Dear Shawn
I think I can know what you are facing. My husband spent six weeks in jail last year in part of a 14 year sentence for something he is not guilty for but has been declared liable and subsequently sentenced. I know we are in the same shoes as Job who insisted on his innocence yet we are aware of the circumstances set against us, and that we are NOT to do as Job did in not seeing that it was God who set him in his circumstances. My husband is at home. His appeal has been prepared to be heard in High Court later this year. We have hope in God who has made us so painfully aware that God will be God, and He has set the outcome regardless of anything or anyone we can find to place our sense of false security in, or lose our sense of false hope in, that has happened over and over again as God has been refining us to depend on only HIM and not this or that, they or them. Little by little the sophistication of the crime that has gone undetected, seems to be emerging in new evidence we are grateful is being retrieved after a ten year court case. Only God can sustain and reward. We have been sustained through the Mercy and Pity of our God as we have had to face the most devastating and frightening circumstances which brings me to your comment :
An adult jail will just be too much for him.
I do not want to dispute this fact Shawn…but to really and truly tell you from personal experience, that an adult jail is not too much for God. God was with us through every blow and desperately painful circumstance we have been blessed to endure. Truly, I know the things that frighten us and even if it is too much, God has a most miraculous way that is truly beyond human imagination to conjure up and prescribe to HIM to do for us…God IS God and He authored the experience your nephew is by His Design, authored to experience just as truly as His is authoring everything my dear husband son and I have been appointed to endure and suffer and learn depths of experience that most people seem to be totally blind to.
I am so sorry for your Nephew. My husband met two young teenage boys in prison who were serving a sentence for murder. They were good kids that experienced circumstances that led to their conviction and sentence. They were both from "good" families. What my husband and I have realized is that landing in jail can happen to ANYONE. We meet the Beast in many experiences and circumstances God authors to bring us to understanding the depths of His Mercy and Kindness. Just as being any person we see as evil, could be us too, as we realize that God is in control of everything and everyone.
God gives us an experience of evil. We are either the bringer evil or the recipient of evil. Either way, we are appointed to our circumstances that God authors in His Plan to bring us to His Image through the fires of trials and tribulations. It is frightening, desperately painful and unless you have been there, you simply cannot know the pain. I realized, that there is pain, that cannot be known or imagined unless it is experienced. It is another world entirely from the one of glib unawareness of most people who have absolutely no clue about pain or about God. We are blessed to endure and learn depths we have no idea exist as we are being caused to understand the unfathomable things of God, His Power, Wisdom Love and Control.
Blessings to you and your nephew as God takes you all through the experience of His Power, Plan and Purpose. Fear not…may be easy words to hear but oh so difficult to apply which is what God teaches us to do through His Spirit, and then we learn, grow and begin to understand the Purpose of Love God has for us all.
Please keep us posted.
Arc