Thrive in the Wait with Mark Corbett

Welcome to the Victorious Living Podcast. You are about to hear real stories of real people who have discovered the real hope of Jesus Christ. I am Christi Overton Johnson, the founder and publisher of Victorious Living Magazine. Since 2011 I have had the privilege of sharing the most amazing life stories. I never cease to be amazed at the life transforming power of Jesus Christ. Today in our podcast you are going to go deeper into these amazing God stories and hear from those who have overcome incredible odds and discover how they found a life of freedom. You can discover it too. I trust that you will enjoy today's conversation between our host and our special guest. Thank you for listening and be sure to share the hope you hear and the mission of Victorious Living. This is Randy Claypool with Victorious Living. I have a guest today by the name of Mark Corbett. Is it Corbett or Corbett? Like Corvette. I kind of get silly about this, I guess when I'm interviewing somebody, I always say based on region or culture, somebody says their names differently. So yours is pretty simple. So you, you live in Wyoming? Yes, Gillette, Wyoming. I've never been to Wyoming. What's Wyoming to you? Wyoming is a pretty cool state though, huh? Mountainy and woodsy and wild animals. It's a gorgeous state. Lots of elk, lots of deer. I work out in a mine. I was working at the mine full time as a janitor until the beginning of this month. And now I work part time at the mine 20 hours a week and 24 hours a week at a nonprofit that I started. But the ride out to the mine is 65 miles one way. So I get to see hundreds of antelope every deer, dozens of mule deer every day. I see fox, badgers. One time I saw eight eagles on one carcass. Another four miles later, I saw another four eagles. I saw a mountain lion one time walking next to the road. Yeah, there's a lot of wildlife. It's a great place to live. Gillette is a wonderful place to live. It's been very welcoming. I have not found doors closed to me because of my crime. I found them open and I found the people kind and generous. I love Wyoming. That's good. Well, now that we've kind of touched on crime many years ago, 1982 or thereabouts, does that sound about right? Yes, 1982. You tell in your story that's in our magazine, you were going through some financial pressures, just some things, and you made a choice to do something that day. Tell me about that process, what you were going through, quick synopsis, and then what you did. I found myself on my back against the wall. It was

Jimmy Carter's recession. The unemployment was at 8%. The inflation rate was at 12%. To give you an idea, the mortgage rates on houses were at 16%. The interest rate was at 20%. The economics were terrible. Some of the cities back east, there was unemployment of 20 to 25%. And people live, most people don't remember that. But my back was against the wall. I owed $20,000. $15,000 of it was due to a cocaine habit. $5,000 due to failed businesses. And I'd never earned more than $7,000 a year. Remember, this is 1982, so the economics are different. And I quit college to come to Wyoming to work in the oil field to pay off my debts and found that I was not mechanically inclined and I didn't do well in the oil field. So I left the oil field, got a job at a restaurant in Jackson Hole. And they told me one day, we're laying you off. The ski season's over and we'll pick you back up in two or three months for the summer tours. Well, the rent was due. I didn't have any money. And all the creditors started calling at once. And I was very stressed. I didn't know how to pay off my bills. I tried everything. And my pride got in the way. I gave them my word I was going to pay these bills. And my word had always been important to me. And I had what I call the John Wayne syndrome, where I got myself into this mess, and I have to get myself out of this mess. So I didn't go to anyone for advice. So I was stressed. I had no options. My back is against the wall. I'm not sleeping. I'm despair. I'm despondent. Everything I've tried has not worked. And I've made this terrible decision I have to pay these bills off no matter what. So I decided to rob a bank. Obviously, it was a terrible choice. And I didn't give any thoughts to the impact on the people that might be in the bank that day, or my family members. If I'm go ahead, pause right there for a second. How the mind Okay, you've explained everything you were going through. And and then you decided you decided you were going to rob a bank. How hard was that decision to make? I mean, when you decided you were going to go do that? I mean, I guess you're taking a gun with you. Yeah, well, I knew I was crossing over a line that there was no return. And the things wouldn't be ever be the same. I mean, I hadn't been brought up that way. Most people are not brought up in America to think that way. And so it was a but it was a incremental decision. I use drugs. And that was somewhat easy because a friend of mine had recommended who I trusted. Then I went and I'd sell drug that it was the next step up. And before I use drugs, I started smoking cigarettes. And so each

