Thoughts From a Prison Cell--Hello! Is anybody there???

 

5/2/2012 a.m.--I thought it was the fifth day in prison, but it is actually the seventh. (It was actually the sixth!) Yesterday was the worst and best day. I met two more really nice ladies--one in Feds who is going back to WV soon. I pray I go there, too. From everything I've heard, it's nice there.

Last night my cellmate got caught smoking cigarettes, and we both got cuffed and made to sit in the middle of the pod while our cell was searched. (The whole pod was on lockdown while this was going on.) Everything from our lockers was thrown out into the middle of the pod in a heap. The guards took all the sanitary napkins I had accumulated! We got strip searched. As soon as we got all our things put back together again, the guards came in again and did a repeat of the same. As I was being strip searched in the shower stalls--in front of all who were watching through their cell windows--I was sobbing, "I didn't do anything wrong!" The guard said, "Honey, we know you didn't do anything wrong," to which I replied, "Is this what you do to people who do nothing wrong?" (I should have known better by this time.) I think I saw a flicker of empathy in her eyes. All this started because we were already on lockdown because others were fighting at dinner. 

I didn't get to call Daddy for the second night in a row. He's probably worried. I cried all night. I needed that release, finally.

Since I've been here, I've had the opportunity to be helped by many really nice ladies. I met a lady from Somerset. I like her a lot. 

One lady asked me if she could use my tpin number yesterday (so she could make a phone call--which was a violation). I told her, "No." She's not speaking to me any longer. One lady keeps bringing me "gospel" books. She's a sweetheart, and the books have been really good. I'm continuing to learn the Lord's lessons for me. I've read approximately 1,000 pages since Friday (five days). There's not much else to do but stare at the television. I can't get my visitor list turned in until I talk to Daddy again. I talked to (a close relative) the other night when Daddy's phone kept coming up as restricted. (Many to whom I had been close before I was indicted had pulled away from me for whatever reasons. I can count on one hand, with fingers to spare, how many relatives interacted with me while in prison. You learn who your true friends are in a situation like this.) [This relative] was cold and distant as ever. [This relative] didn't even ask how I was doing. This place is a miserable place.

I got a really heavy period Saturday. Small pads and small tampons. I had to sleep sitting up all night against the wall those first nights. When I was with my first roommate--who was very helpful--she was upset with me because I snored (a problem with every roommate I would have) and had to get up and down to change my tampon several times a night. The rungs on the lowest part of the "ladder" is narrow. I can't tramp on it with my foot without stepping on her leg, apparently. The next day I had a new room and a new roommate. In my first cell, I had a mattress that was maybe "1 thick--if that. It was almost impossible to sleep on. I found a way to make a pillow by rolling the mattress, so I could sleep on either side for short intervals at a time. Every part of my body hurts "from sleeping"!!!

The place is filthy. The girls keep the main area very clean, but everything else is dirty. Everything--garbage--gets flushed. You could flush almost anything down these super toilets. Someone told me that some women empty the toilet of water and talk to the men through their toilets. You get two flushes an hour (not three as I originally remembered). You get two rolls of toilet paper a week--for two in a cell. That's it! You have to make due without it, if you run out. The food is hard to deal with--I eat as much as I can. I'm thirsty a lot and would love to have a bottle of water or a Pepsi. I realize how much I have taken for granted on the outside--just simple things. 

My heart is broken to think of Jesse going through this, but I know that You are working all for our good and Your glory, Lord. I miss everyone so much. Even in all this, Lord, You are good. I have food and covering, therefore, my needs are being met. Help me be a blessing to others today.

P.S. Everyone keeps telling me I don't look like I belong here. They say I look like a school teacher. Also, there are many who profess to know God and listen to sermons on radio, read books, and talk about "God". However, I have not heard one person speak of holiness and righteousness. I need a Bible in here!!! I should have memorized more Scripture. (My son and I took our paperback Bibles to court with us, but the U.S. Marshals wouldn't let us keep them; so I had to wait for someone to order one from Amazon and have it sent to me. AFTER THE VISITOR LIST WAS APPROVED! Uhhhh!!!)

