Remember the Prisoners: He Came to Set the Captives Free
316
Remember the Prisoners: He Came to Set the Captives Free
316Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781546543114 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | CreateSpace Publishing |
| Publication date: | 05/08/2017 |
| Pages: | 316 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.71(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Remember the Prisoners
He Came To Set The Captives Free
By Joaquin R. Larriba
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Copyright © 2017 Joaquin R. LarribaAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5465-4311-4
CHAPTER 1
Let's Be Honest
If you are reading this, it's because you're unsure and scared. Your freedom has been taken away from you, and you have no idea what the future holds. For some of you, it's your first time in jail. For others, you could be facing prison time — time away from your family and friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, or wives. This is time you can never get back. For the rest of the world, things go on and continue day in and day out. But for you, time stands still. Some of you are lucky enough to make phone calls and receive mail. Others aren't so lucky. Their people won't accept the phone calls or are so fed up with them that they won't write, cutting them off altogether.
Those of you who are lucky enough to make phone calls and get mail get a boost of hope by connecting to the outside, but the end result is always the same — and that hope nevertheless fades as doubt and fear come creeping back into your mind. Is he or she really being faithful to me? Who is taking my place as mom or dad? Who is with my girlfriend or boyfriend, or husband or wife, while I'm stuck rotting in here?
Yes, fears and doubts always come creeping back in because you know friends and family have asked you time and again to stop drinking, drugging, doing crime, and cheating on them. Oh yes, doubt and fear will certainly return because, quite honestly, that is what you deserve — and you know it.
So why are you still reading this? I'll tell you why: because you're looking for hope, searching for something to give you peace and assurance in your time of need and separation. You're looking for something that can change your circumstances and grant you favor — something to plug that ever-widening hole of despair. Good, then. There is hope for you after all. Keep reading.
Everyone who ends up in jail says to himself or herself, "How did I end up here?" Some of you will cast the blame on everyone and everything else around you. "It's the cops' fault. The judge has it out for me. My probation officer doesn't really care what happens to me. The system set me up to fail. If my lady wouldn't have called the cops ... Blah-blah-blah." Yeah, I know; it's everyone else's fault but yours, right? So ask yourself these questions and be honest with yourself. After all, it's just you reading this. No one else knows what you're thinking but you.
Questions: Who is the most important person in your life? Who means the most to you? Whose feelings, wants, and desires take first place in your life? We'll get back to these questions shortly.
So you have to admit that right about now you would do or say just about anything to get out of jail and out of trouble, but would you do what it takes?
Right now you are heartbroken and hurting. Everyone around you is too. Happiness is far from you, and the hope of a normal life seems unreachable — a distant, blurry vision that seems to get further and further away the harder you try. You need and are searching for someone to speak hope and encouragement into your circumstances and give you something to hold on to.
That is why I'm sharing my journey of hope and deliverance. There is a way out. There is hope. You can make it. What if I told you that you could put that drink down? What if I told you that you could be strong enough to resist the needle and spoon? What if I told you that crack or heroin would no longer have power over you? What if I told you that you could find peace? Wouldn't it be worth it just to hear me out? After all, if an alcoholic and a junkie with twenty-seven years of hard-core drug abuse and the lifestyle that goes with it can make it, so can you.
But first, you have to be honest. You have to truly want to stop. Let me ask you this: Right now, where you are, look over in the corner. See that steel toilet and sink combo? How about that really nice mattress they gave you? Do you like sitting on that toilet? Do you like sleeping on that mattress? Oh! How about the food? Do you find the food and how they dictate when you eat a particularly pleasant experience? And let's not forget that ever-present, sinking feeling of despair, fear, and uncertainty — yeah, that one you just got.
Sorry that I have to keep doing that to you, but I want you to realize how totally messed up your situation is and that what you're feeling right now is necessary to bring you to your next level — and one step closer to freedom.
You see, when you are out there on the street, running and gunning, all high or drunk, you act and feel invincible. "Come and get me, copper!" Right? You know how it is. You start getting a reputation; your friends are impressed with your ability to score the kinder dope. You pull off some crazy stuff, throw down on somebody, get away from the cops in a chase, and they can't ID you; or you leave the scene before they arrive. Pretty soon you start getting a big ol' head. The whole time you're doing dirt to support your habit, and you're either high or coming down. And coming down just isn't an option, is it?
