Q & A with author Carol Kent, whose son is serving a life sentence for murder in Florida
“By ‘guts’ I mean, grace under pressure.” –Ernest Hemingway
At 12:35 a.m. on October 24, 1999, the phone rang.
Jason Kent at graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy
That phone call thrust Carol Kent into a waking nightmare. Her son, 25-year-old Jason, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a strong Christian, had been charged with the murder of his wife’s ex-husband.
But even as Carol and her husband, Gene, reeled with the devastating news, a story of hope and redemption began emerging alongside the despair.
Ten years later, after thousands of tears shed and hundreds of trips to visit her son in prison, Carol has shared her story across the country through many speaking engagements and two books, When I Lay My Isaac Down andA New Kind of Normal, which offer a surprising account of joy and resilience against a world of loss and incarceration.
Inside Out’sZoe Sandvig recently had the opportunity to sit down with Carol and hear a little more about her journey toward a “new kind of normal.”
Inside Out: Carol, I’m sure our readers would be interested to know how you get through a day.
CarolKent: I would tell anyone in your readership that every day is different. Often if a day is filled with busyness and activities and ministry and opportunities to interact with people, those are the best days because you feel like you’re doing something productive in the middle of being in very difficult and impossible circumstances. Often when I have that break day, in between speaking engagements . . . that’s when my mind is open to even hearing the lies of the enemy, like, “If you had been a better parent, this would not have happened,” or, “If you had been less busy, you could have stopped this thing before it took place,” or, “If you’d read your Bible more consistently or prayed more intensely this would not have happened.”
And I think one of the things that is extremely helpful to me is to realize that what I have always known about who God is is that He is still good, He is still trustworthy, and that I know He is not punishing me. I know that my son made a choice—I believe in a mental [condition] that had eroded considerably because of his obsession for his fears for his girls1—but, I know in the end, he made a choice that was very destructive. When I’m in my right mind, I know it’s not because of my bad parenting skills.
And so I find that by filling my life up with ways to invest in the lives of others and in actively pursuing tangible ways that I can help other people, that’s a way that I can really fight those lies of the enemy because I can see some good that has come out of this . . .
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There are so many creative ways that we can get involved and help us get our mind off those lies of the enemy. And I think the best way to defeat those lies is to fill your mind with truth. There was a time—and I will be quick to admit it—when my child was arrested, I had trouble reading the Bible. My eyes were so blurry with tears, I could hardly see the words on the page. Then when I could see the words on the page, I was unable to focus. There’s that point in time when you just do the next thing. Breathe, and do the next thing . . .
Five days after Jason’s arrest was my next speaking engagement, and I didn’t know if I was going to live through it, but we needed the money to pay the attorney . . . I wasn’t speaking on what had happened . . . so I gave a message based on biblical truth that I had always known to be true. When I began it was the most empowering thing I had ever done because I suddenly realized in the middle of speaking truth, that in the dark shadows of my mind I was probably questioning, but I had that sense, as I spoke the truth from God’s Word, of stomping on the head of the enemy, saying “You loser. You meant to wipe the parents out with the son, and you lose.” And it gave me the courage to do it again, and again, and again.
So I’m one of those people who would say, “Don’t take a long break from life when the crisis happens.” Involve yourself in appropriate ways in being authentic and real with at least one other person . . . if you have at least one other person who listens and cares, you know you have a support base. And then, as you have the courage, instead of hiding in the middle of your “secret,” have the belief that “if I’m real, if I’m authentic, I’m going to help somebody else.” And for every person that shuns me, there will be 10 people who will embrace me.
1Overcome with fears that his stepdaughters’ father had been abusing them, Jason tracked the man down in a restaurant parking lot and pulled the trigger. Carol believes that Jason was mentally unstable at the time of his crime.
