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Rodger Steven shares his experiences and lessons of living within the confines of prison walls. Margaret Stevens compassionately details the challenges family members face when a loved one is closed off from society. Spiritual perspectives within this book of prison life written by mother and son are a wondrous soulful guide to any family faced with a similar fate the Steven's family has sustained.


Two very different energies are entwined within the text of Families of the Jailed. This is understandable considering it is authored by two persons, one individual looking in and another looking out. I personally found it more difficult to read the passages written by Rodger because his words seemed constrained, protective, and somewhat detached. I was empathetically picking up the confinement of his writing space and felt discomfort and reservation. On the flip side, I found Margaret's words to seemingly flow more naturally and more easily digestible. Being a mother myself, I believe it was simply easier for me to slip into another mother's skin and understand her low to high emotional fluxes from having her expectations fractured to offering unconditional love to a child.

Rodger Stevens feels the purpose of their writing is to offer alternative ways of living with imprisonment beyond anger. He believes that he has been locked up within prison walls because it was the best possible place for him to be otherwise God would have put him elsewhere.

Just because we are not always happy to be thrust into difficult circumstances doesn't mean we aren't meant to experience it. He feels God has a great plan for us all. He offers advice for those those living in prisons to stay focused on one day at a time. He feels they are placing themselves in a destructive trap by being distracted by the past and/or pondering the future.

Margaret Stevens' lessons have been no less difficult than her son's. Her faith was tested time and again. She learned much about trust, acceptance, surrender, and forgiveness. Through this experience her spiritual beliefs deepened.

Publisher: Hampton Roads

Chapters

• Share Your Problem with Someone You Trust
• Face Facts, Tell the Truth, Have Faith
• One Day at a Time
• Love Unconditionally
• When Life Seems to Hit Rock Bottom
• Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
• Take Care of Yourself
• Deepen Your Spiritual Roots
• Affirm the Positive, Release the Negative
• Keep in Touch
• Reach Up, Then Out
• See the Bigger Picture
• The Amazing Results of Surrender
• Trust, Trust , Then Trust Some More
• What the Attitude of Gratitude Can Do for You
• Some Closing Thoughts from Rodger