So let's revisit that question: Who is the most important person in your life? Do you feel invincible and on top of the world right now? Did you lose all hope, and did reality set in when the cold steel of those handcuffs tightened around your wrists and the cops tossed your whining self in the back of their cruiser? Whose feelings, wants, and desires mean the most to you? Who would you do anything for?
Is it your mother or father? Nope, not them. They've asked you to slow down and get straight countless times. Is it your boyfriend or girlfriend, wife or husband? Nope. Despite all his or her pleading, he or she let you back in, hoping things would get better. You can definitely take advantage of his or her love. Nope, not him or her either. Is it your baby or child? Hmm ... Let's see ... diapers or dope, rent or drugs, food or fiend? Nope, not him or her either. You traded your food stamps for a quarter gram of bunk and got burned, but you'll do it again tomorrow — so nope, not him or her. We know for sure that it isn't the feelings of the judges, parole or probation officers, counselors, or law enforcement agents you're trying to put first, so we can scratch them off the list.
That doesn't leave a whole lot of choices, does it? See where I'm going with this? If you're totally, brutally honest with yourself, you'll come to only one logical conclusion. The most important person — whose feelings, wants, and desires you have put above all others — is you. Nothing or nobody really matters except you and what you want, or else you wouldn't be sitting where you are, wondering what everyone else is doing and who he or she is doing it with.
The thing about being selfish is that it leaves you empty. You connive, scheme, and manipulate to get what you want, and anybody in your way is the enemy. That includes parents, spouses, children, and the rest of the world. So, pretty much the only person who really likes your scandalous, lying self is you. Everyone else around you is either scared of you or puts up with you so he or she can get what he or she wants — because that person is selfish too, or he or she is in love with the idea of being in love with you.
All those you know who matter have put their hope and trust in you so you would step up and be the person they need, but you fall short every time. Sure, for a while you do well and catch a break, get a good job, or get out of trouble. But then you get in the way of success ... No, you sabotage your own success because success means responsibility, responsibility means sacrifice, and sacrifice means no more drugs, alcohol, crime, and all that. So being selfish leaves you empty, alone, scared, uncertain, and locked up.
So where are all the hope and peace I was talking about? We'll get to that, but first we need to break it down so it's all raw and open; we need to clean out the wound before we dress it, if you catch my drift. But whatever you do, give yourself a real shot at freedom and keep reading.
I didn't have the benefit of someone to guide me through some pretty rough times and some even tougher questions. And for a long time, I felt like if I actually pointed the way, something would be lost in translation or that you wouldn't really get it because you didn't learn it like I did, but I have since reconsidered this position, since I knew I was called on to guide and teach.
It is my fervent prayer that this book helps you to rediscover yourself — and more importantly, that it helps you to step into your greatness. I promise you that if you read this book from cover to cover and apply what you've learned to your life, your heart will be touched, your mind will be opened, miracles will happen, and lives will be restored.
In some cases, restoration will come seemingly overnight. Some will be restored twofold; some, a hundredfold. Much depends on your willingness to participate. Remember when I said, "Right about now you would say or do just about anything to get out of jail and out of trouble, but would you do what it takes?"
I want you to think about that for a minute. If you're reading this, it's because you can't make bail or are currently serving out your sentence. Would you do what it takes? You've already begged, threatened, and tried to guilt everyone you know into putting up something for collateral to make 10 percent or the full amount of a cash-only bond. But everything you've tried has failed. That's because everyone who knows you knows you'll skip out and leave him or her hanging, losing whatever he or she has put up.
Some of you can't make bail because, quite frankly, they are scared of you and are glad you're in jail. You sure find out who your friends are; but more importantly, if you're honest with yourself, you know what people really think of you. Would you do what it takes? You can't tell me that you haven't at least one time said, "Please, God. Get me outta this, and I'll do better from now on. I promise."
You can't tell me that you're not sick and tired of sitting in there and wondering what you could do to make it all go away — somehow turn your life around and put it all behind you. Hold your head up high instead of looking over your shoulder or running when you hear a siren. You know what I mean: that feeling of terror that grips your heart when you see a cop and know you've got a warrant. This all stems from the choices you make when you're being the most selfish, when only your feelings, wants, and desires matter.
Stop throwing your life away, friend. The good news is that all this has led you somewhere where you can't hurt anybody anymore. Others are safe from you, and you can finally slow down and listen to the beat of your own heart. Every human has a greatest desire and need. We'll cover the desire first.
