Religion played no part in my life as a child. In our home, everything was about science. My father, a college professor, had a degree in biology, a master’s in microbiology, and a doctorate in zoology. He taught us to look to science for answers. I often heard, “There is no God. There is no Jesus. Heaven and hell are not real.”

In all those years, science never provided answers to my questions. It only left me with more questions and a sense of emptiness and confusion. It didn’t help that I was the last of nine children. Life was often chaotic.

Adding to my turmoil was an awful secret—two trusted family members had sexually abused me when I was eight. At first, I wasn’t sure if what had happened was normal. If it was, why did it feel wrong? And why did I feel so dirty? This experience left me with an unhealthy view of sex and women as well as a boatload of shame and confusion that I carried into adulthood.

In high school, I planned to become a cop. I let family and friends assume I was following in the footsteps of my brother, uncle, and cousin. The real reason was that I didn’t want any other kid to endure the same abuse and shame I’d experienced.

I moved from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma shortly out of high school. I attempted a year of college for my parents, but that was not for me. On my own, I noticed how some people were happy while others, like me, were angry and heartbroken. What caused those differing outlooks? I began to search for an answer.

At 24, I was hired as an officer at a state correctional facility. I’d always wanted to be a cop, but I’d never pictured myself working at a prison. I thought prisons were filthy, corrupt, and dangerous. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be there—not the staff, not the incarcerated, and certainly not me. I took the job but didn’t plan to stay there long. I’m better than this, I thought.

That was the beginning of my 27-year career within the prison system.

It was easy to despise those paying for their misdeeds. Many were serving life and double-life sentences for horrific crimes. To me, they were the worst of the worst. My judgmental attitude toward this population, combined with the pain and anger of childhood trauma, made me a “tough guy.”

I firmly believed those who were incarcerated deserved nothing beyond what was required. If they were issued a certain amount of clothing, that was all they got. I would take away something as simple as an extra toothbrush to prove I was in charge. I was a real bully.

Over time, I realized many of the incarcerated were not all that different from me. But instead of showing compassion, I continued to look down on them.

After a couple of years, I was hired by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Despite its high demands, I wanted the respect and pay the position offered, but the stress of the job further hardened my already hard heart.

In my late 20s, I married my first wife. She attended the Greek Orthodox church, which was interesting because she wasn’t Greek. I, however, was. I felt like my family tree had come full circle.

Soon after, I invited Jesus into my life, but it wasn’t until my late 40s that I began to understand what it meant to have a relationship with Him. Unfortunately, there are many believers like me who don’t understand what living for Him means.

I went to church with my wife when I could, but working odd shifts made regular attendance difficult. Since I had no church background or knowledge of the Bible, sitting through church wasn’t easy.

Usually, I walked out of the service feeling dumber than I had going in. “It was all Greek to me!” as the saying goes. I wasn’t motivated, though, to learn more. God was not my priority—work was my god, and I bowed to its demands.

Whatever it took to move up, I did it, and each promotion meant another move. Relocating across the nation was hard on my wife and our two boys. Our marriage came under much tension, and sadly, it ended in divorce just as I was obtaining the rank of lieutenant.

I remarried, but my second wife and I stayed together only four years. Once again, I allowed my job aspirations to impact my roles as a husband and father. The stress of the job, along with my anger and insecurities, did not make for a happy home. I finally recognized my need to change and knew that to do so, I’d need the Lord’s help. For my wife, however, the change came too late, and she asked me to leave.

Sitting alone in a rental house with most of my worldly goods in a cardboard box, I reached an all-time low. How would I tell my sons that I was divorcing again? I felt like such a failure. The job, the divorce, and my increasing sense of shame overcame me, and I decided it would be easier to die.

I crushed up and consumed an entire bottle of prescription pills and told God, “If You have a purpose for me to be alive, I’ll wake up in the morning. If not, oh well.” Thank God, I woke up. Please know that I do not recommend this test of God’s will.

