While God is good, life is hard. We may look okay on the outside, but on the inside, we struggle with God over unanswered questions, unfulfilled expectations.

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Being a mother is the most important job I have ever had. God blessed my husband and I with two boys twenty-three months apart. We attended church every time the doors were open, and the Bible was read every day at home. They were good boys with nice friends from church.

 

Our town is on a main interstate that goes east to west across the country. Drugs run rampant in the town and county. Somehow, for some reason, my sons got involved in drugs. I don’t know how or why they got involved, but they did. Their involvement went on for years, but their father and I were oblivious to it. One day, another parent came to us and told us that our sons were using and selling drugs. We were in shock but finally saw the signs and the truth. By this time, things were way out of control. We had visits from the police, our sons were held for ransom twice, and we had threats from the drug dealer. One son was robbed and beaten for money and the other was pistol-whipped for drugs and nearly died.

 

Thank God my oldest son consented to move away and go live with relatives in a different state. This literally saved his life and got him back on the right path, following the Lord.

 

Unfortunately, our youngest son just kept getting in deeper and deeper. He tried a 30-day rehab program once, but drugs were as easy to get there as they were in prison. He was arrested and went to jail, then to prison more times than I can remember. When he would get out, it wasn’t long before he was arrested again and back to prison he would go. He now sits in a federal prison 800 miles away from me. He will be there for another six years.

 

The lack of rehabilitation programs in the prisons is shameful. The lack of mental health is inexcusable. The revolving door of the prisons needs to stop. Real change needs to happen. The corrections system needs to provide inmates with opportunities to refocus their lives and to rebuild their futures.