“I Was Sentenced to LIFE at 18.” | God Behind Bars Podcast

jacking. It sent me to life without possibility of parole. The guilt and shame of taking a life was overwhelming. For 10 years, my first 10 years of incarceration, my daily mission was to be high and how do I get high. But I also knew that me and God had been so distant that I didn't think that He could forgive me. And in my spirit, I knew as I was repenting, the God was speaking to me and He had heard my prayer. Life without parole is more than just parole. It's life without purpose. It's life without love. It's life without so many different things. Hey, I'm Jake Bodine. Welcome back to another episode of The God Behind Bars podcast. We're at Jefferson City Correctional Center here in Missouri. And I've got some amazing guests with me today. One by the name of Jamie Jackson, who's with us. Good to have you, brother. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Looking forward to just learning about your story. Why don't you start with just maybe how long have you been here in this institution? So I've been in this institution since 2004. I was at the old place. They had a nice and security prison in the middle of Jeff City called The Walls. I've been notorious for many years. I started back there at 19 and let's see, 1998. It's whenever I started back there. 2004, they created this prison and we came here in 2004 and I've been here since. Wow. Well, I know that God's done a lot in your life and I'm looking forward to hearing about that today. But why don't you start just kind of from the beginning wherever you feel comfortable and kind of what was life like before you're about with incarceration? I was young. I was a young kid. I had a great family. My family brought me up in the country. We hunted, we fished, and my family was all about family. We had family meals on the weekend and you're going to show up. You're going to be there. I had a stepfather and his side of the family were all preachers. So at a very young age, I learned a little bit about God. I learned more about heaven and hell and that it was real. But God really revealed himself to me at a young age.

And then whenever I was 18, I shot and killed an innocent person in the middle of a carjacking and they sent me to life without the possibility of parole. That was in 1996. I've been in prison all these years. Well, I know that some of our listeners probably wonder like, all right, how do you go from a family that's all family? And then obviously even outside of your family, that's super religious and then get yourself put in a position like that. What took place in your life for you to kind of take, go down that road? So at 16, a girlfriend ended up pregnant and I didn't know how to handle the responsibility of being a dad. I didn't have my stepdad had left. There was a big vacancy in my life. There was a lot of expectations on me. I was the oldest child of four. So after graduating high school, I wasn't really sure how to handle all this responsibility. So I tried to leave. I enlisted in the Navy on my 18th birthday and said that I was going to run away, go to the Navy, just try to get away from the responsibility at the teenager. It was just overwhelming for me. Well, and then so what happened, what happened from that moment forward? Like obviously trial. What's going through your mind at 18 years old when they say like you're going to spend the rest of your life in prison? Guilt, shame. After I was convicted, everything changed. The way people talk to me, the way that people treated me, I went from being a teenage kid that people could have conversation with to now. I'm a convicted murderer and I have nothing to lose. And so that mindset began to set in me. Like I had nothing to lose. And I'd never been, I'd only been high once, but once I hit the county jail and then once I got to prison, the guilt and shame of taking a life was overwhelming. The disappointment that I knew that I caused my family was overwhelming and I began to get high at any given opportunity. Like I started smoking weed, I started doing cocaine, anything that was available to alleviate the reality of that. And for 10 years, my first 10 years of

