Dear Tena,
Howdy There? I hope that you are doing great and that you are preparing to have a wonderfully Merry Christmas and a Marvelously Happy New Year.I just reread your letter from March that found me in November, and my ears teared up again. I don’t feel that I can properly put into words how you have helped me and blessed me through our journey that we have taken together. As long as I am able to remember you, I also will pray for you each day and will also try to make room and remember Rich from ROGMA in my prayers also. I will look forward to meeting you in heaven one day. I have become a better person because of your faithful help (and prayers) in your letters and the lessons that you have sent through the years. Thank you for recommending me for the further lessons. I thought I had come to the end of the journey and would have to do other things. I have had some great difficulties this year being on parole. Along with great blessings. God has used so many people to help me. It is hard to believe. And when I had pretty much given up all hope and was at a very low point in my life (back in prison), your 8 month old letter shows up. It came to a place I felt I would never see. It came at the right time. Wow, what an amazing God we have and are able to serve and love. I am now rereading your [letter] that you wrote on 11/23/15 and sent to the Detroit Reentry Center. Another Wow I let out at how God timed things perfectly well in order for you to be a boost to my heart and bring your letter to my hands and eyes on Nov 30th. Just 1 day and a morning before I left and went back to Pontiac to live in Community Placement again. Thank you for writing and mailing when you did. I appreciate it beyond all my comprehension. I am glad that you were willing to look for mail from me for as long as you did. I too, kept looking for mail from you, when I was in the Residential Program in Benton Harbor until Sept 4th. Thank you for reminding me about God’s recipe for victory in my life. It means a lot to me that you have done that. You are a wonderful Bible Study Partner and I trust that you will always be so with all the other people that you help along the way. I have neglected to keep drawing and fear that I am pretty rusty now. Sorry. I would have loved to draw others besides and put other verses on them to be a bright spot to you even further. Please thank Colleen for allowing us to continue communication and for the encouragement of further studies. In my last letter, I thought I was writing to you for the absolute last time and was very discouraged and sad at the thought. I am living at ***, but my mailing is to be sent to *** I should be able to pick up any mail there for now. Something else that was especially sad tome was spending another birthday in prison. Birthdays were always big things for us in my family. But being in prison it was just another day. Very depressing. May birthday was on Nov **. I had for years thought my family might make a big deal of my 50th birthday, but I was in prison that year. I went in just one month before it. Then being out in March of this year I began hoping to make a big thing about my 60th birthday. But being in prison again really messed me up in my head. Thanks for remembering. I for the most part don’t tell people when my birthday is or how old I am, but I feel that you are different and okay to tell. Thank you for being special and making it easy to talk to you. You are right about this life being short. I was so very sad and then angry for being put back in prison. And I long for the day that I can say prison is no longer part of my lifestyle or anything related to it. Thank you for reminding me that I am a new creation. For I too often forget, especially when I am reminded so often about my crimes. Thank you for your kindness and straight-forward help and for allowing me to stay in touch. I don’t have very many people that I talk to or write to and it means a lot to me that you are willing for me to stay in touch with you. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You don’t need to ask for the ROGMA to be sent to me, it already came. But thank you for being willing to make the connection for me. May God’s grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied to you as he richly blesses and keeps you. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And may you have a wonderful anniversary in case I don’t write again before it comes again.
Because He lives,
Jacque Phil 1:6