Going Behind the Walls

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I confess, before my son was arrested and sentenced to prison, I didn’t think much about prisoners and their families. But that all changed after it happened to us!

Now a part of my life resides behind bars. So yes I think about it all the time.

What we found after my son’s arrest is that prison families go through so many hardships that they rarely discuss with other people due to fears, shame, guilt, and condemnation. Families of the incarcerated who don’t speak out about what’s going in their lives suffer in silence among those peers in the work place and even in church.

That’s why my husband and I started Fortress of Hope Ministries, to give families impacted by incarceration as safe place to meet others who understand and to grow in the Word of the Lord.

Then the Lord asked me to write a book. Oh boy, I wrestled with God about that one for a long time! But thank God, He placed godly men like Dewey Moede in my life who encouraged me to write and share my testimony.

When the Lord asked me to write Appeal to the Courtroom of Heaven, I had to surrender fear and shame. I had to choose to be vulnerable and transparent. And by doing so, many lives are being changed through the release of this book. Families are finding hope and know how to pray for one another.

Now God is doing even greater things than I ever thought or imagined! Freedom in Jesus Ministries (FIJM), a prison ministry, contracted a licensing deal with my publisher, Iron Stream Media.

Thanks to this agreement, FIJM printed 43,920 copies of Appeal to the Courtroom of Heaven and shipped them to 1220 prison and jails across the US. Cases of 36 books will begin arriving at these facilities the week of May 16, 2022.

By writing this book and FIJM’s print distribution to prisons, my testimony is going behind prison walls! I never imagined being able to minister behind the walls this way!

This book contains over 30 Scripture-based prayers. And my desire for this book is this: that our incarcerated loved ones pray for their families on the outside, and those of us on the outside pray for our incarcerated loved ones.

The Prison Book Project reports “that one book will be read an average of 30 times before it falls apart.”

That means if each of these 43,920 books are each read 30 times, this book has the potential to impact 1,317,600 lives! Perhaps more if each of them tells a family member and they get a copy of this life-changing book!

Those numbers are so much larger than I ever imagined. But GOD!

Will you pray that this book will impact the lives of the incarcerated men and women who read it all for the glory of God? And for families to pray for one another?

You can order your copy from your favorite online book retailer. Or click here and use the coupon code COURTROOM15 to receive 15 percent off.

For families of the incarcerated, be sure to ask your LO to inquire with the chaplain about this book starting next week.

Will you share this information with others? There are 2.2 million prisoners in the US. That means that there are over 2 million families in the US who have someone they love in prison. Even if you don’t have an incarcerated loved one, someone you know or someone they know has an incarcerated loved one. Please share!

And by the way, to see the list of facilities where the books have shipped, click here.

Thank you for your prayers. I pray my testimony prayer book changes the lives of prisoners and prison families, pointing them to Christ Jesus, our Savior.

Blessings!

Shonda Whitworth

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