Captive Thoughts
By: Navin (August 20th, 2008)
Mate,
It is nice to be able to write these letters to you from jail. I am awaiting the final decision on the mercy petition pending with the President of India. These days I am just reflecting on the days gone by and I can’t help myself from being nostalgic as hopes of a future life died when I was convicted.
I felt like a life wasted in the quest for being loved and wanted. There are many things that I could not have changed but there were many that I could have. I could not have changed my family, my parents and my upbringing. I could not have done much about my parents strained relationship or the inevitable pain of going through my parents divorce as a small child.
My days at the boarding school were spent worrying about those bullies who used to tease me for my looks. My expanding waistline, sloppy homework and the constant ragging had left me a dejected and rejected soul. I needed somebody to put a hand on my shoulders and tell me that I was loved. But there was nobody. Even the teachers and the family elders looked down on me, I was a total failure.
But I wanted to take out all the frustration on somebody. I craved for some attention and I found only one way and that is to kill some people who had all the things that I missed in life, all the love, adulation, popularity and acknowledgment which I so desperately seeked for in my life.
Today, if I was given another chance to live by the President may be I would first like to go back to the families and loved ones of those I killed and say that I am sorry. May be there was more to life than what I saw and there are lot of people who are worse off than I am today. When I see the people around here and how some of them were pushed to the corner by the society, not given a fair chance and were really forced to take up crime to even fill their empty stomachs, I feel God was so merciful to me.
There are people I meet daily who have been victimized, tortured and beaten by the police and authorities. Their only crime was that they raised their voices for the underprivileged, poor and downtrodden of the society. These are people who don’t even deserve being in jail, when I look at them I feel that I am paying the price for my own selfish motives.
I felt so guilty, I just felt as if somebody would take my place and give me another chance to live a life which would be of value to the people around me. I want to go and tell my family that I love them, despite what I went through. I want to have the forgiveness of all those whom I hurt.
Today a man came to the jail and told me an amazing story which I had never heard till now. He said that, no matter who I was and how I lived my life, there was one person who loves me and died for all my sins. HE was none other than Jesus Christ. Although I may never get a fresh chance at life, but he said that if I welcome Jesus in to my heart today he is ready to forgive me and give me the crown of life, eternal life. A life where I will no more live under this guilt but when I will be judged finally, I will be justified by the blood of Jesus which HE shed on the cross for me and you 2000 years back.
Despite all HIS sacrifices for the whole world, Jesus was still slapped, beaten, flogged and made to wear a crown of thorns. HE was made to carry HIS cross and he bled and died. But till today he remains the only hope for people like us, the ultimate sign of unconditional love, grace and mercy.
I can say today, that if they did this to the savior of the world, who am I to desire something better from life.
Friend, I write this letter to you to urge you to get closer to this amazing savior. I will die in my body but will live to see you on the other side because Jesus gave me another chance.
God Bless.
Tags: convict, Jesus, mercy petition
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:22 am
Sigh! Just when you think you are the most deprived with not the favourite colour to wear or the favourite restaurant to hangout, there comes somebody (or maybe he was there and we didn’t notice him until now) who brings a paradigm shift in the way you view life. Amazing piece of writing which makes you think or even empathise with what the person is going through. Hopelessness is dark and deadly but what a marvelous hope is there in Christ. Not just on earth but beyond. Kudos! God bless!