Men's (and women's) greatest desire is to love and to be loved, to belong to something greater than themselves. We seek out the fulfillment of this desire from the moment we leave the womb, desperately seeking to satisfy the hunger of a bond. To our great detriment, self is seeking out a way to satisfy its own hunger: lust. And we lose the image and virtue of love and replace it with the corrupted counterfeit of lust.
Our relationships, no matter how much we want to believe they are real, lasting, meaningful, and pure, are unstable at best because they are born out of selfish ambition. Not that they don't have value — every human heart seeks its bond of love — but until love is revealed, we are led by lust. Let me illustrate: If the love you have is true and the bond you claim to have is born out of love, then how can you be the most important person in that relationship? True love always prefers the other person over self. The other's wants, wishes, desires, and needs always are met above your own.
This doesn't mean you always give your boyfriend or girlfriend the first pull of a whiskey bottle or last cigarette or the last bump of dope. If you're thinking like that, you are way sideways. If you truly love someone, you don't ever turn him or her out just so he or she wants or needs to get high just so you don't have to feel guilty about your own fiend.
Now that we've established that our view of love is clouded, we can see that self has hijacked our greatest desire and replaced it with a counterfeit named "lust." So we owe it to ourselves to uncover and expose this imposter for what it is: a destroyer, a thief, a murderer. It has destroyed our lives, stolen our freedom and happiness, and killed our relationships.
Your circumstances may seem bleak and uncertain. You may even be nearing the end of your sentence, but deep down you're scared of what the future holds. All these temptations and thoughts of revenge or unfinished business fill your head, and every thought is consumed with what you'll do and how you'll do it. You know this for sure: if you don't make some serious changes, you'll be right back where you are right now.
At this time, I want to shift gears for a moment and introduce myself and the intent of this book. I'm the author of this book, and the reason I can identify with you is because I've been where you've been ... more times than I care to count. I've done time in three different states and in five different counties; I've been to prison three times (twice in one state and once in another). So I think you would agree that I'm not just some self-help writer but a uniquely qualified expert on the subject.
I was born in a small town in Arizona in the late sixties. My father is Mexican, and my mother is white. Back then you didn't cross racial boundaries. So right off the bat, I was neither race. The Mexicans considered me a coconut, brown on the outside and white on the inside. The whites considered me a half-breed. Don't get me wrong: I had friends, some white and some brown. What I'm alluding to is identity.
Which leads me to the purpose of this book: to guide you to the knowledge of who you really are, the greatness that dwells within you, and the tremendous power that is waiting to be unleashed in you and through you: the power to be set free. Each of you reading this book is desperately seeking these things, and some of you are ready to do what it takes. Welcome to your future. This book will chronicle the main events in my life that shaped, transformed, and ultimately delivered me from the power of drugs, alcohol, and prison; and set me free.
Let's take a trip down memory lane to a time when gas was thirty-six cents a gallon and the Vietnam War was winding down. In the year 1972, I was five years old, and we had just moved from our thin-walled cabin at the base of the mountain on the outskirts of town. The snowstorm of 1967, the year of my birth, had left six feet of snow and an indelible impact on the residents of that area. My parents had decided that for safety sake, they would move closer to town and look for a house that was better built and more suited for winter conditions. By 1972, they both had their foot in the door with the VA and had saved enough money to put a down payment on a thirty-year mortgage.
In a sense, I was very fortunate to have both parents working. This situation provided enough income to afford food and clothing and a decent middle-income home. But since both parents worked, I had to go somewhere during the days, so they left me with my father's side of the family, the Mexican side. This too had its benefits, as I was in the constant care of family members, and I consequently grew up speaking two languages, a fact that would prove invaluable later in life.
In stark contrast to the new home my parents had bought stood the even thinner- walled shack my grandmother lived in. They used newspaper for insulation in the walls and floor. She heated the house and cooked on an old wood-burning stove or oven she had brought from Mexico. We didn't have any indoor plumbing as far as sewer went, but we did have running water at the tap. She would do laundry in a steel tub with one of the washboards you rake the clothes across and her own homemade lye soap.
So though while I was at home with my parents, I enjoyed all the amenities of middle-class America; at my grandmother's I knew what it meant to be poor, very poor. And you know what? I loved it there. Even though my grandmother, aunt, and uncle shared the raising duties and loved and cared for me very much, there was something missing in my life, something I desperately needed.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Remember the Prisoners by Joaquin R. Larriba. Copyright © 2017 Joaquin R. Larriba. Excerpted by permission of CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
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