MERRY CHRISTMAS

MERRY CHRISTMAS To all who have read and are reading my blog and especially to my family and my friends for their love and support over the years.

Christmas has come to mean many different things to many different people. I have come to believe that Christmas at its core is a kept promise and the GIFT of a relationship with our Creator.

I have been incarcerated since 1999. In 2006 while sitting in a segregation cell that I would spend almost 5 years in, I confessed and repented of my sins and asked for God’s forgiveness.

This forgiveness would have never been possible if God would have never kept His promises given hundreds of years in advance to gift the world with a Child born of a virgin, a Son, the Prince of peace, a Redeemer, the Word who was God and who is God that became flesh and dwelt among us.

I was recently talking with a couple fellow inmates on the prison’s recreation yard about how God created us with the intent of being in a relationship with him. I shared that we were created in His likeness and image and these men both scoffed at what that says about God if we are a reflection of Him. They then proceeded to enumerate all the evil that exists in the world. I could not help but recognize the irony considering both these men are in prison for murder.

I acknowledged their point and then explained that humanity is a very marred reflection of God and that He loves us and wants us despite the fact we have fallen far short of what we were created to be. True love is unconditional and God’s love is not predicated by what we have done for Him. Rather it is demonstrated by what He HAS done for us.

Therein lies the Christmas story. Unconditional love that keeps His promised Gift not because of us but because of HIM and who He is and His love for us.

This is my 24th consecutive Christmas incarcerated. 17 of these I have been a Christian and blessed to know the love and gift of God who has been faithful to deliver me through the pain and the loneliness and the sadness that often threatens many of us this time of year both in and out of prison.

I won’t pretend that knowing God and having experienced His forgiveness automatically makes spending Christmas in prison a joyous experience but I will say I don’t know how I would have survived here this long without my faith and the love and the care He has demonstrated to me over the years. I have learned that life is often a matter of perspective and what I can’t control, I can TRY to view differently if nothing else.

People will often look at me and ask how did you survive almost 5 years in solitary confinement or how have you survived 25 years in prison? I am always grateful for the opportunity to give the glory to God and answer “by the grace of God.”

This Christmas there are people out there caught up and overwhelmed with the pressures of giving materialistic gifts to their friends and their loved ones.

There is nothing wrong with this and God loves a cheerful giver. But I believe this is a love starved world in need of forgiveness and the hope that there is a better moment than the one they are currently in.

My family often encourages me to not give up and don’t lose hope. It recently reminded me that our hope is only as good as the person or the object we have placed it in. THANKFUL I have my hope and my faith in Christ. God forgive me when I forget this at times.

Faith is knowing something is real and the trust and the belief that comes from this knowledge.

I have experienced both highs and lows in my relationship with God. These fluctuations are often determined by how closely or distantly I am walking with Him. How intently am I talking to and listening to Him?

Of course, I pray that God will deliver me from prison but this Christmas I have to TRY to find the joy and the peace that He has delivered me through the last 25 years of Christmas without my family, loved ones and my freedoms.

I would like to give you all the gift of my experience in life. Unfortunately, it took me coming to prison to really understand what is truly important in this life.

We learn by example or by experience and experience is by far the most painful way to learn a lesson. I wish there was a way to go back in life and do it all over again with all the knowledge I have accumulated the hard way :/

Love and appreciate the people you have in your life. Give forgiveness when it is in your power to forgive. When you can’t forgive, ask God for the grace to forgive. Find someone this Christmas that you can offer the gift of hope. Hope is the greatest gift a person can receive and there is no greater reward for the person who gives it.

Trust someone who has survived off of it for the last 2 and a half decades.

Having the opportunity to share Christ and to express these words of faith has been a gift for me this Christmas. This is undeniably a difficult time of year for many who are not in the best of circumstances. Thankfully I have a wife who encouraged me to write about Christmas, share my faith and “Jeffrey without hard feelings please” she said. THAT has been my Christmas gift and I appreciate that kind of love and wisdom that knew what I needed to get into better spirits.

I learned a long time ago what God does in His world He often does through other people.

Thank you Lord for the people you have brought into my life that show me your love and care for me and for those that gift me this Christmas and help me to keep a proper perspective on what this day and this season is all about.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Jeffrey Shortal