03/08/2025
Lessons You Don’t Learn by Winning
A journal note from prison, April 2023
Some things are hard to explain.
Why would anyone choose to suffer — just to stand for the truth?
It sounds strange.
We live in a world that teaches us to win, to be first, to stay safe.
So when someone walks into hardship — especially when they could’ve avoided it — people get suspicious.
And honestly, that’s understandable.
It doesn’t make sense by normal standards.
But then again, not everything that’s true makes sense at first glance.
Because sometimes, in the most unlikely places — in prison, in silence, in struggle — something sacred happens.
Not a miracle, not a voice from the clouds.
Just a quiet sense that God is near.
And that nearness becomes enough.
Enough to steady the heart.
Enough to soften the pain.
Enough to bring a kind of joy that doesn’t come from winning, but from not being alone.
That’s when you begin to understand why the persecuted are called “blessed.”
Not because suffering is good —
but because heaven never forgets.
