I’m Sorry

America’s prison system is big business; providing employment and benefits to all on the payroll. Correction facilities quickly become overcrowded resulting in the need for expansion and construction. If you’re not currently living in the vicinity of a state correction system facility, you may be soon.

I remember my eerie feelings as my father drove our family past the Jamesville, New York Penitentiary. Though scary, I remember it as a well built structure; looking far different from the prisons of today. I’d compare it to an impressive large brick university building of days gone by.

Penitentiary…I haven’t heard the term penitentiary in years. Maybe it hasn’t been considered politically correct. Why was the term once used? Court systems were expecting criminals to do far more than change their behavior.

Society had hopes that the incarcerated would have change of hearts. Offenders were given the opportunity to repent; to turn away from sin and turn to God. In prison, they would have time to search their hearts until they truly felt sorrow, penitent for their crimes.

No longer would the prisoners merely feel sorry they got caught; they’d be sorry that they broke the law. I have broken God’s laws. We all have. He has given us time to repent.

“Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things, about which God spoke by the mouths of His holy prophets from ancient times (Acts 3:19-21 NASB).”