Tam's Story
I became a Christian when I was 15 years old. It was a genuine step of faith. At aged 20 I married and, the week after we returned from honeymoon, I commenced psychiatric nurse training. One year after our marriage I became a dad.
The nature of the training was all about self-development. Eventually, in questioning everything I believed, I chose to walk away from that and, sadly, most of the people I’d spent my last formative years with, who had become family, chose to judge me, cutting me out of their lives.
In becoming wholly absorbed with myself, and my own needs, I chose to walk away from all responsibility. I’d felt very hurt by being so judged that, at the time, I remember vowing to myself that I would never allow another human being to hurt me in the way I felt abandoned by those people, and in the way I had abandoned my own daughter.
I qualified as a Registered Mental Nurse and moved to the south coast of England, to party and explore the person I wanted to become.
Over the next decade or so I would repeat the same patterns, moving from job to job, city to city, relationship to relationship. A man on the run. As soon as I felt a person was getting too close, or if the pressure of life was becoming too complex, off I’d go, creating new beginning after new start. I made a huge success of detaching myself from all relationships that may ultimately cause me pain.
Periodically I would dip my toe in the water of church attendance. But, in order to maintain my vow, this had to remain infrequent. At some point in this hedonistic lifestyle, I crossed the point of controlling alcohol and failed to notice that it was now controlling me. I was so far down a path of isolation, I knew of no way back. I was one step away from total self-destruction. It was exactly where satan, the destroyer and liar, had wanted me to be.
The inevitable consequence of so much unresolved pain and running culminated in my criminal actions that led me into a custodial sentence. With a punishment part of 4 years I would spend a total of more than 18 years in prison.
Very early on in my sentence I heard about Prison Fellowship. Those ‘happy-clappy’ Christians were definitely to be avoided! From a safe distance I noticed how faithful in their commitment they were. That their love and support seemed unconditional, much like God’s love for me.
Even though I would dip in and out of fellowship, depending on my own level of pain at the time, the volunteers were always gracious and glad to see me return. I thank God for the love, and practical support, over the years, from people like Derek, Marion, Terry, Ian, the HMP Low Moss team of volunteers and the chaplains there.
They were sowing seeds of love in my life, which would eventually bear fruit. As the years rolled by, and as I attempted to somehow deal with, or understand, all that prison was throwing at me, I was gradually able to return to my first love in Jesus Christ.
I was more able to accept full responsibility for the consequences of my own actions and, slowly with God’s help, I began to learn how to forgive as God healed me.
It was in attending a Monday evening prison fellowship meeting, at HMP Low Moss, that God met me in a quietly powerful and life-changing way. He reminded me that when I had become a Christian, all those years ago, He already knew the mess I would make of my life. But He loved me anyhow. That helped me forgive myself.
Nothing takes God by surprise. His love is truly unconditional.
Then I had to renounce the vow of making myself an emotional island. I see now that my own words had enslaved me. Be careful what you wish for. I decided to change my mind and open myself to love and healing, to not limit what God would do in my life.
At another meeting, there stood a large wooden cross propped up against the wall in the multi-faith centre. In a very low-key manner we were invited to take things to the cross, in our minds, and to welcome healing. But - and here was the key - we then had to choose neve to pick it back up again. I did so that night and God set me free from negative emotions and memories I had carried all of my adult life.
It’s interesting now that I look back, from the other side of the razor wire, to those tough years - years where I felt such injustice in still being in prison after so many years, and I can see the hand of God in my life. The day I got out God promised “to restore the years the locusts had eaten” and that is exactly what He is doing. And, I’m honoured to say, my relationship with PF continues to this day.