Other times it is toothpaste or a bar of soap.
As the prisoners left the gym, in single-file formation, they passed by the table where I had the bottles of shampoo. Some stop briefly and talk and then move on.
Today is different because the officers in charge were in no hurry to get the men back to their housing units.
Former name for a prison cell.
One man, who was my age, stopped and began this supernatural moment.
He stated, “You were at Ferguson, right?”
Of course, I said yes, and I had just shared that in my testimony he had just heard.
(“What about it?” I thought in my mind).
He continued, “Yea, you were at Ferguson, and you lived in 9-20-B, correct?”
My heart sank, because he must have known me back in 1976 to know my exact cell number and bunk assignment. A is for top bunk, and B is for the bottom. I lived on the bottom bunk in Cell Block 9; 20th cell on the third floor (tier) exactly as he said.
I am shaking in my shoes, thinking I must owe this man a sandwich or something from back in 1976 when he was my neighbor on the block, prior to segregation.
It was not only my neighbor, but he told me that he was my next-door neighbor.
“Wow. Now what?”
He said, “Man, that day you came back from that so-called church inside that prison, all I could hear from your cell that day was Jesus, Jesus, and more Jesus. I was sharpening my home-made knife for you Joe. I was going to kill you.”
I am trying to determine what is going to happen, as I am reaching to hand him a bottle of shampoo. The fact he never stabbed me back then, was a miracle, because I remember that they segregated the races, just after he said that to me on the day of my Salvation in Jesus.
I was white, he was black.
Segregation was happening, to try and slow down the killings between the different races of men in the Ferguson Unit in 1977.
He asked me, “When did you get out, Joe?”
I told him 1977, and then he continued to tell me that he got out of Ferguson in 1988, eleven years after I did.
He said, “I loved Jesus before I got out of prison, just like you Joe. I really had a relationship with the Lord, but when I got out, I went back to the old life, and now I am back.”
He said, with tears in his brown eyes, “I am doing a life sentence, without the possibility of parole. Keep doing what you do Joe; you are as radical now as you were back in 1977. Don’t stop telling us about Jesus, okay?”
Wow.
With tears in my eyes now, I am thinking, I have never come across an inmate in the Texas prison system in all these years of ministry, who has remembered me.
Who would and could remember me way back then when I was just twenty-one years old?
It had been over three decades since I was in Ferguson, and I did not remember that man back then.
But he remembered me.
He had to move on away from me at this moment as the Boss Man was directing everyone to keep moving down that yellow line, painted on the floor, near the perimeter of the hallway, next to the red-brick wall.
He slowly walked away from me, without the shampoo.
I watched him walk, with a stroll that said to me, “I wish I would have served Jesus back then.”
A regret-filled walk down a hallway that he would never, ever forget. He would live out his days in this unit, never having a second chance at freedom.
I heard the voice of the Lord in my heart as he was almost out of my sight that day. He walked away and left an imprint on my heart.
The Lord said to me, “Joseph, that could have been you. You could be doing a life sentence without parole. But by MY grace, you did not have to be like him. That could have been you.”
The Holy Spirit continued to minister to me about not taking HIS grace for granted.
I wasn’t, but this day taught me a valuable lesson. My lesson is that I want to be a better person, not taking anything for granted.
Especially His grace for my life.
As I look into my own mirror of life today, some fifteen years after visiting this prison in Rosharon, Texas. I am older now, and I remember all the events that could have caused me to be on Death Row in Texas.
At the very least, had the two men, in separated crimes I committed; one was my best friend, and the other was a Police Officer.
Had either one of them died, this story would have never been written. But by God’s mercy and grace, I am not in prison any longer. I will never take His grace for granted.
Never.
Are you listening to the Holy Spirit right now?
1st Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see through a glass, (mirror) darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
“Are you known by Jesus?”
Better yet, do you know Him?
My question to you today is this.
Who are you, really? “
When you look into a mirror at home, what do you see?
Beyond the physical face, what do you see in your heart of hearts?
Do you see a failure?
Do you perceive a broken heart that has never been healed?
Has any of your dreams of a better life seem farfetched or unobtainable?
Stop for a moment and pray.
Think back to how the Lord Jesus has rescued you from an eternity without Him.
If you have received Him as your Savior, you will be in Heaven.
He saved you.
He has written your name in the Lamb’s Bood of Life.
Revelation 13:8, “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, (the beast) whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb (Jesus) slain from the foundation of the world.”
It is not someone else I am talking about now.
God is talking to you personally in this story of mine.
A real-life story of one man in a prison, who was reunited with another man.
Both love the Lord Jesus.
One is free on the outside. The other is free (in Jesus) on the inside.
Two different dwelling places on earth.
I will never forget God’s words to me that day. “That could have been you.”
So, in closing, I have a thought.
What about you?
Copyright © 2025 by Joe Wilkins
