Today I thought I would continue sharing some other things I have improved about myself while in prison.
Like many people, before I surrendered I would catch myself thinking about making money way too often. While I know this area in my life has greatly improved even before I surrendered, being in prison making on 23 cents an hour really depletes this desire to make money. This has allowed me to focus even more on my faith.
Another area I have improved on in my life while locked up in prison is learning how to communicate even better with people. Since all the inmates here are criminals of some sort, one must know what to say and what NOT to say to someone depending on their personality and charges.
A fun area I have improved is playing a card game called spades. To help pass time on the weekends, I play spades with my friends on Friday and Saturday nights. Doing this has caused me to learn how to shuffle cards better. I am still not great at the card game nor at shuffling, but it is fun and playing with friends I met here makes it more enjoyable. We never play for money or anything, just play for fun and to pass time.
The final thing I have improved on is fasting more often as an act of worship. I have fasted a few times before surrendering. However, since being prison, I have afflicted my soul (aka fasting) several times so I truly realize that the Almighty is where my subsidence comes from. When I do fast, I make sure to pray about it and not make it known to others. It is an act of worship so I can be in even more alignment with the Creator. When I go vertical like this and get hunger pangs, I make it a point to read the Bible even more. Miraculously the hunger pangs go away. The Bible is our spiritual food.
Hopefully you can see this prison experience has been a time where I have sincerely tried to grow more and not use it as a time of extreme negativity.