The End of a Matter
She had served twenty years in prison. Next week she would be going home. As we sat together and she reflected on her
incarceration, many memories good and bad were shared. She had entered the correctional system young
and angry and rebellious. She had been
put in solitary several times early on in her sentence. She refused to let anyone get the better of
her.
Over time things began to change. She began to change. She started attending the church service,
because a couple of her friends went. She
had no interest at all in God until one day she heard this verse in a power-packed
sermon that God used to reach her. The
end is better than the beginning…patience is better than pride. That message was her personal invitation to
accept Christ and she did.
Over the remainder of her sentence, things were not perfect
and she had ups and downs. Yet she
noticed how differently she could handle the highs and lows of prison
life. The attitude at the beginning had
changed and now her attitude, a week away from being released, was one of
quietness and trust. She had learned to
humble herself at the hand of God. She
had received His forgiveness and so had forgiven herself. So in prison she was set free. She had learned patience over those twenty
years – patience with the system, with family, with everything. She had learned to sit in God’s waiting room
known as prison and focus on the end of the matter, which was more important
and far better than the beginning. She
would walk out a free woman with new opportunities in her life. She had been free inside prison for years,
now she would be free outside the prison walls.
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