Nov/Dec 2004
Christmas Cards
by Roy Borges
On the inside of my footlocker top I arrange all the Christmas cards I receive at Christmas time into a beautiful collage. Last Christmas I received 30 cards. Mom sent me five. Every year I receive more cards than the year before, as more of my Christian brothers and sisters write me.
The year 2002 marked my fourteenth Christmas behind razor wire fences.
To many of us in prison, Christmas is just another day to count off our sentence. It doesn’t have any special meaning. It doesn’t surprise me that most of us don’t understand the real meaning of Christmas. When I was out in the free world, I celebrated Christmas at clubs. I shouted and swore and sang and danced. Often I drank with my acquaintances until I passed out. It was a strange way to celebrate the birth of the most perfect person who ever lived on this earth. I missed the whole significance of Christ’s life. I didn’t understand the meaning of Christmas.
But in prison God gave me a new heart, and I saw the baby born that night in a stable differently. I saw the Savior. I began to understand why he gave his life. More than that, he became real to me.
Now the Christmas cards on the inside of my footlocker top say something special to me. Christmas cards from Christians all over the country are a symbol of God’s love. They tell me how much he cares. It’s what Christmas really means. God loved the world so much he sent his Son— born in a manger to die on the cross so we could be with him forever.
We’re not supposed to have anything taped on the inside of our locker tops. But Officer Hughes doesn’t complain. “That’s a pretty card,” she says, as she points to one I received from someone I haven’t heard from in a long time. It’s an opportunity for me to be a witness. My life has meaning. Imagine an officer coming to know Christ through my testimony. It hasn’t happened yet. But I haven’t given up.
How can Christmas be special for someone locked up behind prison fences? I miss my family and sharing gifts with my loved ones. What comfort is there when your heart is heavy with loneliness and the burden of an uncertain future?
But we are not alone, for the Father in heaven is with us always. He will never leave us.
So God comforts me in prison, and I am able to comfort others with the comfort he gives me. When I look to him, nothing can keep me from feeling his presence.
This Christmas I won’t see any presents under a tree for me— no mistletoe, no pretty faces to kiss. Christmas Eve won’t be filled with anticipation; I’ll miss seeing little feet pattering around in stockings wondering what Grandpa got them.
But the Christmas cards taped to my footlocker top will keep me focused on the real meaning of Christmas. This Christmas I will look at him with eyes that recognize him and honor him as my Lord and my King. The sovereign God of the universe is in control, and he knows what is best. I can trust him with my life and with my future because I know he loves me. The Christmas cards taped on the inside of my footlocker top assure me of that. They remind me that the love of God came down to us to show us the way to him.
Amy Award winner Roy Borges writes from a prison cell in Florida.