step was incremental. It went from cigarettes to marijuana to cocaine, to selling cocaine, to things that were unthinkable, became thinkable, because my values, I wasn't a Christian at that time. So I didn't have a good marker in my life, a good guy post. So basically, it wasn't just okay, I'm going to go rob a bank. And you're saying incremental you mean this was this just this was a process of thinking that, you know, steps that were happening in your life, things that were going along. And it got to a point where you felt like that's what you had to do. Yes, I felt there was no options. I had to pay off these bills. And in retrospect, there's 10s of millions of Americans that get into debt every year. They don't go rob a bank, because they're in debt. They don't go hurt somebody. Obviously, it was a terrible choice. Okay, so you went to the bank that day. And what was going through your mind when you walked in there? I was scared. I was the most scared person in the bank. I have no doubt I was more scared than the tellers. I never brandished the weapon. I opened my coveralls and showed it to him. It was my waistband. And in fact, to show you they were in control that tellers were actually in control. I would find out years later, when I was in prison, a guy came up to me five years after I robbed the bank. He said, you know, that bank you robbed in Craig, Colorado? I said, Yeah. He said, my aunt was working there. And she told you that she didn't have a combination for the safe. They had a small safe. It was a tiny, tiny mall bank. The safe was probably the size of a microwave. And she told you that she didn't have the combination for the safe. And I said, Yeah, I remember when she told me that I told her just to give me the money in the till. And then he looked at me said she lied to you. So she was in control that day. And she had more control than I did. How many years after that? Did you learn this about her? Five years, five years. Wow. So fast forward a little bit. Okay, so you robbed the bank, when you're leaving the bank and headed towards your car, what's going through your mind? Well, the first minute you're worried, you're worried that I was gonna get caught. And as I started driving out of town, as I started driving out town, I heard on the radio, that they were looking for a red car for the getaway car. And my car was not gray, it was tan. They were looking for a red sports car. I said, Oh, I got away. And so there's this relief. I'm driving out of town. And what I didn't know was, there was a woman banding eagles out there in the in the desert.

And she'd seen the red sports car driving by. She called in the plates. By the way, this highway was very, very, very little used. I would say at this time of day, four or five cars. an hour was unusual. It was very little use. It's very remote. So she seen a red sports car and she called in the plates and the guy was wanted in Oregon or Washington wanted to for a crime. So they thought he's the guy that robbed the bank in Craig, Colorado. So they called Wyoming and asked them to set up a roadblock or to interdict the person. So when Steve pulled me over, he pulled me over to ask me if I'd seen the red sports car. And I had a stolen license plate on my car. I didn't want to go to prison. I didn't want to pay for my crime. And at that moment, I didn't think of the person pulling me over as a father or a son, a brother, as a person, just somebody in my way. So I made a decision to kill him. I got out of my car. I shot for his head. I'd been a military policeman in the army prior to going to college and I knew how to shoot. And I hit him once in the eye up to the car and fired four more shots. And I turned around and left him for dead. Steve got out of the car when I got into my car and shot me through the rear window as I was trying to drive away and hit me in the back. The first shot hit the headrest and it went down into my back and it forced me forward. The next four or five shots went where my head had been a few seconds earlier. You can see the shots in the windshield later. So the first shot actually saved my life. So I drove a few miles. I saw a police car go past me that was going to aid Steve. And then another police car set up a roadblock across the road. My car shot up. I had been shot and I knew I wasn't going to get far. So I got out of the car and started running. And I ran across the desert for, I don't know, maybe 100 yards. And there was five policemen following right behind me, maybe 50 yards behind me. I'd been shot so I wasn't running very fast. And they fired over 20 shots and all of them missed me. You can believe they were trying to kill me because I just shot their friend. Of my five shots that hit Steve, any one of them should have been lethal. One stopped right next to his brain, another next to his spine. And so there was a lot of miracles that day. All the bullets that missed me, the bullets I shot Steve, and neither one of us were killed. But I think God had better plans for us. So, all right. So you end up going to a stand trial, some various circumstances, some choices that you made on a plea, whatever. You end up with 40 years and you get sent to prison. And so I want to ask you some questions about being inside.