incarceration, my daily mission was to get high and how do I get high? Because I didn't want to think about it. To believe that I destroyed God's greatest creation was overwhelmingly shameful. And I think it's important to even note that. I think that a lot of our listeners, especially on the outside, wouldn't know that you could possibly get high in prison. I think that often people think, well, you know, they don't really have a choice to be sober, but it's a daily choice in these institutions just as much as it is in the free world isn't it? Yeah, and for me, like what took, number one, how long were you in that addiction and then what was the moment that you became free from that? It was 10 years. It was in 2006. My grandfather started dying. He was dying of cirrhosis of the liver and to me, he was my He was my hero. I had heard enough church in the beginning to know there was heaven, there was hell, and that you needed to know Jesus. And I didn't know where my grandfather was, but I also knew that me and God had been so distant that I didn't think that he could forgive me. But I knew that if I was going to approach God on behalf of my grandfather, that I had to have my heart right. And on my birthday, in 2006, I ended up in the church service here, and the pastor was preaching, and he was talking, and he was saying that a word from God to somebody here says that they're worried about somebody that they love. And God wants you to know that he's OK. And in my spirit, I knew as I was repenting that God was speaking to me, and that he had heard my prayer. And it's been 20 years now, and God has done great throughings through me.

I went through a program of treatment, I've been sober for 20 years. I've had one lapse after my first six years. Nothing has since. That's amazing. I think that there's so much to learn, just even in that story, too, is like number one, the conviction that you had from, I've got to get my heart right if I'm going to go and witness about this amazing God. But two is just how good God is, you know what I mean? And legitimately, literally in your story that from death, he can give life. And that's literally what you basically just explained is that through your grandfather's death, he gave you life, which is amazing. Why don't you talk a little bit about post-all that, obviously, the day-- well, actually, let's go back. What's the moment that Jesus was like, boom, I got you. Your mind. There's so many different moments. Looking back through it, whenever I went through treatment and really submitting my life to him, he began to give me purpose in here. And I would say it's so hard to find purpose whenever you believe that you're going to die in prison. Life without parole is more than just parole. It's life without purpose. It's life without love. It's life without so many different things. You were exiled.

And then you don't realize all the things that you were without besides just parole. But God began to fill those withouts with him. He began to set up mentors around me, to speak word, to teach the word to me. He began to put me in places of leadership to help other people learn his word, find sobriety, find purpose in prison, to serve in church. What is that purpose for you? What have you found that purpose to be? To me, it's to help other people. To see somebody else who doesn't have hope and to know that there is love and there is hope in spite of where you are, to me, it's very fulfilling. Well, and for you, I think that most of us, we can look back at our lives and be like, oh, wow. God had me step here, step there, do this. That happened to me, and I can look back and now see that every one of those steps was organized. But it's very, very rare that you can literally say to somebody like, hey, I've been in your shoes, and I've lived the life that you've lived. And I can see where you are, and there's a better way. And you get that mission field every single day in this facility. What are you guys doing specifically in this dorm, even to prepare yourselves to go out into that mission field? This dorm has been life-changing for so many of us in here. The GLA model has come in. They've changed over how we live.

They've helped to establish the trust between staff. I'm still new to that aspect of it. My realm has really been in the church. And in the past few weeks, being a part of Willow Creek Church is really big in here right now. And to be able to serve with them has been very big. This person has so many different things. There's treatments. There's college. There's Bible college. If you're looking for purpose, it's here. What do you think the 1998 Jeremy would think of today? Of you today? No way, no way, like, there was none of this to be seen. Like, I couldn't see past Shane. I couldn't see past hate. I couldn't see past addiction. So this would be unbelievable. If you got to see that past self face to face, like what do you think he would tell you? What he would tell me or what I would tell him? Well, what he would tell you, like he's proud of you. I don't know. I would hope that he would thank me for finding some hope. and giving him life. - What would you tell him? - Not to quit. To endure that. Whenever you read the scripture in Psalm, this is not to lose heart, not to give up,

that you will see the goodness of God and the land of the living, it's coming. You will see the goodness of God just hold fast. - It's amazing, brother. What's your hopes and your dreams for your future? - Right now we are. There's a group of us that are just beyond 18 and we're fighting an emerging adulthood. We're hoping that through this battle, they will look at us as they have been doing another states. So I mean, there's even hope for freedom in that, that God would use that to open the door somehow. For the last 11 years, I've been battling a version of leukemia. So again, another testimony of what God is doing in my life that here I am with my hair and my health and 11 years I've been dealing with that. So I know that there's purpose in my life or all of these things would have taken me so. - Well, we'll definitely be praying for that and that continued battle and that you'd be healed just completely from that. In fact, if you're listening right now, I just pray or ask that you would lift him up in your prayers today and that God would fully heal him from this disease. But yeah, man, it's an honor to be with you. Anything specifically that you would love to add to the audience of just maybe like who you are and who the man is that you've become.

