Read Online Solomon's Porch by Wid Bastian - Free Book Online Page B

of her desk giving thanks to the Lord for His mercy and His messengers.
    Between late October and Christmas, the environment mellowed at Parkersboro. Petty fighting ended and tempers cooled. The farther away in time “Alan’s miracle” became, the less prominent it was on the minds of the men. Camp gossip moved on to other topics. The press lost what little interest they had in the story.
    For some reason, Gail McCorkle made an effort to meet with every inmate one-on-one, she granted requests for furloughs and other privileges, asked about families, checked on medical problems, made sure the food was top notch for the holidays, and generally behaved more like a mother hen than a prison warden.
    Rumor had it Miss Mac snagged herself a boyfriend and that his tender mercies were the source of her newfound qualities of kindness and concern. Peter, Malik, and Saul knew better, but they weren’t talking. Neither was Gail, but she was participating in a private prayer service and Bible study every other night in her office with her newfound spiritual advisors.
    Attendance at the “Service on the Porch” was increasing every Sunday morning. By mid-December most of the camp was showing up, although many were more motivated by curiosity than by a genuine hunger for the Word. Peter preached, everyone listened, a few souls were awakened. Those in the camp who considered all this “fuss over a con man” nothing but manure simply stayed away, but were no longer openly hostile.
    Over the course of the fall, Peter continued to work on his relationship with his son. As an obedient servant of the Lord, he rejoiced and gave thanks for the miracles he had been privileged to be a part of, but God’s benevolence also served to increase his desire to have Christ so bless his own family.
    By December, Peter’s twice weekly phone calls to Kev were going unanswered more than half the time, no doubt thanks to the technology of caller i.d. He wrote letters almost every other day to try and compensate, but when he finally did get the chance to speak to Kevin he found out that most of them had not reached his boy.
    Peter knew all too well what the problem was. Actually there were two problems, interrelated yet distinct.
    Julie Morgan had a legitimate right not to trust her ex-husband. The Peter Carson she knew would say anything to anyone, however untrue, to further his own selfish aims. Why should Julie believe he’d changed now? Jesus? Because he’d found Jesus?
    Julie believed in God, but there was no substance to her faith. She knew that religion was often a convenient refuge for scoundrels. As a Southern woman, Julie had plenty of bad examples to choose from when it came to false teachers. A few years back a prominent televangelist conned her mother out of thirty grand before she and Peter caught on and put a stop to it. “Bible thumpers,” a label she pinned on any outspoken Christian, were all phonies as far as she was concerned.
    In Julie’s mind, Peter’s “jailhouse religion” was almost certainly part of some new scheme. To what exact end she wasn’t sure, and didn’t feel she had to be. As she told Walter, “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it has to be a duck.”
    While understandable, Julie’s skepticism was also self-serving, which led, Peter knew, to the second problem.
    Through the process of his spiritual growth, God confirmed a truth Peter felt like, on some level, he had always known; no one succeeds alone, and no one fails alone. God sews all of us together in a great fabric of life. While ultimately we are judged by what we do (by our own works), we are also held accountable to be our brother’s keeper. In addition to showing kindness and love to his fellow man, a Christian must also never actively participate in another’s sin.
    Peter Carson had a wife who pressured him into feeling inadequate if he didn’t have a “million in the bank by forty,” made him feel small when he didn’t measure