I always had the ability to work my way to the top of anything that came my way, but I had hit rock bottom and no matter how I looked t it, I didn’t have the solution to the problem.  It was bigger than anything a human could fix, PRISON! I lay on my bottom bunk with a sick and broken heart, trying to imagine my 15-year old son growing up, getting married and having children, while my husband and I spent the rest of our lives in prison.  I would stare at a picture of Jesus stuck to the bottom of the top bunk with toothpaste.  My bunky brought the picture back to me from a church service.  It had Jeremiah 29:11 on it, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”  I would stare at the picture and say, “Jesus, I expect you to get me out of this.”  And Jesus did.  I repented for my sins and accepted Him as my Savior while incarcerated.  As a result of my true repentance and my total dependence on God, He didn’t allow the prosecutor to use most of the evidence they had against me or my husband Rob.  The 40-year sentence we were facing turned into 43 months and 57 months for Rob.

While I was in prison, I read every Christian book I could get.  Once again, I was working my way to the top, while soaking up the freedom from the pain, the same, the guilt and all the other by-products that had been piled on me from trying to lead a life without Christ.  I read stories of faith, hope and miracles in my daily devotionals.  Books about God became my best friends; that was where I went when I needed to feel loved.  The world said I was a bad person and an outcast of society, but God said I was valuable.  He wanted to help me and then use me as a living witness to His love.

Could it be that God allowed me to mess up so bad, for so long, so that He could use me as an example of what He will do for those who will turn their backs on all the mess in the streets and thirst after a good life with Him as their guide? 

What I have figured out is this. The Bible is for those who take the time to seek Him.  Once they discover that He is their Father, the Bible is a love letter, full of promises that can manifest in your life, once you make the decision to trust Him. I was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California on January 13, 2005.  I spent six moths at the halfway house and was released from there on June 15.  I moved into an apartment with my son James and spent all of my time working and writing my book, “You Are Never Alone,” on the weekends.  With God’s help, my book was finished in just seven months and was immediately accepted for publication by Tate Publishing.  “Your Are Never Alone” was released on August 21, 2007.  I wrote my story in hopes that it will lead inmates and free people alike to the only place that they can find true miracles; the same place that I found so many—at the foot of the cross.

I didn’t make my addicted, lawless life the focus of my book for two reasons.  First, I didn’t want to publish admissions of guilt and take the change on the Feds re-opening cases and second, God revealed to me that it was Him that had protected me all of those years that I thought I had outsmarted the law enforcement in Idaho, California, Arizona and Utah.  Anyway; the stories were unfathomable and it’s because they were actual miracles. I also tell people about the spiritual battle constantly being fought on their behalf.  Satan is a very real force, but he’s no match for our God.  The one that wins is the one that is fed the most.  We go through life, greedily feeding our flesh, while our spirits are starving to death—feed you spirit with God’s Word and there will be no devil in hell that can harm you!

Even my happiest memories of when I was disconnected from the world and doing drugs pale in comparison to the joy I have in my heart and life while fellowshipping with the Lord.  My best days with Jesus can’t even be put into human words; it’s out of this world! I cannot imagine what life would be like if I had not gone to prison and met Jesus.  I praise God for those three years that I spent in there because He used it to change my life.  Just like it says in the Bible, what the enemy meant for harm, God will turn into good! Trish Hart