The Lord is with me. He hears my prayers. I am always realizing there is so much more I want of Him and His ways in my life. I've had the head knowledge; and, knowing Who You are is good--it is always good to know ABOUT You. But I want to know You more than I know anyone, even myself. I want our hearts to beat as one. Draw me to Yourself, by Your precious Holy Spirit.

5/2/2012--5:30 p.m. This morning and throughout the day, several people have come up to me and said, "Was that you last night? Because, I said to my celly--"Ain't no way that lady did anything wrong." It struck me just now that when I was indicted very few people said that about me. I could only get two people to come to trial as character witnesses for me. It wasn't until the last five months that I think people believed I was innocent of the charges. These people in here don't know me at all, yet they see something in me. I don't get it at all. It has struck me that I need to focus on my relationships in the future and let people get to know me more. I walk around in here astonished at how much people seem to like me. 

The Lord has yet again put another book on prayer in my hands. Learning to pray has been a journey--a journey in which I still feel like I have so far to go. Is it this way for all God's children? 

There are so many hurting women here. Where are those ministers of the gospel? There's no reform here. These ladies need help, not degradation and dehumanization. They need the gospel, the only thing that can save them. 

I believe You are doing a radical work in my heart, Lord--a work that probably the Christians in my life at home will not understand. I pray they do. I pray that Your purpose be fulfilled in my life and each of my family members as well as we seek to understand how You want to use this dark valley we are going through for good and for Your glory.

Give me a love for You that focuses on You every moment I am awake.

    ...now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to    Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:7-8) (I had no Bible, but I was meditating on every truth I found in the few good books that were there.)

Please, Lord, protect my $300 money order so that it is not waste and poor stewardship to my family. Help me get it to my dad to put into my account $100 at a time. Jesse's, too, Lord.

Mark 11:24--Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.

Keep asking and believing that what you ask for is as good as yours, even though you may not receive it until the future. 

James 1:5-8--But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

8:00 p.m. -- Talked to Daddy. It sounds like [our lawyer 'friend'] is making excuses regarding the appeal bond already. (This friend who was working with our attorneys promised four family members that the lawyer team would have us out of prison in 90 days on an appeal bond. After we were in prison, he swore to the other two people on the outside that he never made that promise. It's one thing to say, "It didn't work out as planned." But to bold-face lie by saying you never made the promise is devastating.) I have to prepare myself for the worst, take one day at a time and trust You have all things perfectly in Your control. There is no one else to trust.  I got my visitor list in tonight.

Today, I have really started missing Greg. I want to be with him again and to have the chance to never take him for granted, to spend the rest of our days together with a redeemed marriage centered on our love for Christ. I don't know what You have for us, but I want to minister alongside him for the rest of our lives. My heart aches to see him, to love him, and to talk heart to heart with him. I know You are sanctifying us both. 

Daddy said Jesse is doing well--sounds very upbeat. Daddy said Jesse was down because he was worried about me. I love him so much. Things never to take for granted again--almost everything good I can think of after six days.

• Access to my Bible and my books
• My family
• My friends
• Church family
• Privacy
• My purple chair
• T.V.
• Talk on the phone whenever I want
• Be able to clean my own home
• My computer
• Facebook
• Paper
• Pens
• Easy access to internet
• Clean clothes every day
• My own shower
• To do my hair
• To do my makeup
• Walking outside
• Freedom to come and go at random
• Access to make anything for meals
• Clean water
• Real coffee
• Silverware (not plastic sporks)
• A sufficient amount of toilet paper
• Sanitary products
• To eat off of dishes and take as long as I want
• A real mirror
• Tweezers
• Clippers
• Dental floss

Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. (Psalm 103:2)

I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry. (Psalm 40:1)

Tomorrow is May 3rd, and a Thursday. It's been eleven years--eleven YEARS!!! since my baby girl left this earth. I miss her so badly. Putting all in perspective elven years seems forever. How could everyone I love be taken away or separated from me? Did I not love them enough? I don't know why, and I suspect I never will in this life. My heart is breaking. 

***Everything in parentheses is for clarity from recollection today.