Prison Talk – Explains What ‘Stuff’ He Needs to Do

“What could you possibly have to do that’s so important at Mid-State?” One of the new inmates on my tier gave this scoffing, skeptical response to me when I said that I was not going outside for recreation because I had some important “stuff” to tend to this morning.
Because of the time crunch for this quick exchange, I had no answer that would make him effectively understand what “stuff” I consider sufficiently important so I had to leave him with a deficiency of information. Recreation in the yard and lifting weights are healthy pastimes, and each is beneficial in its own way; but the “stuff” I choose to do over rec and weights is more fulfilling. It is the time I spend looking into the mirror of God’s Word, which I failed to do before prison. I now resolve to fully fill myself with “the right stuff.”
However, before he exited through the open gate for the yard movement, I quickly assured him, “It’s more important than what I was doing before Mid-State.” I hoped this would remind him of the conversation we had the previous night, when he had asked me about playing professional soccer (before Mid-State) and if I was going to play again (after Mid-State). For me personally, the in-between known as Mid-State Correctional Facility is more than a location, and I would consider it a “position.”
A position where I can choose to stay buried under my circumstances or one in which I can decide to rise above them, to be positive, to help others, to work on my writings, and to not allow a dark environment to influence my spirit. The position I choose is one that no man or system can take away from me, as my father repeatedly reminded me prior to sentencing day: “Matt, they can take your freedom, but they can’t take your mind.”
The tragedy that took place on March 7, 2009, initiated my position, which I will hold in my heart until the day that I die, but the in-between time for me at Mid-State has honed my position from pain to passion. No old life of complacency—rather, a new life of consistency.
You see, in the several seconds after I discovered that there was a fatality in my accident of March 7, 2009, the violent blast of pain that blew through my soul was more than a public and shameful fall. This fall may have set my future of incarceration in stone, but it set something else in stone in my heart—and that was the position that I would honor my God, my family, and the life of my victim.
What I now consider extremely important stuff to do at Mid-State is the daily habit and commitment of mastering this position by seeing my failures as the end of the old life and the beginning of the new life—to begin again, to rise again, and to do good where I can.
I focus on such thoughts because I know that whether I serve one day or 10 years at Mid-State, what I did to warrant prison will always be held over my head by some people after Mid-State. No one can tell me how far I’ve fallen when I have to recover from it day by day by day.
It is a sober decision I make daily to get up and go on in mind, body, and spirit; and it has nothing to do with my location in prison. It is my choice; it is my position of passion. And it is one that God has used in my life to testify to His grace through disgrace.
“But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).