Solitary but Not Alone

“I could see the light coming in, but couldn’t see out.”

Dorothy* remembers the grueling months she spent in one of the world’s loneliest places: an 8-by-12-foot solitary confinement cell of a Montana prison.

“I just wanted to give up,” Dorothy said. “I just kept saying, ‘I have no one. What am I going to do?’”

In 2018, while Dorothy was still in the middle of her sentence, she lost a family friend—one of her only contacts outside of prison.

But then she heard a prison worker say her name.

It was during mail call, and Dorothy wasn’t expecting anything. Surprised but grateful, she scanned the piece of mail addressed to her.

“I remember wondering, ‘Who would ever write me and know I need help?’” Dorothy said.

Then Dorothy saw what it was—her bimonthly copy of the Today devotional.

ReFrame Media, the English outreach of Back to God Ministries International, distributes Today in bulk to about 70 chaplains who share the devotional with at least 13,500 inmates.

“God was tapping me on the shoulder and reminding me that he was still there,” Dorothy said, “that he was the one I needed to hold my hand.”

Not long after that, Dorothy began receiving more mail from a neighbor she barely knew before her time in prison. He told Dorothy that he wanted to help take care of her house while she was away now that her family friend had died. This served as another reminder that she was not alone in prison.

“He is a blessing, helping someone he really doesn’t know,” Dorothy said.

Although Dorothy’s prison sentence was longer than she originally thought it would be, she has found comfort in God’s Word.

“The best part of prison has been my relationship with the Lord,” Dorothy said. “I’ll never forget when I thought I lost all the people in my world. ‘Tap, tap,’ God said. ‘I’m still here. No one can take me away.’”