With God, all things are possible.  Matthew 19:25

Charles (Chuck) Colson, who passed away thirteen years ago, remains as one of my all-time heroes.  He had two contrasting histories – one of his power brokering military and political life and the other as a repentant sinner transformed into a serving minister of Jesus Christ.  As best-selling author and the founder of Prison Fellowship, his episode below in an Indiana Maximum Security Prison, is taken verbatim from his book, Loving God (Pgs 200-202).  I’ve read these words to myself and read them out loud several times to others.  Even writing them has had the same affect –  I cry with joy in the amazing grace of God!   Now, if you don’t mind, it’s your turn….

After speaking to more than two hundred inmates in the auditorium for a Prison Fellowship seminar, I asked the warden to let us visit death row.  I knew things were tense there because Stephen Judy had just been executed (electrocuted). But I wanted to see two Christian inmates with whom I’d been corresponding.  The warden agreed and invited a group of our volunteers to come along as well.  So about twenty of us made our way through the maze of concrete cell blocks to the double set of barred doors that led into the most despairing of all places – death row – the end of the line where men live for years from appeal to appeal.  The only way out is a new trial or death.

The warden opened the individual cell doors, and one by one the men drifted out, slowly mixing with our volunteers and gathering in a circle on the walkway.

I was especially glad to meet Richard Moore, whose wife had written me such moving letters, and James Brewer, a young black man who, though seriously ill with a kidney disease, was a powerful witness to the others on death row.  Whether his death would come swiftly by several thousand volts of electricity or slowly by uremic poisoning, James was at perfect peace with God and his warm smile showed it.  Nancy Honeytree, the talented gospel singer who often goes with us into the prisons, played her guitar and sang a few songs.  I spoke briefly.  Then we all joined hands and sang “Amazing Grace.” (Nowhere do the words of that hymn have richer meaning than among a group of society’s despised outcasts condemned to die for the most awful crimes.)

My schedule was extremely tight, so after we finished “Amazing Grace” we said our goodbyes and began filing out.  We were crowded into a caged area between the two massive gates when we noticed one volunteer had stayed back and was with James Brewer in his cell. I went to get the man because the warden could not operate the gates until we had all cleared out.

“I’m sorry, we have to leave,” I said, looking nervously at my watch, knowing a plane stood waiting at a nearby airstrip to fly me to Indianapolis to meet with Governor Orr.  The volunteer, a short white man in his early fifties, was standing shoulder to shoulder with Brewer.  The prisoner was holding his Bible open while the older man appeared to be reading a verse.

“Oh, yes”, the volunteer looked up. “give us just a minute, please.  This is important,” he added softly.

“No, I’m sorry, I snapped.  I can’t keep the governor waiting.  We must go”.

“I understand”, the man said, still speaking softly, “but this is important.  You see, I’m Judge Clement.  I’m the man who sentenced James here to die.  But now he’s my brother and we want a minute to pray together.”

I stood frozen in the cell doorway.  It didn’t matter who I kept waiting.  Before me were two men: one was powerless, the other powerful; one was black, the other white; one had sentenced the other to death.  Anywhere other than the kingdom of God, that inmate might have killed that judge with his bare hands—or wanted to anyway.  Now they were one, their faces reflecting an indescribable expression of love as they prayed together.

Though he could hardly speak, on the way out of the prison Judge Clement told me he had been praying for Brewer every day since he had sentenced him four years earlier.

The next morning the judge cancelled his court calendar and spent the day in the Prison Fellowship seminar.  His testimony—and his story of meeting with James Brewer, which quickly spread through the prison grapevine – brought dozens of men to Christ.