I Choose Hope

If Teamwork Makes The Dream Work, How Do I Find A Team? One of my favorite verses to quote from the Bible is Ecclesiastes 4:12 (NLT): "A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple braided cord is not easily broken." We were not created to be lone rangers wandering through life in solitude. God created us for connection and community. We need people in our lives who encourage us, challenge us, and nudge us to go higher. We need people who will remind us who we really are when doubt tries to creep in. We need a team to travel life with. In his book, "CARE to Win," author Alex Draper shares how to develop a team that will assist us with our personal and professional growth and help us move toward success. C.A.R.E. is an acronym and when we apply each letter to our own team development, we ensure that we are building toward our ideal self. C - Clarity The opposite of clarity, of...

How To Change Your View Of Yourself and Others Words have power. What I choose to speak, and what I choose to listen to, changes my thinking and shapes the way I see myself, others, and the world. The wild truth is that most of us know this and still allow ourselves to fall into mental and emotional snares that slowly tighten their grip like the constricting serpent suffocating its next victim. Here are three ways we can immediately alter our perception of the world we live in. 1. Stop Providing Gossip A Platform Gossip is divulging information (accurate or not) about others when there is malicious intent. Typically, someone who gossips will justify their gossip by saying the motive is pure. I remember people in my childhood Church gossiping about others but adding, "So be in prayer for her," to justify the gossip. When I gossip, or lend my ear to gossip, I am allowing my thoughts to be shaped toward a particular slant regarding the subject of the gossip. The dangerous comp...

A Look At Dr. Chapman's "Five Love Languages" My sister Michele has a guilty pleasure. She is addicted to the reality TV show, "Love After Lockup," and while I've never personally seen a single episode I feel as though I've met the shows many characters myself. Romantic relationships are a reality in life, even prison life. Your "person," your loved one (LO), has a place in your heart and it may not make sense to your family or closest friends, but you know you're meant to be in your LOs life. Several years ago someone introduced me to a book by Dr. Gary Chapman that explains the different ways people express and receive love. If we can identify our primary love language, and discover the primary love language of those we care most about we are able to communicate love in a healthy, a relationship building manner. While most of us appreciate all five of the love languages, we all have one or two that we value more. 1. Words of Affirmati...

How Being Grateful Keeps Me Focused Several years ago if you had told me I would one day be grateful for anything inside the prison system, I would have laughed in your face. The lens in which I was looking at the world was slanted toward negativity. My mission seemed intent on find what is wrong with the community in which I am living in rather than noticing the incredible friends and opportunities that were available in my life. In 2021 a major shift occurred in my life...I made the conscious decision to stop whining about what was wrong, begin to find what is right. As my gaze turned away from my selfishness I started to see how some of the most incredible people were living within a few feet of where I slept. Men like Bernie who brings life to any room he walks into, men like Rick who has the most dry sense of wit and humor and somehow always builds up those around him, men like Jerrod who will sit and listen to you as you get things off your chest and then check back in on you a...

What The Parole Board Really Needs To See Being eligible for parole review by the Parole Board is one of the most exciting and anxiety producing seasons in the life of an incarcerated person and those who love and support them. After all, should the Board vote favorably on your Loved Ones file they could be back in your arms, eating Whataburger, within a few months. I have yet to meet anyone in the prison system who is not praying for a positive parole vote, so how do you create a parole packet that shows you are ready? The Wizard Of Oz Approach Many who are parole eligible approach the review process as if the Great and Powerful Oz is arbitrarily making decisions and affecting lives. With this approach parole feels mysterious and inconsistent at best. It would serve us well to remind ourselves that those who have been placed in decision making positions are people, people who must consider whether an individual has served enough time on their sentence, poses a threat to society, and...