Mickey followed his father's lead early, picking up booze at age 12. He combined hard-rock music and pot and pills to round out his party life. By age 18 he married and joined the army. He completed his GED, but chose the party lifestyle once again. He was told not to re-enlist, and his marriage ended in divorce. Mickey tried college on the GI bill. It lasted 2 years before alcohol took over again. After a hit-and-run accident, Mickey saw no reason to keep trying the respectable life. Fearing the law, he left Tennessee and began drifting wherever the wind took him. On a Florida beach, he met a young man at the warm water's edge. After sharing stolen beer and stories, the man suggested robbing someone he knew. Mickey went along. The two hit the apartment, where Mickey knocked out the victim. He was helping himself to more beer when his new friend flew by him with a knife. Then, "I realized this wasn't a simple robbery", Mickey remembers. Over the blare of MTV in the next room, he heard the hideous laughing. Walking in he found the victim dead. The next day police caught Mickey driving the stolen car of the victim. Mickey, then 25, awaited a murder trial in solitary. He reviewed the choices he'd made in life and concluded suicide would do everyone a big favor. "I was so bitter, I flushed Gospel tracts in my cell down the toilet", he explains. "I thought, Rather than rot in prison, I'll check out". He tied a sheet into a noose, placed his head in it and hesitated. Remembering his devoutly Christian grandma, he decided to say a prayer to respect her memory. He got down on the concrete floor and asked, "Lord, forgive me and let me die". Suddenly he broke into uncontrollable sobbing. Surprising even himself, be began repenting for his crime and of all his life's rebellion. In the midst of killing himself, he instead realized Christ had a claim on his life. Knowing almost nothing about Jesus, he nonetheless trusted his life to Him. The next morning, he requested a Bible. No matter what happened now, he knew he was God's property. His constant prayer was for God to make Himself real. In the meantime, the state switched from seeking the death penalty to successfully winning convictions on both men and giving them life sentenced---for Mickey, it was 99 years. Next stop: Union Correctional Institute at Raiford, otherwise known as the "ROCK". Possible the worst cesspool in Florida. Now closed, the Rock was known for its horrific conditions and violence. A massive place of 3,000 men, it reeked of its 40 years of oppression. Even here, Mickey immediately met other Christian inmates and got involved in the vibrant chaplain program. Mickey began a series of legal attempts to gain early release. He had been a model inmate from the start, pursuing education and religious programs, but nothing worked. Every door closed. Years passed but in October 1997, after years of denials, a policy shift appeared. Lifers' records were getting consideration. For many, the idea of life outside after that kind of time is terrifying. Prison does little to naturally change inmates or their outside circumstances. He began a lifestyle of discipline-not routine. Routines aim to maintain the way things are. Discipline seeks to change them. Mickey wrote thousands of letters seeking help. He pursued every educational opportunity he could. He took advantage of strong chaplain programs. He worked prison jobs and completed new training. He waited rather than indulge in some of the legal and illegal pleasures of prison life. He kept the faith. The DOC also granted him work release, which he credits with easing the transition. He married Linda after 14 years of waiting. With help he secured a job at an engineering firm using his CAD training. Despite Mickeys' 17 years of prison hardship, Linda can see the positive changes in him. With tears in her eyes she noted the benefits of having waited for God's best: "Many people with prison backgrounds can only think of themselves", she explains. "God really changed Mickey. He wasn't going to become institutionalized". We do things by teamwork. We discuss and agree together. He loves the Lord, and me. He accepts me as I am and wants me to be all that I can be as a Christian woman-like going to college and furthering my education. Mickey doesn't hear the screams of men in their cells anymore, but he does awake in the night to tend to his newborn baby. Holding his infant and looking at his wife, Mickey observes, "There are consequences to sin even after prison, but there are consequences to grace - I'm fully forgiven". Mickey Park