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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: BLESSED (03/07/19)
When Jack found himself confined to a prison cell, convicted, and sentenced, regret boiled up into his face like a fire breathing dragon. What had he done? As he pondered his life, now forty eight years old, and thought of his mother and her many warnings and efforts to turn him to the better things in life, he recalled a day when she had solicited legal counsel to put the “fear of God and man” into her sixteen year old son. As they sat at a long conference table in the youth judge’s office, he remembered the words of the agent in charge, “son, you can obey your mother, obey the laws of the land, and authorities in this life or you can lose your freedom to choose. Someone else will take those freedoms and you will pay a price.” His freedom had ended and if bound to serve his twenty four year sentence without parole, he would be getting free at seventy one.

Jack’s father had died when he was fourteen at which time he began his mission of striving to flaunt his freedom and choose his own way. Jack thought of the drugs he had used, the words of disrespect, and the total rejection of any form of discipline and restraint measured out to him. His life as he had lived it seemed free of man’s dominion and rule, but in a real sense it contained all the measures of confinement. Locked in a cell of rebellion and constant searches for more. The highs, folly, fun, satisfactions, and consuming lusts had been his prison. Plans to fulfill every desire that rose from the pit of Satan’s temptations filled his mind with passions and desires that had no future life and dead ends that sparkled like an illustriously brilliant diamond, but always crumbling in the hand of the one who grasped it.

Suddenly a loud crash of cell doors slamming interrupted his memories. Here he would spend moments, hours, days and years reading another book, viewing another television program, and living long days looking at the same people doing the same things with repugnant repetition. Regret filled Jack’s eyes with tears and he longed to hold his mother, to laugh, fish, and hunt with his brothers, and feel the fresh air in his face one more time. More deeply than all those losses, he wondered about his son. Now sixteen himself, he too is looking for life in all the wrong places. Jack stepped away from being father to become the missing love in his son’s life. For the many near-death experiences Jack had survived, his son would have attended a father’s funeral and wondered who was the guest of honor.

Sorrow rushed in with crushing, painful memories and he wondered how to make a shred of richness appear from nothing. Then, as if a breath of love appeared from the shadows, he heard his mother’s voice speaking from Romans, “Nothing can separate you from the love of God…not even your own sin.” Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Jack began to think of all the blessings of home and the love of the family he spurned with his life, and he longed for it. He also remembered his grandmother saying, “you can’t put spilled milk back into the glass.”
At that memory, he summoned a visual image of spilled milk and he knew it was time to replace his hopelessness with Hope. Closing his eyes he cried out for Jesus to help him find the blessings of life again. Confessing a lack of passion for righteousness, he prayed for Jesus’ forgiveness, a restored life, and a clean heart.

Jack placed his future in Love’s hands and brushed the dust from the new Bible he received for his birthday. A glimmer of joy rose from the ashes and he resolved to walk in the freedom of God’s Kingdom.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6)
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This article has been read 371 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Leola Ogle
03/14/19
A sad but true story for so many young men choosing the wrong path. I'm glad Jack surrendered to Jesus. Thanks for your story. God bless.
C D Swanson 
03/15/19
Powerfully written and expressed, well done.

Loved that he found Jesus, thank you for sharing.

Blessings~
Barbara Culler 
03/17/19
Indeed a sad story that happens way too often.
Karen Dick 
03/18/19
I appreciated your story and the memories Jack had of his upbringing. It was a hopeful message.
Shann Hall-LochmannVanBennekom 
03/19/19
This is powerful story. You do a great job of bring Jack to life. I felt like I was right there with him. Remember to put hyphens when combining words to make a modifier like fire-breathing dragon and sixteen-year-old son. You definitely captured the topic in this thought-provoking piece and have a clear Christian message.