FREEDOM

Steve Gunning, Minnesota

IN PRISON they say you have “rabbit blood” if you have a history of planning escapes. I did. I spent ten years at Oak Park Heights because of it. Somebody got cold feet and turned himself in, landing me in isolation, where I could hear hell itself. That was early in my sentence. Authorities see that in an inmate’s file and know that if you go to a medium facility, there’s nothing to stop you if you’re really serious about escape. To get me into the InnerChange Freedom Initiative pre-release program, they would have to take that chance.

When you’re a lifer at a maximum-security prison and are told you will be transferred to a medium, it means they are going to let you go free, eventually. Unless you mess up, you’re going home. Even non-Christians lose their motivation to escape with that hope dangling in front of them.

I see a lot of irony in my past escape plans and my newfound freedom. My view of God had to radically change. I saw him as a tyrant. I thought the truth would crush me. I’d plunged so deep into darkness I believed that God had to lower the boom on me.

I grew up in a rural Minnesota town with a population of 599 near the Red River Valley. Mom hugged me once in a while, but we did not have a close relationship. It was all about work. I only saw Dad a couple of months a year because he was always away at work. I learned to be self-sufficient and alone.

I developed a secret life of rebellion while I showed people the acceptable hard-working farm boy exterior. The seriousness increased. I masked everything with drugs and alcohol. The one life got so strong, I couldn’t hide it. It took over until I committed a murder at thirty-one.

When I look back on the prison I created for myself, it brings tears to my eyes. I put myself in cuffs, leg chain, body chain and the jumpsuit before I spent a day in the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

I didn’t realize that, unless you confess the dark secrets, they enslave you and determine the life you live. When something has power over you, it’s a beast. But if you open up about it, shine the light on it, then it loses its power—especially through Christ’s blood on the cross.

God doesn’t want to destroy me. He’s a loving father who wants to talk with me in intimate relationship. That was a freedom I’d never experienced before. Not long after I started living in that truth, the parole board found reasons to give me a chance at physical freedom.

We want to thank AMG Publishers, Connie Cameron, and Jeff Peck for providing this plan. For the complete devotional or more information, visit: battlefieldsandblessings.com. To learn more about AMG In ternational's gospel work around the world, visit: amginternational.org.