Thought for the week: 'Victory comes through defeat, healing through brokenness'
An older generation will recall the Watergate crisis, a major political scandal in the United States, when President Richard Nixon’s Republican administration attempted to cover up its involvement in a break-in at the Watergate Hotel, headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, to gain secret information.
The cover-up and lies eventually led to President Nixon's resignation in 1974 to avoid impeachment.
Chuck Colson was Nixon’s ‘hatchet man’ throughout the conspiracy, and he ended up in prison.
I remember the day in 1984 when I heard that Colson was in Belfast. At the time I was one of the presenters at Downtown Radio’s ‘Church Window’.
Knowing Colson was visiting the Prison Fellowship office in Belfast, I decided to take my chance of an interview. On arrival I was awed by his towering presence, as he warned me: “I've only 10 minutes”.
Colson told me how he had found God in a prison cell, and believed prisoners should have a second chance to make good of their lives.
In 1976, after his release, he founded the now worldwide Prison Fellowship that has been instrumental in bringing the message of the grace and forgiveness of our Lord Jesus Christ into countless lives.
In his best-selling memoir ‘Born Again’, Colson wrote: “I found myself increasingly drawn to the idea that God had put me in prison for a purpose and that I should do something for those I had left behind.”
It was all over in 10 minutes, and he stood up and shook my hand.
“You're a man of your word,” he said, and I never forgot the compliment.
However, what impacts me more is what continues to happen through the work of Prison Fellowship, through God's amazing grace in the lives of prisoners.
In Colson’s words: “Victory comes through defeat; healing through brokenness; finding self through losing self.”