Bessie Shipp was spending Christmas in jail. A slender black woman, Bessie was watching her life slip rapidly away. Though she had not been sentenced to death by the state, she was under a different death sentence: Bessie had AIDS. [This happened in 1985, eleven years before the highly effective HAART treatment was introduced for AIDS.]<\/p>\n
I met Bessie that Christmas Day in a North Carolina prison for women. I had come to give a Christmas message to the inmates there.<\/p>\n
The atmosphere was glum. The small crowd that gathered to hear me preach was somber and subdued.<\/p>\n
After the service, a prison official said, \u201cDo you have time to visit Bessie Shipp?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u2019s Bessie Shipp?\u201d I asked. When they told me, I confess, I was taken aback. This was several years ago, and I had never visited an AIDS patient.<\/p>\n
And yet, just the night before, I had seen a television story about Mother Teresa and the AIDS patients she was caring for. How could I do anything less?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll go,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
We walked down a narrow corridor, and a heavy door was opened to reveal a small, dark cell. There, sitting in a hard-backed chair was this tiny woman, wrapped in a bathrobe, shivering in the cold. To my surprise, I saw a Bible on her lap.<\/p>\n
After chatting a few minutes, I came right to the point. \u201cBessie,\u201d I said, \u201cDo you know the Lord?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to,\u201d she replied softly. \u201cBut I don\u2019t always feel like He\u2019s there.\u201d And her voice trailed off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you like to pray with me to know Christ as your Savior?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
Bessie looked down, twisted a Kleenex in her thin hands, and finally whispered, \u201cYes, I would.\u201d<\/p>\n
So we prayed together in that cold, concrete cell. And Bessie made a decision that would change the rest of her short life: She gave it to Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
Only days later Bessie was paroled. Friends and prison officials had been trying to get her released for a long time. But the timing was providential. She stayed long enough to meet Christ, and then she went to her home as a new Christian.<\/p>\n
A short three weeks after her release, Bessie contracted pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. A Prison Fellowship area director visited her and found her spirit strong to the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the happiest days of my life,\u201d she whispered. \u201cBecause now I know Jesus loves me, and you all love me, too. I\u2019m in the Lord\u2019s hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two days later Bessie died. She went to meet the Savior she had accepted only a short time before, on Christmas Day, in a cold prison cell.<\/p>\n
When Jesus came to earth, He wasn\u2019t born in a grand palace. He was born in a dirty stable that reeked of animals, with mice scurrying underfoot.<\/p>\n
And Jesus still comes to us wherever we are. Not only to warm, well-lit homes, but also to run-down tenement buildings and gray prison cells.<\/p>\n
So wherever you are, why don\u2019t you ask Him to come to you? And He will do it. Just like He came to a young woman dying of AIDS in a North Carolina prison one cold Christmas Day.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
(This commentary originally aired December 25, 1995)<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2014 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bessie Shipp was spending Christmas in jail. A slender black woman, Bessie was watching her life slip rapidly away. Though she had not been sentenced to death by the state, she was under a different death sentence: Bessie had AIDS. [This happened in 1985, eleven years before the highly effective HAART treatment was introduced for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,258,391,546],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}