What was it like to be in prison for 40 years? I never thought I was going to do 40. I did 41, by the way, just shy of it. 40 years and 11 months. But I consider myself like the Israelites. They were in the desert for 40 years. And so I was, I had my own desert there. When I came in, that crime didn't stop. It didn't stop. It did an average of 12 to 15 years. And that was not just Wyoming, but I would guess nationwide. And there were changes that began to happen in the 1990s. So I always thought I was going to be getting out. But the release date kept moving further and further away as the politics changed. When I came in, there was, the sitting governor had signed 856 commutations. That's a reduction in sentence. By the mid 2000s, 2015 in that area, that current governor had signed three during his eight year term. So we went from 856 to three. So there's no exit strategy. So you ended up being in a lot longer than planned. Let me ask you some questions about doing time and being there. So let me toss out, I hear others talk about coping mechanisms. In short, brief as you can, you do things to cope with the situation. that you wouldn't advise someone who's incarcerated, who's listening this to use as a coping mechanism versus some that were beneficial to help you endure that process. First, do you know who you're talking to? I don't know how to do anything in short. I know, that's why I'm leading because we do have a limited amount of time here. So I'm trying, I know, you're very detail oriented. There's no doubt about that. Brevity is not in my vocabulary, I'm sorry. So when I started out, I did a lot of dumb things guys do. I started an image store where you loan things out at interest two for one, two for three. And I gambled, I did dumb stuff, but I had an attempt at escape.

And along the way, I figured out that was not the way to get out. I mean, the big way, the big thing for me, obviously, was accepting Christ. But along the way, I earned my bachelor's degree. I was the first inmate in the history of Wyoming Corrections to do it. I bought it in private industry. I had a hundred inmates working for me. So a lot of these things can't be replicated today in prisons, and so guys can't do them or women, but they can go to groups. They can, we're available, get correspondence courses. There's all kinds of Bible correspondence courses available that are free. And that's one thing you can do is I would always, once I became a Christian, had three or four Bible correspondence courses going at one time. I'd be sending out one lesson, and while I was waiting for that to get corrected, I'd be starting another and starting another. So I always had things going, and that gave me something productive to do with my time getting into the Word. I spent a lot of time on college courses. And if you do research, there's a lot of college courses available out there that you don't have to pay for. So go to college, take any training that you can.

Don't view the system as being adversarial. A lot of times people in prison look at the correctional officers, the staff, the parole board as adversarial. They're there to do a job, and most of them wanna help you if they can, given an opportunity, but stay away from the gangs. And I know it's harder in some of the places. Try to do your own time. Try not to use violence as a resolution. The first 10 years, I got in a bunch of fights. The last 30 years, I did not have one rule violation conviction. So you can figure out how to do it, but it's up to you to make the choice. And a lot of it is, for me, was spending time in the Word. And when I changed on the inside, then my externals changed. I found myself in less problems. I mean, if you're not gambling, you don't have to get in fights over gambling debts, okay? Once I became a Christian, they'd come and tell me, hey, your cell's getting shook down. Well, all cells get shook down. And I'd say, I don't care, because I didn't have anything in my cell that I could get in trouble for. So for me, there was freedom in Christ. Okay, that was good.

I think you gave both sides there things to do, things not to do. The fact that Steve reached out to you, well, let me ask you this first. At what point did you feel regret for everything that had happened? I mean, were you feeling that already after it happened, the regret? Oh, in the county jail. In fact, I don't know if Steve even remembers it, but I wrote him a letter. And I didn't have a Xerox machine in the county jail, so I couldn't keep it. But if I remember correctly, it said something to the effect of, don't let this define you, and don't let your anger control you, something to that effect. And I don't think Steve even remembers that, but I sent that in the county jail. And one thing that's been easy for me, or easier, most people don't have contact with their victims like I've had with Steve. And because I've had the contact with Steve, I've seen the impact on his life. And I'm aware of all the operations he's going through, the pain he's going through, even today, the PTSD. And when you see the impact you've had on somebody's life, you can't just forget it. So that, for me, it's been easier

knowing the harm and pain that I've caused. When I say easier, easier to empathize, easier not to forget. So you wrote Steve first? Well, from the county jail. That was just a short little, but then there's four- What did you say? What did you say in that letter in that note just basically I'm sorry and don't let this define you. Okay And uh, I can't remember a thing because this is 41 years ago or actually it was an 80. I can't remember yesterday brother. Yeah But then there was no contact For four years and then steve reached out And I didn't think i'd ever hear from him. Um and steve reached out and uh Told me he'd become a christian he forgave me and asked me to to join him in christ So that was what four or five years after you tried to reach out to him. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes When you when you got the letter offering you forgiveness, how did that make you feel? on top of the world um, I mean I never expected to hear from him and uh, here's a guy that I done brought so much harm into his life And he was reaching out to me I was very grateful. I still am I'm uh Kind of holding off on asking some questions because uh, i'm looking forward to a part three i've interviewed steve i'm interviewing you now and I'm looking forward to interviewing the two of you together because this whole process I i've kind of i've had a few comments Or conversations with people since I met you guys a couple of weeks ago This this and i'll save it for later, but this thing of of Of forgiveness is just blowing me away. So we'll talk more about that part later As as we move forward here and and start to wind this down I know there's so much that you want to say and again the details that you do share are beneficial

