Ask Fred > Family > My former husband spent the majoriy of his life in prison...
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Dear Fred
I just read where Bill Glass, the prison evangelist, is a friend of yours. Do you know how overwhelming that job sounds to me? The love of my life spent most of his life in prison most possibly because of a life spent drinking and "drugging" and without Christ. He recently departed from this world also as a result of his addictions (or Satan's strongholds) on his life. Jesus Christ was not his favorite subject. Pastors tried to relay the gospel message to him from time to time in prison but he never really had a changed life or seemed to want one badly. I know of a pastor who gave up on him. I wanted salvation desperately for him. --yes, for him. I now have a three year old daughter with him and though we saw little of each other with his crazy life and time in jail, I had such a burden for his soul it was pretty near unbearable. I think it is possible that he did not make it to heaven. Could your friend tell me how to bear such a reality besides saying that I really can't know? I think I can know. It was clear that he was not born again and was not looking to be when the Lord took him. I would definitely be ever so grateful for some genuine support from anyone who might feel competent to offer support for dealing with an eternal reality such as this. Does your friend Bill Glass come up against fellows like mine? How God must grieve as do we. Yet, what's done is done I would have to say. The Bible certainly makes that clear. It should make me wish I'd done more, but who can do more than Jesus has done! I can't save anyone.
Fred's Response
I have given this question to Bill Glass and he will get a response back for you. Here is Bill's answer: "When I read your question the first thought that came to my mind was Romans 10:3,"They being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." If we don't watch it, we tend to look at a person's fruit and say, "Well, he must not have been a Christian." The Scripture tells us never to judge. I know you would like to think or hope that your former husband is in heaven. There is no way for me or anyone else to tell you that he is. I will say this: I have seen the most unlikely people come to know the Lord. The players that I thought were the furtherest from the Lord when I played for the Cleveland Browns have since come to know the Lord...even Jim Brown, who was a Muslim and four of the biggest hell-raisers on the team are now sincere Christians. So, "If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away and all things become new."(II Corinthians 6:17) But, you never know who will find the Lord. There is a tremendous amount of witnessing going on in prison. Last year we saw over 50,000 inmates make life-changing decisions for Christ. So, I would say that the odds are pretty good that at some point your husband came to the end of his rope and turned to the Lord just like the dying thief on the cross did. If you read the roll call of the saints in Hebrews 11, you will see that many of the heroes of the faith were guilty of crimes and sins of the worst type. But the Lord used them miraculously for Himself. Though you never saw any fruit in your husband's life that would indicate that he did come to the Lord, by faith you can certainly believe it was very possible. And you can know that he is in the hands of a righteous and merciful God!
