WPBN: The holidays can be extremely trying for families whose loved ones are incarcerated. According to one woman who went through it, prison was a lifesaver.
Rochelle Grover described having “abandonment issues” as a result of her upbringing in a dysfunctional household where she was moved around a lot. She had behavioral issues and became a mother to two children as a teenager, despite having consecutive As in school as a child.
Glover enlisted in the military after graduating from high school because she believed it would “allow [her] to make better decisions.” Regretfully, she met an older man while serving and quickly found herself in a “toxic and abusive marriage,” which she claimed she was too embarrassed to escape. When the couple left the service, they relocated to Crossville, Tennessee.
“He started doing shady business deals,” Glover stated. “Because my name was on the bank account — the things he did was fraudulent —I got caught in the midst of what he had done wrong.”
Glover, who had never before run afoul of the law, was locked up in a Nashville prison on December 4, 1999.
“I always say, prison saved my life in a sense,” Glover stated, “because I don’t know if I ever would have had the strength to leave out of that bad relationship.”
However, incarceration itself wasn’t the only thing that aided her. She got associated with a ministry known as Prison Fellowship.
“They would do Bible studies,” Glover stated. They “invited me to some of the Prison Fellowship Bible studies, and when I did, it just kind of transformed my life.”
They asked her to take part in something called Angel Tree one weekday. She used this application to assist her choose Christmas gifts for her kids. A local church would deliver the letter she wrote to them. It served as a means of maintaining contact and providing for them while her incarceration. Glover took part for three years and had a huge impact.
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According to Glover, “The same way that God came and gave us Jesus as a gift to reconcile us back to the Father, Angel Tree became the gift that helped me reconcile my relationship with my children during my incarceration, so I was able to mother my children even though I was incarcerated.”
Even now, her son still owns the Tonka truck he got through the Angel Tree program.
Glover worked as a volunteer with jail Fellowship when she was released from jail in 2004. Today, she works for Prison Fellowship for Tennessee as the Justice Ambassador Specialist. Over the state, she has worked in prisons.
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Ministers from Prison Fellowship serve at Tennessee prisons, including as the Morgan County Correctional Complex in Wartburg, one in Mountain City, and multiple locations in Nashville.
Glover credits Prison Fellowship and the preachers who “loved me back to life” for enabling her to witness her children advance in their jobs and purchase their first homes with their families.
