I signed up for Women Alive Conference because of Patti Larson. I tho I could go home after hearing her because the others are not so real to me. Main speaker Carol Kent, very familiar name and face. In my mind, she was one of those bubbly, non stoppable speaker who always saw the funny side of life, which is fine sometime in my life. But this time around, I don't have the appetite for it. I was planning to arrive late, so I could miss her. But I was only late enough for the singing. So Carol started her presentation by sharing the early part of her life, her wonderful and only son Jason, who grew up with 3 sets of loving grandparents, lot of uncles and aunts and 18 closed cousins. He was a hit from day one of his life, a high achiever and good looking young man. He went on to become graduate of West Point and Navy Seal and was becoming a neuclear engineer in the military to serve the country with hope to be in politic one day. Then he fell in love with this lovely young divorcee with 2 young daughters and got married within months. Everything went fine for the first year until the father of the girls who had abusive record visited the girls on unsupervised situations which was against the divorce term. The court did not do enough to restrain him . Jason was in turmoil that he could not protect the girls. One day, he took a gun and shot that man, killed him on the spot. And that was how everyone around him started their lives spiralling down head first. Despite all the prayers, pleads and petitions, Jason was sentenced to life sentence without parole. In the States, life sentence means the whole life, not 25 years. He would have no chance to step out of jail until the day he die.
Many of us thought, how could he do such dumb thing to jeoperdize himself and his family after having so much training in discipline and knowledge of the law? It must be an act of the weak moment. But in retrospect, don't we all make dumb decisions in moments of weakness and desperation? We would do anything to stop that pain inside us, to take control of our own lives, to find quick solutions without looking further ahead? All the time, we are getting into deeper and deeper lost. If only we know, God can take care of us but he allows certain things happen because he has plans for our lives as well as our loved ones.
So how did Carol and her husband picked up their lives again after such devastation? Emotionally, it was the end of the world for them. For days and months and years, they seemed to be walking in a deep dark tunnel. They lived like walking deads. They have to move from a picturesique situation of life into a cram and depressing environment just to be closer to their son. They spent many hours queueing infront of the maximum security jailhouse. They got to know many parents and relatives of the inmates and listen to their stories. Most of them have hope of seeing their children walking out of jail one day but not them.
As they start to mininster to the inmates and their relatives. God starts to shed a light upon their hearts. More and more Christians joined in to support the ministry and more and more people get to know the Lord. They finally realize that God has put them in a place that they would normally not have choosen to go and meet the people that they would not have normally met. Though now there is still tears and heartache but there is also laughter, joy and hope. Certainly that goes hand in hand with faith in a God who knows what he is doing. He can turn bitterness into peace and mistakes into blessings. The expression of the three in the last family photo on the screen with Jason in inmate clothing was a proof.