What You you mentioned jesus christ. You mentioned faith you mentioned doing things that For maybe lack of a better description gave you uh Some enhancement of life You didn't waste yourself. You didn't just waste away you realized Hey, i'm gonna make the best of this time, right? And so you you began to educate yourself you began to Try to be the man inside Inside your heart as much as inside the walls that you thought you were capable of being would that be a description? It's a very good description, um I got at one time. I got a hold of uh, a list of the hundred greatest classics And I was in the hole at that time and i'd worked in the library and I knew the Library director so the books that weren't available in the prison. He would go downtown and check out for me And I think no matter what prison you're in you can get a lot of these great classics and read them mutiny on the bounty the cane mutiny uh to kill a mockingbird, uh uh Get that list and read it the things that we all should have read in high school And we never had time to go through all of it and uh spend time in the word Take college courses take any education courses. You can that the prison offers a big thing is Everybody needs a sense of purpose when you get up uh and something to look forward to and A way to feel that you're a little bit better today And the other thing is look for a way to be of service to others. I can't emphasize that enough when I um Was at the honor farm. I started a program for reading for the blind And I reached out to the national organization and They would send me books and a guy would bring brought me a special tape recorder And after I broke horses all day, I would read for the blind up in the barn

uh Sandbag when we had a flood, uh, I just there was always something And even in the most highly controlled prison You can be of service of people around you. You can do one-on-one bible, uh, discipling There's no better time to do it. You have the time Uh to do some discipling of people around you and bring out other people to the lord a sense of purpose That's powerful and I appreciate that because you I mean I going in I do get to meet some that have been in for that a long time some are lifers and You know, it's there's questions. I would never ask somebody that's inside. I just go in to try to encourage But I want to ask you this question mark You had a life you struggled with Addictions you made some bad choices you committed a crime You went before a judge and Paid your dues What what message I mean, there's two aspects to this, but I also think of the people who might ask People who minister in in to the incarcerated. Why do that? Why give of your time to that? So tell me what it was like to be inside and know that there were people from the outside committing time and effort to provide you with inspiration, with hope, with direction. Was that of a benefit? Oh absolutely. We had prison ministries where people would drive hundreds of hundreds of miles to come give a service to us. And we had a really, really great church for many, many years in Wyoming. And it was uplifting, and we looked forward to it. And we listened to their struggles, and people in the outside struggled too. And we identified with this, and it gave us hope. And the church that we had in Torrington, we had people come in and tell us, many ministers, several of them, that there was more of a sense of a Holy Spirit in our church than there are churches on the

streets. It was a powerful service. It was a lot of long-termers. And yeah, something came of the seeds that these people planted. It was not time wasted. In fact, I just talked last night, I just talked to a guy by the name of E.J. Ridgeway. He and his wife came in for decades and gave services. And he's in his 80s, and he's still a preacher. Or close to 80, sorry E.J., he's 78. So it means something, and what brief encouragement would you give to the incarcerated to take advantage of those type of programs, to open themselves up? What's the benefit of that? To make that choice to go to a service, to reach out to a chaplain, to be open to spiritual help. There's a sense of peace. We're all looking for peace. Peace isn't just not getting stabbed or not getting beat up. It's a sense of calm in your spirit, being at ease with yourself and the world around you. And you can get peace when you have a relationship with God. And I don't think God wanted us to just read the Bible and do this alone. I think it says in the Bible that we're supposed to come together and assemble. So if they don't have worship services, maybe you're in the hole, maybe it's some place where they're difficult to assemble. Even if you just get together with one other guy or one other woman and read the Word together and ask each other questions, what does this mean? Iron sharpens iron. I like that verse and it's been true throughout life. So to those on the outside, how important is it to give someone like yourself or anybody that's coming out a chance to show that they really changed? They really have made, there's a reason. So in other words, they're not just sitting in the hole or sitting in a prison. Some people really try to make themselves better. They really try to change. They really try to make a difference. And I struggle a little bit when I hear churches not wanting to accept people who've come out of prison. I struggle with that. And that's why this story is so powerful because you paid your price, you did your time. And you did say earlier in the interview that you have been accepted well outside, but I know a lot of people that don't. Well, I question their faith. I honestly do. Right after the Lord gave us the Lord's prayers, I think it was Matthew 6, 14 through 15, 14 through 15, for if you forgive men of their trespasses, you will be forgiven. But if you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven. That's pretty clear that we need to forgive others. There's another scripture that if you're offering your gift at the altar and they remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift at the altar, first go and be reconciled to him. There's a number of scriptures where God talks about forgiveness and the cost of

