From the Ashes of Folsom

In 1968, Johnny Cash walked into Folsom State Prison to perform for two thousand inmates. What most people forget is that Cash nearly didn't make it there at all — not because of scheduling, but because addiction had almost killed him. Pills, alcohol, and reckless living had cost him his first marriage, alienated his children, and landed him in jail cells of his own. He once crawled into Nickajack Cave in Tennessee, intending to die in the darkness.

But something happened in that cave. Cash later said he felt the presence of God so strongly that he crawled back out toward the light. He checked himself into rehabilitation. He reconnected with June Carter, who had been praying for him. And when he finally stood on that small stage at Folsom Prison, singing to men behind bars, he wasn't performing charity from a safe distance. He was one of them — a man who knew what it meant to be locked up by his own choices, and what it meant to be set free by a grace he didn't earn.

The Apostle Paul wrote from a prison cell that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, "of whom I am the worst" (1 Timothy 1:15). Redemption doesn't come to people who have it together. It comes to people crawling out of caves.

Whatever darkness you've crawled into — by choice or by circumstance — the same God who met Johnny Cash in that cave meets you where you are. The way out begins the moment you turn toward the light.