After this, I got serious about my relationship with God. I began talking about Christianity and the Bible with a friend, a fellow lieutenant, who graciously took time to answer my questions. I also had a small network of believers I could lean on, including one of my sisters, her husband, and a few others I knew who were living for Jesus.

Then I met Amanda, also coming out of a failed marriage. Our relationship began strictly as friends. Like me, Amanda was seeking God’s will and healing. We found comfort in our companionship and conversations.

Eventually, we began to date, and she invited me to her enormous, nondenominational church. It was a new and, admittedly, scary experience, seeing all those people with their hands raised, praising and worshiping God. I quickly noticed, however, that these people seemed to enjoy being at church.

Something awakened within me as the pastor clearly shared the Word of God in context. My soul hungered and thirsted for more. At home, I began to read God’s Word daily. Its pages came alive, and I began to find the answers I had been seeking since my youth. God’s love restored the broken places in my heart.

True healing came as I released my childhood trauma by sharing it with others and forgiving my abusers, just as God through Christ had forgiven me (Ephesians 4:32). I thought I would feel humiliated if I told others about my past, but once I did, I immediately felt a sense of cleansing wash over me, and for the first time in 40 years, I felt free (Galatians 5:1). The shame, the hurt feelings, and the dirtiness I had held onto were gone. At 48, I finally felt whole.

I asked Amanda to marry me, and she agreed. God has blessed our marriage and redeemed our painful pasts as we continue to seek Him.

I wanted to learn more about God so I could help others find His healing. I enrolled in an evening program at Highlands College, a Bible college in Birmingham, Alabama, just as I was nearing retirement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The more I learned about God’s love for me, the more I began to love others. A burden grew in my heart for those living and working in corrections.

All those years of living apart from God, I had only cared about me and my promotion. But now, I saw people through the eyes of our Savior—including the incarcerated. I no longer saw them as prisoners but as people made in God’s image.

Many incarcerated men have told me how they’d seen me change. “You talk to us now,” they said. “You smile and say hello when we walk by, and you listen to us.” Because of Christ, I am not the same man I once was (Ephesians 4:22–24).

Contemplating my retirement and the completion of my college certificate, I considered many ministry options…none of which included returning to prison. But God has a great sense of humor, and He had other plans.

He used my instructors and classmates to direct me into prison ministry, and His Holy Spirit reminded me of what I’d seen while working in the system. How both those working and living in corrections needed the hope of Jesus and support.

God placed many burdens on my heart, including the attitudes that staff have toward the incarcerated and the attitudes the incarcerated have toward the staff. Understandably, there is much distrust and tension on both sides.

I became heavily burdened for the prison staff. Many live under a terrible weight of hopelessness with no release. They need to be encouraged to open up about their experiences and pain. But there’s an unspoken rule among prison staff: you don’t talk about your problems lest you appear weak. This expectation of self-reliance, however, leads to high rates of drug and alcohol misuse, domestic abuse, and divorce.

I shared my heart with Amanda, and she found a job opening posted with Prison Fellowship, a national nonprofit organization whose mission is “to encounter Jesus with those affected by crime and incarceration.” They were looking for a federal chaplain resource manager, or liaison, who would feel comfortable going into prisons and talking with the incarcerated and staff. It was like God had written out this job description specifically for me.

Three weeks later, I applied for and received the position. I thank God daily for my opportunities with Prison Fellowship to minister to those in corrections.

But most of all, I thank God for reaching into my darkness and saving me. He brought me out from under the heavy weight of sin, anger, confusion, shame, and regret. God truly brought this dead man back to life.

He can revive you, too. You don’t have to live under the weight of sin and shame. Let Jesus set you free.

JASON ZAHARIS, a retired lieutenant in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, is now a federal chaplain resource manager with Prison Fellowship (prisonfellowship.org). In 2021, he founded Reformation 319, a Facebook page that seeks to bring about cultural change in corrections by changing how staff view the incarcerated and how the incarcerated view correctional staff. He is currently pursuing a degree in Christian counseling through Liberty University Online.