unforgiveness. The other thing is, somebody explained to me once, when we have unforgiveness, whether it's a pastor not letting somebody into their church or congregation or me in my daily life, I have a relationship with God, and it's a drainpipe. It goes up and down, and prayers go up, and he comes down, and he speaks to me, and we have that bitterness, angerness, this unforgiveness. We plug that drainpipe, and so we're not getting the full relationship. So it's in the church's interest. On my board, I have this non-profit I formed. and Compassion Wyoming to advocate for an exit strategy for people with a changed heart. The pastor of my church is on my board. The former executive director of the Wyoming Board of Parole is on my board. A former governor of Wyoming went to the current governor to advocate for my release. There's a number of people that see the change have gotten involved and I've not let them down. We continue to do more and more people come alongside us. And I use us rather than me because it's a team effort and we're going forward. One of the things I, I wanna, oh, I'm glad you asked that question. I am glad, please don't edit this part out. For the pastors that have trouble accepting people that have done time into their church, Moses was a murderer. He gave us the first five books of the Bible. David was the only man in the Bible that God said, this is a man after my own heart. The only man.

He killed a man just to cover up his adultery with his wife. Davis gave us much of Psalms. The Lord was a descendant of David. Saul, who became Paul, who was the greatest missionary in the Bible that wrote 13 of the 27 new books, was a mass murderer. And most people don't realize that. He says himself, I persecuted Christians, plural with an S, unto death. So a mass murderer writes half of the New Testament. Another murderer gives us Psalms. Another murderer gives us the first five books of the Bible. I guess we should just throw out all those books of the Bible because they were written by people that did bad things. God doesn't throw us away when we've done bad things. He still can use us. And I urge the people on the streets, of course, you have to have caution, you have to use discernment, but to just not throw away people because they made a mistake. I don't know how we could end it any more powerful than that, because it's one thing for me to say those things, Mark, but it has so much more value and weight when you say it with what you've been through. And I thank you so much for giving this time,

spending it with me, spending it with literally the thousands and thousands that will view this. And I know it'll make a really big difference. So I wanna tell you to keep on keeping on because it's just so special. And I wanna thank you very much for this time that we've had together. I had one thing. For the inmates that are gonna watch this, never give up, never give up hope. You don't know when something's gonna change, whether it's the politics, whether it's illegal, whatever it is. And I'm not saying everybody's gonna get out, but I'm saying never give up. I never gave up. Israelites wandered for 40 years in the desert. Two of them made it out. So don't give up. I didn't give up, I'm out, things are going well. And the other thing is everybody knows Joel 2.25, or they should know. And the Lord will give you back the years that the locusts have taken. And I said, how is that possible? How's he gonna give me back a wife I don't have? How's he gonna give me back children and grandchildren? How's he gonna give me back those years? I'm 68.

He gave them back to me. When I get up in the morning, I have a sense of gratitude that very few people have. I'm grateful that I can go to the refrigerator and eat what I want. I'm grateful I can get in my car and drive where I want. I'm grateful that I can watch TV and not have 40 people in a day room yelling at me. I'm grateful I can turn on a computer. Just so much gratitude for the little things. And many people tell me I'm one of the most grateful people they know. Well, this makes my life a sense of joy that most people don't have. God did give me back the years and you can get back the years too. And I'm telling you, don't give up. Great message. Mark, thanks for your time. I sure do appreciate it. Thank you for watching our broadcast. Are you an incarcerated brother or sister who needs encouragement? Write to us at Victorious Living Correspondents, P.O. Box 2751 Greenville, North Carolina, 27836. Or email us at hope at vlmag.org. To view Victorious Living Magazine in its entirety, please have your chaplain contact us at 352-478-2098. Or email us through our website at vlmag.org. We are happy to provide our Victorious Living Magazine

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