Prison's a Time to Rebuild

 I'm a lifelong Cubs fan. I know, cue the jokes, but we Cubs fans are loyal, if nothing else. I thought this was shaping up to be a great year for Cubs baseball, but then the team fell apart. My favorite players were suddenly on the trading block. And traded they were. Four of the Cubs' best players. So much for this season. 

But, like other Cubs fans, I tell myself it's not a total loss. It's a rebuilding year, after all. Sometimes you've got to tear down and rebuild. Even history's wisest man recognized this when he said, "To everything there is a season...a time to break down, and a time to build up" (Eccl. 3:1, 3b). So, for the Cubs, this is a rebuilding season. 

Of course, baseball metaphors are fitting for many things, especially when it comes to rebuilding. Sometimes companies need to tear down and rebuild. Sometimes marriages need to tear down and rebuild. Same with other relationships. And sometimes people need to tear down and rebuild their own lives. 

People who are sent to prison don't usually intend to rebuild their lives. For many, recognizing the need to rebuild, even after being sent to prison, comes slowly, if at all. When that realization comes though, that's what is called "turning the corner." 

When a prisoner turns the corner, he acknowledges that many things about his life need to change. He recognizes the damage his current way of living has done to himself and others, and he commits to truly changing. Often, these changes are not minor tweaks. They are total rebuilds. 

Rebuilding one's life, after the major interruption of prison, requires tearing down some ways of thinking, some behaviors, and some attitudes. It might also require eliminating unhealthy relationships, addictions, and habitual patterns in one's life. But tearing down is only a part of turning the corner. 

As unhealthy and counterproductive thoughts, attitudes, and actions are purged from one's life, healthy replacements must also be put into place. Otherwise, you're left with a pile of rubble or an infertile wasteland. 

Rebuilding is painful, slow, and sometimes unsuccessful. The Cubs have tried rebuilding numerous times, but they've only won a single World Series in the last 113 years. So, rebuilding requires tenacity and courage. It requires pressing through the pain. And above all, it requires humility. 

It's difficult at times to admit that it's your own stinkin' thinkin' or bad behaviors that got you to where you are. It's so much easier to blame others, to blame society, your parents, or anyone else. But when you start making rebuilding moves, it means you've taken responsibility for your own outcomes. And very few people are in prison due to no fault of their own. 

I don't know if the Cubs' rebuilding will be successful this time. I'll continue to hold out hope. After all, this is a blog about hope. I also don't know if my own rebuilding will be successful. I certainly think it will be, but like the Cubs will undoubtedly have to do, I'll be making tweaks along the way. 

Only time and the pressures of life will reveal whether someone's efforts to rebuild their lives will be successful. There's nothing like a storm in life to reveal the cracks in one's foundation. But when humility, tenacity, and courage become a way of life, a rebuild is bound to hold up under stress. 

It takes a lot of hope to carry on through years of unrealized hopes and dreams. I've been in a rebuilding season for much of my 12 years so far in prison, and I suspect I'll still be rebuilding for years after leaving prison. I'm confident that I'll realize many of my hopes and dreams though. Discouragement is temporary, but hope is eternal. I am a Cubs fan, afterall.