By: Steven Benjamin
As a Lifer having been blessed with the most unique existence that only a small measure of humanity can imagine, I am grateful to be able to share both the (good and the bad) of growing into adulthood inside an American Prison System. (I was twenty one years old at the time of my arrest — on my last birthday I turned seventy)
Now, such an introduction may sound a bit strange, but over the decades I have come to have a complete understanding of the darkest, most evilest, and wickedest environment humanity has managed to construct for itself, and at the same time extract from that journey a profound truth.
Contrary to popular belief, we don’t always get to pick and choose the road we must travel in this life. Rather, the truest test of our existence resides in how well we meet the challenges in reaching the eventual destination.
As a person of deep abiding faith, I know (despite being six foot four, and over well over two hundred pounds), that I could not have survived; [49 years at this point], this long and arduous sojourn in here without divine intervention. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that I could have obtained a colligate education through institutional sponsored college-extension programs in which I earned a Bachelor’s Degree in the fields of Psychology and Sociology. I could not have acquired numerous vocational certifications in such areas as a Braille Transcriptionist — (transcribing English textbooks into Braille with the use of computer programming), trained in culinary food preparation; at one point assisting in the preparation of over six hundred meals a day, and become a assistant warehouse manager shipping textile products i.e. T-shirts, shorts, blankets, towels etc all over the state to different correctional facilities. And finally, I received full training in the vocational trade of carpentry while working for Michigan State Industries — where I was able to build everything from conference tables to countertops and countless furniture pieces in between.
But my most crowning achievement is in the difference I’ve been able to make in the lives of the men who have attended the “Prisoner In Christ Church” down though the years, located in Ionia Michigan at the I-Max prison facility — where I am an Elder/Associate Pastor for the last ten years in its Medium Custody or (Level II) section.
None of these abilities (or gifts if you will) would have been possible but for my having traveled the path laid out before me. And all of which as a person of faith has brought me into reflecting the image and abilities of: (helping the blind to see, feeding the hungry masses, clothing the naked among the lest of these, and even being a carpenter.)
So, in sharing both the (good and the bad) of my spiritual walk of servanthood — as one condemned (by society) to be exiled — from society, I leave the reader with this:
No matter how bad you may think things are going in your life, never forget:
There is always someone, somewhere in this world — who would be more than willing (if given the chance) to trade places with you in a heartbeat.
Therefore, always seek to rise above your circumstance — so that your circumstances can reveal your true predestinated purpose.
[ROMANS #8: 28-31]
Brother Big Ben