Happy 4th of July
My all-time favorite holiday! I love what the 4th of July represents... freedom! Okay, but on the cool, I'm a big kid at heart who would love to be popping firecrackers. Man, people everywhere are Bar-b-quing, hanging with their family, getting their swerve on, and getting prepared to set it off with every type of firework imaginable. I want it to be me.

Alright, so I'm a little jay about it.

America, so beautiful. We celebrate our freedom. I chose today to honor our troops. It's because of them that we maintain our freedom. Their integrity shines forth as well as their loyalty and honor. May God bless them and keep them. Thank you to all veterans and active duty soldiers. You defend this country for the one things I freely gave up, my freedom.

Thank you...

Frances Whitlock

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6/30/11
Parole Minded

Some days are more harder in here than others. Usually we get up and go about our mundane existence with one thing in mind: this journey being over. For some, this is their life, so they behave as such. This, however, is not mine. So I focus on the world.

My mind is gripping that I'll soon be seeing parole. That in a few months, they'll vote again on my freedom. That they will fail to really look at my file and only look at my crime. My crime, by the way, is tampering with evidence in the first degree.

By all rights and parole standards, I should have done been home, but God had different plans for me. As difficult as it is for me to continue to do this time, I trust God knows what is best for me.

Here, lately, all I think about is these three people voting on me come December 2011. And to be honest, I'm praying God's favor and for me to be in acceptance of His will for me. I can't do anything more to convince the system that I've changed. I can only continue to change.

I took the vocational they put me in and completed it. I got five certifications in Microsoft Word, Access, Excel, Power Point, and Master Specialist. I completed both changes and cognitive. I've completed 22 months in the faith base dorm. I've gone through countless Bible studies on site and through the mail. I do what I know what God requires of me. I've been working programs of recovery since i got here. I've gotten out just as much, if not more, than what I've put IN!

However, just like that, I got tired of my self-destructive lifestyle out there. I'm tried of this self-imposed systematic lifestyle called prison. I've watched people go and come back. I've seen people be called home to God. I've watched people make parole whom by all rights shouldn't have. Yet God has an appointed hour for everything, including my release.

I look at myself sometimes and tell myself, "The hard part is over." I can't make the parole board set me free. I can, however, make a difference while I am here. It's why I joined this blogsite. To maybe, in some way, help someone else.

Every day, a person behind bars with a shot at parole must make decisions. I do not believe for a second that people who continuously make improper decisions should be released. Yet those are the majority of parole releases, because they know they'll be back. I don't want to come back. So if that means I do the next 17 months in prison, then so be it. But if given the opportunity to make a success of myself while on parole, I'd like that better. Either way! I choose to make right decisions to keep from returning to prison as an inmate.

I ask all of those who believe in the power of prayer to pray for me and others who will be seeing parole this year. Thank you.

God Bless ❤
Frances