Dreams Come True

When Aaron found the gun the next morning, he knew it hadn't been a dream. If only it had been.

As the woman he married in prison years later describes, "He was a train wreck going somewhere to happen." At 20, Aaron had created his own collision course, and there was no turning back.

ONE RUINOUS EVENING

On April 5, 1986, 20-year-old Aaron Cosar went to church. Despite 10 years of running as far as he could from the faith of his father—a deacon at a Baptist church—something made this apostate son flirt with religion on an Oklahoma evening. The romance was short-lived.

A girl was waiting for him in the church parking lot.

"Come on, a couple of beers won’t hurt anything," she enticed. As someone who had been an alcoholic since childhood, it was a proposition Aaron couldn't refuse.

Eight hours and several rounds of alcohol and LSD later, Aaron found himself in a house with two girls and a guy who owned a 9-millimeter handgun that Aaron believed was calling his name. When the guy stepped out to buy more beer, Aaron took the gun. When the man returned, Aaron pulled the trigger that would tear away his freedom and change the course of his life—as well as the lives of everyone he knew, even those he hadn't yet met.

WAKING UP

He awoke the next morning in a drunken stupor. The events of the night before ran together as a chimera in his befuddled mind.

"I thought it was a dream, really. I thought what I had done wasn't real."

And then he found the gun.

A week later, the police picked up a belligerent Aaron on a tip from his younger brother. They drove him to the Pontotoc County jail in Ada, Oklahoma, and put him in "the bullpen," a cement room with a single hole to urinate through.

That's when he received his first visitors, Christians who came to the jail to share Christ's love with prisoners like Aaron. But this Native American man wasn't interested in "white man's religion." One volunteer he turned away with a cup of urine in the face.

But one petite woman kept coming back.  Eventually, Aaron clasped the lady's hands through the jail bars and prayed the sinner's prayer, finally surrendering to the God he'd been avoiding his whole life.

'I'D TRUST HIM WITH MY LIFE'

Ron Grant claims he called the governor's office only once on a prisoner's behalf during his 17 years as the chaplain at Joseph Harp Correctional Center, and it was to plead for a commutation of Aaron Cosar's life sentence. It wasn't every day Ron met a "lifer" he believed deserved freedom. But Aaron was one of the most respected men on the prison yard.

Somewhere along Aaron's appalling journey, things had taken a turn for the better.

"I would trust him with my life or anything I owned," says volunteer Edna Keith.

Edna and Lloyd Keith—a brother-in-law, sister-in-law duo—drove to "Joe Harp” regularly to teach Bible studies with Prison Fellowship^®. Every time, Aaron was waiting to help them set up and learn everything he could from these older Christians.

Almost two decades later, Aaron recognizes the provision of this friendship: "Watching [Edna and Lloyd] for 19 years, we have had many conversations on the importance of commitment to God and serving Him wherever I am in life."

Aaron admits he came to prison with "with a lot of anger and hatred. Anyhow, working with Lloyd and Edna Keith in these Prison Fellowship Bible studies provide me opportunity on how to interact with other races." Slowly, Aaron began to let go of his racism.

Aaron also learned how to have conversations that didn’t include arguing, how to forgive, how to stay committed with a job assignment, and how to respect authority. He worked as a chaplain's clerk and became the kind of prisoner correctional officers trust. Younger prisoners came to him for friendship and spiritual counsel.

"I just try to befriend people and not necessarily just preach the Gospel or try to cram it down their throat. I just try to let them know that I’m their friend and go from there."

FOR BETTER OR . . .

Justeen Corbin says she did not go to the prison to find a husband. The single mother from Oklahoma City went only to meet a man her friend had recently married. She remembers briefly shaking Aaron's hand in the prison gym that day.

"About three weeks after I went down there, God spoke to me very, very clearly that Aaron was my husband, and I'd never had a conversation with him!" she recalls. Back then, the message shocked her.

Nevertheless, in a step of faith, Justeen began to write to Aaron. Five letters later, she returned to Joe Harp to meet Aaron in person.

"That pretty much sealed the deal, and we’ve been together 12 years now," Aaron says.

"For the most part, I do not approve of prison marriages," Ron Grant states, "but in Aaron and Justeen's case . . . I was willing to do theirs." Ron had seen enough of Aaron's character to know he had grown to take marriage seriously.

The road ahead for the newly married couple was not paved with sunsets and romantic dinners. Rather, it consisted of short phone conversations, brief embraces in the prison visiting room, thousands of letters, and six parole denials. But they "committed to be committed."