- I would say that I'm a testimony. I am a living epistle of what God can do with you when you submit your life to him. There are days and there are moments when people say things and you get to be a part of their life and they give you the permission to serve them and you realize who you are now is not who you were. And who I am now is not June 5th, 1996. Even though for so many years I was June 5th, 1996. And it's so hard because I know the damage that I've done but how do I still find purpose and move forward without minimizing the damage? What about the person, last question for you, what about the person that is that 1996 self? Like, and they're on this fence of, man, you know what I might have just completely wrecked my life or I'm about to wreck my life and everything that I've tried has completely gone array. And I think I wanna try the idea of Jesus. What would you say to that person like why Jesus? - I would tell you that if you're lacking love, if you're lacking hope, if you're lacking purpose, that he has all of those for you. He has a place for you, he has a calling for you. And he loves you. - So you mentioned leukemia. How, what's the moment and what's the feeling like when you get told that news? And I know for a lot of us like we get bad news in our lives. In fact, some of us have probably even experienced incarceration

from acting out from the bad news that we received in our life. How did that shake your faith or how did it shape your faith when you received that diagnosis? - It was, it was in a moment where my best friend had just died from hepatitis. And I know hepatitis was curable. And now they're telling me that I have a form of leukemia and I didn't know if they would treat me. I didn't know what it was. But it was, it was kind of like the moment whenever Jesus said, make sure that your house is built. When the storms come, so to me this was a storm, it was coming and I knew that I had to dig deeper with God. I knew that I needed him or that I needed anything that the doctors were saying or anything else. It wasn't disbelief for me, it wasn't why or anything else because I know I'm in a fallen world and I know that these things are going to come but it was okay God, what are you doing? What are you doing with this and what would you have me to do with it? So I will trust in you and I mean it wasn't always easy but he was always there. - What have you found to like in your personal life, stay grounded in those areas? Especially in an environment like this where probably tensions are high often, right? Especially if you're in a general population setting to where you don't have as much privacy,

you could feel uneasy and insecure in a lot of different ways. Like what do you do to ground yourself from when you receive news like that to where it turns into shaping and not shaking? - I think it starts with your relationship, knowing who he is and knowing that even this life then praise God, allow this to be a testimony. If he would heal me, heal me. If he would like me to suffer through this, then I will suffer through this. But I will not, what was me? I will not, disown you, leave you, question you. I think that's just understanding love. I think that's understanding his love for me. - And you said at the beginning of the podcast that you had got a girl pregnant, do you have kids? - I do, I have a daughter, she's 31. I have a grandkid that's possibly four, but we don't have, we're not in a relationship. - If you were able to talk to your daughter today, like what would you want her to know about this version of her dad? - I loved her, I may not have made the right choices, but I loved her, I prayed for her, and I trusted that God would take care of her. And I'm sorry. - You're good, man. - Well, we couldn't, I'll continue to be just praying for that relationship too, and for both of you, for her, that grandbaby, that maybe even reconciliation

and that those bonds would be tied again, but yeah, I think I'm just so impressed by you, especially just the journey that you've been on and all the different seasons that you've had to walk through. And I know that it's probably still not easy every single day waking up in this place, but the joy that you and all of your peers carry as much as the value and the conviction and the purpose for the other guys outside this wall, I think it's just inspiring to each and every one of us who get to be a part of this podcast. So thank you so much for sharing with us today and look forward to more in the future. [BLANK_AUDIO]