A clear-cut success story is about Paula Bolen, whom I met at the PROGRAM’s 2010 Annual Meeting, where she gave the invocation. Paula has come a long way since spending five years in state prison. Using an accounting degree she earned while in prison, she has worked for a local nonprofit for fifteen years, where she is now the accounting manager. What changed her life? During her second year in prison, she “got saved” (her words) and began thinking and acting in a whole new way, to the point that she wrote the judge who had convicted her, telling of the change she had experienced. The day she graduated with her college degree, a guard told her to report to Administration, where she learned that: The judge she’d written to had died after writing a letter urging that her sentence be commuted; his wife had mailed the letter posthumously; the Department of Corrections received it; and her sentence of 9-18 years had been reduced to five! Paula has published I Love Him More, and is working on a Masters in Psychology with the goal of opening a Community Wellness Center to serve women with drug and Mental Health issues in a safe and nurturing environment. Asked what she wanted most to say about her experience, Paula said “the five years in prison was the best five years of my life. You can find salvation in the strangest of places.” Way to go, Paula – your faith, your persistence, and your strength are inspiring to us.
Jim Cavenaugh
Jim Cavenaugh
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