Finding inner peace:
a prisoner’s story

“When we are young, we are pure. I grew up with a faithful spirit. We lived next to the village church and my parents used to take us there. I was interested in faith. But growing up, people sometimes face situations like that found in the parable of the Prodigal Son, and they want to run away from all the good things in their lives that they do not appreciate at the time.

Felt lost

That is what I did, and I found myself in prison. I felt lost and did not know the way forward.

When I was young, I used to read the Bible as if it were a novel, and was really interested in finding out the rest of the story. In prison, where I no longer benefited from physical freedom, I once more started searching for spiritual freedom.

Ashamed

Seven months after being incarcerated, I finally opened the Bible and started to read, but I was afraid because I had committed so many sins. I felt like Adam had in Genesis, when he hid his head after eating the forbidden fruit. But I read, and as I did so, I discovered many truths that made me feel ashamed.

But at the same time, I felt an ‘inner light’ that I had not felt before and so I went on reading. In the beginning, I used to pray to God to let me be released from prison, but after a while I became aware that I should not be asking for this. Instead, I wrote a prayer to God:

‘Forgive me for all the times I have asked only for bread
and safety and miracles.
Instead of saying, ‘Your will be done’, I have asked for mine to be done.
I have asked you to send away my troubles, to continue to serve me,
To give me, give me, give me, thinking that if I praise and bless you,
I have the right to ask you to fulfil my wishes.
Oh, forgive these foolish prayers
and teach me to remain in your sight,
Not asking you to be my servant but to let me become yours.
And to understand the real meaning of prayer.
In everything your will be done.’

n Sanda reads aloud from the Bible during a service at the prison chapel

I often go to the chapel in our prison, where I pray and just sit in silence. I know that Jesus also died for the two thieves who were crucified next to him. I am one of those thieves. My faith helps me to get through the nights, which are very difficult. God loves us, wherever we are.

Free again

The first thing I will do when I am released will be to go to church to thank God for helping me overcome the pain and suffering I have been through in my life. I can face tomorrow because of God. I know that when I am free again things will not be easy, but I have hope in God and know that I will overcome the obstacles and the shame of having been in prison.

Inner peace