account of an accident.

My life path became one of pain and guilt over losing a child because I’d been in too much of a hurry. But it became almost impossible to bear when I was betrayed by my own family, who started telling the media lies about how we were such horrible parents.  Then, the pain of CPS taking away my daughter; the pain of being sent to prison for two years, apart from my wife and daughters who were left to fend for themselves with no help from the State and almost nothing from family or friends we discovered had believed the media narrative.

And yet, despite the pain of being separated from those I loved; the pain of being betrayed by others I also loved; and the loss of my career, my freedoms, my rights as a citizen; I was able, by God’s grace, to find a way through all the hardships and turn the experience into a blessing.  I witnessed God’s grace, mercy, and power first-hand by being part of a movement in prison where I was able to reach out to hundreds of fellow convicts with the love of Christ and the power of forgiveness.

As I write today, three years after my release from prison, I can look back with a bit of valuable perspective.  The trauma I faced didn’t just go away that sweet morning when I walked out the doors of prison and back into the “free world.”  Because as wonderful and as highly anticipated as it was, those two years of incarceration, preceded by two years being under investigation by the State, had changed me.  And today, I am a different man.  Many of my interests and desires are different.  Hobbies I once had no longer entice me.  I find myself not wanting to “waste time” on the trivial things I used to find enjoyment in and focus more on what truly matters.  Many of the friends and the institutions I once admired, even relied upon, seem different to me, as though they don’t exist. I don’t recognize them anymore. 

And now, I feel like I’m a different person coming back to a different world.  Everything prior to that is dead to me, and it’s like I’m starting over with a new life, new goals and objectives, and new relationships to build with brothers and sisters in Christ I have met along the way.

But we’re wise not to head off into the future without having learned from the past.  The day my son died, I began writing a journal.  And then during those long, lonely nights in prison, I started another journal that I kept until my release and continued writing in to this day.  I’d like to take you on a journey through the past so you can, to some measure, experience what I did, and learn the lessons I had to learn – often the hard way. 

Have you ever wanted to know what it’s like losing one child only to have CPS take away another? Endure random drug tests and search warrants?  Hear horrible, false accusations from people unknown to you?  Face the media and the fickle comments written by fair weather friends who really don’t know you at all but judge you based on an agenda powerful people wish to sell.

Perhaps you’ve always wondered what it’s like to go through the motions of being sentenced to prison, of being escorted away from your family to a completely different world where you don’t know what you’ll face, but you think you know what to expect. This new world envelopes you like a storm, and survival is your only goal until you see the blue skies you hope for some day down the line.  And when the morning of your release comes, and you walk out of your cell and down the block to the control center for the last time, friends waving as you leave. Yes, many of these inmates have become your friends.  People who have done terrible things, now in tears as you, one of their best friends, is leaving them there while you face the guilt of leaving them behind.  You’ve dreamt about this day for many months, anticipating what it will be like, and what awaits you when you get home.  Home. Something you’ve longed to experience just one more time.

To survive, you need a faith stronger than what your adversaries will throw at you.  You need strength to endure many nights of solitude, fear, and uncertainty.  Yet through it all you feel the presence of an invisible Hand, which holds you and guides you and comforts you as you travel down a road completely new to you. 

This is my testimony of what happened over the course of approximately five years.  I’d like to show you how the Lord delivered me and my family through it all, what I’ve learned, and how I would now like to give back by helping others.

So please join me as I rewind the time machine a bit and set the stage for what follows. Let’s get started.

To be continued…