Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption

Other than when I’m driving, I don’t try to look too far ahead, and once I got out, I never wanted to look back.

You had to be free in your heart. Guilt, fear, anger—they were all their own kinds of prison. You could be out in the world and still be doing time.

Put a man in a cage with beasts and throw away the key, and it’s usually not very long before the man is a beast himself.

I picture him, in those few seconds in between the fences, a stoner grin on his face, high at the thought that freedom was so close.

You had to be free in your heart. Guilt, fear, anger—they were all their own kinds of prison. You could be out in the world and still be doing time. Part of my finding that peace within myself was learning that I was strong enough to carry the load the Lord had asked me to.