No, no, I wasn't arrested on the Race. I won't be featured on any episodes of locked up abroad. This month is Unsung Heroes month round 2 for me. So like last time we are looking for new contacts for AIM to work with in the future. We were checking out a new potential contact that works in prison ministry and we were invited to see the ministry first hand. Anyways when we got to the prison I started to get nervous. I had only found out the night before that I would be preaching to these prisoners and I was terrified.

After asking God for the better part of the night what I was going to tell them he said "Just tell them your story". You want me to do what?! I thought God had lost it. You see so far on the race the only preaching I have done has been to a group of kids in their nightly chapel. Not exactly a hard hitting gospel message to people who have made all the wrong choices in life. Not to mention I don't like my story. I only came to Christ just over a year ago. And the story of my life before that is messy. It's full of lies, and scandal, nights full of regrets, and relationships I shouldn't have ever been in. I've found myself holding back on my story, leaving things out or glossing over them, because I'm scared that once people find out who I was they'll see that instead of who I am now.

That put me in a prison of my own. I was stuck, trapped by my expectations of how people would react to the less glamorous parts of my story. I let fear put me into a cell, a small box that kept God from using me in the ways he wanted to. But God wasn't going to leave me there, he is a God of rescue and deliverance after all. He had this escape plan: "Tell them your story" he said and he gave me scriptures to go with it.

So I walked into the prison just praying that the Holy Spirit wouldn't let me screw this up. That he would give me the words to say. As we walked to where the prisoners were waiting for us I was feeling more and more bold. By the time we got to where we were going I was ready to put it all out there, to fight for my freedom and the freedom of these women. So we began by singing some songs. And I went into battle. "So you've just listened to us singing about how great Jesus is but you don't know anything about me or why I think that." and with that I was off.

I have never told my story so easily, so perfectly. As I looked around the room I saw these women that have been through and done God knows what crying at my story. My story is powerful, it touched them. We got to talk to and pray for many afterwards. I know that believers were encouraged and non-believers were met with a challenge.

I now know that the "prison" that held me was a cardboard box. It had no real power to hold me there, I let it. I didn't know just how much power I had been given. After that day I have been able to share the gospel with three more people using my story. It has been a stumbling block to the atheists here, it has opened doors to conversations about their story, it has allowed me to show people who my God is. My story is powerful and I am never going back to the cell.

What is your prison cell? Is it sharing your story like me? Is it fear of what others will think when you share the gospel? Is fear of the future keeping you from going? or from giving? God freed me from my prison and he wants to free you too. It is for freedom we have been set free (Gal 5:1). Let God use you and your story. He gave it to you for a reason. Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story! (Psalm 107:2 NIV)