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A SHATTERED IMAGE AND THE CHURCH THAT STAYED
When shameful secrets come out, will the church stick around?
Joy couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. Her ambitious, self-reliant husband—the man who hadn’t cried once in their 25-year marriage—was curled up on the floor, sobbing.
Joy had been excited to bring Mark on the retreat to learn more about the Holy Spirit. Their new church, Lutheran Church of Hope, was breathing fresh life into her walk with God, and she was eager for Mark to experience the same.
“Mark absolutely gave his heart to Christ that day,” Joy says. “He was a new man, and all of the friends who knew him before, and all of our kids, now talk about ‘old Mark’ and ‘new Mark.’”
Joy knew the tears spilling down Mark’s face were a sign of powerful surrender. But she didn’t yet know that Mark was also weeping over a secret he had been carrying for 2 ½ years.
‘HE HAD MY BACK’
Joy and Mark met in college. While he was ready to marry the cute girl in red overalls from day one, it took Joy a little longer to be sure. She still remembers the moment she knew.
Joy had confided to Mark that she found it hard to do math in her head. They were playing cards with friends one night, and at the end of the round, each player had to add their points based on their remaining cards. Mark casually grabbed Joy’s stack and counted them up for her.
“No one noticed or questioned it,” she recalls. “He had my back, and I realized that’s what I wanted in a life partner—someone who would have my back. Our relationship shifted at that point.”
They married right after Joy graduated in 1982. She secured a job as an elementary school teacher and soon after, Mark launched a career in sales.
JUST ONE MORE TIME
The youngest of four daughters from a small town in Iowa, Joy grew up going to church every Sunday. She loved to babysit for local families and help her aunt on her farm. Popular and bubbly, Joy got used to hearing the comment “your mom named you right!” Her name became something to live up to.
“I wanted to be liked,” she says. “And to be liked, you need to do the things that others think you should do. I wanted to be the best wife, the best mother. Image was extremely important to me.”
When Mark confessed his secret to Joy, her security in being someone others admired evaporated. In his role as area sales manager at a Fortune 500 company, Mark had been siphoning company funds to support a short-lived business venture, to take customers on trips, and for personal use. After he gave his life to Christ at the retreat, Mark had begun begging God to free him from his addiction to money and accolades.
“The time I wrote that last check, I audibly heard the voice of God saying, ‘Don’t do it,’” Mark remembers. “And on the other side of my shoulder, a voice said, ‘Just one more time.’”
A few months later, a coworker turned him in, and he was fired. When two FBI agents showed up at the door to confiscate Mark’s computer and files, Joy stared at them in disbelief.
“I was scared and sick to my stomach,” she recalls. “I just couldn’t believe this was happening in our life. This was never anything I thought my life would be.”
"I wanted to be the best wife, the best mother. Image was extremely important to me.”
—Joy
PRAYING, SERVING, AND WAITING
It would be two years before Mark was formally charged and another year before he was sentenced. During those three years, Mark and Joy were instructed to talk to no one about his crime, not even their children. Church friends, family members, and Joy’s colleagues at the school where she taught all thought he had lost his job because of the economic downturn.
But Mark and Joy were allowed to confide in their pastor and his wife, who became their best friends, faithfully coming over every Sunday night to pray and talk together over ice cream.
Mark and Joy sold their home, downsizing from 4,500 square feet to 750. They used Mark’s pension to pay back the nearly $300,000 he owed in restitution. Mark had a good friend who was also out of work, and together they’d load up a van with day-old baked goods and distribute them to people who were homeless.
Mark, a man who was once obsessed with making money and his reputation as a successful sales manager, was fixing his eyes on Jesus, reading Christian books, and dreaming up ways to serve others—all while waiting to see what the consequences of his sin would be.
Mark had begun begging God to free him from his addiction to money and accolades.
SUPPORT THAT ENCIRCLES
The FBI probe concluded and sentencing finally happened in November 2011. Mark was charged with fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering and—because his crime crossed state lines via the U.S. mail—was sentenced to 16 months in a federal prison.
Joy never expected to sit in a courtroom and absorb facts like these. She never dreamed that the man who shielded her from embarrassment during a card game would expose her to this kind of shame. But all around her sat members of their church small group, a band of people committed to walking beside the couple no matter what.
The next morning, Mark’s sentencing was reported across the state by what seemed like every news outlet. Mark was a worship leader and well known at the church, so their pastor decided to address the issue head-on. During his sermon, which was on money, he shared openly about Mark’s crime and repentance.
“As I looked around, I saw our small group circling us, sitting all around us and praying for us during the message,” Joy remembers.
The gossip mill was active in their small town, and one family left the church over Mark’s crime. But God was doing a work in Joy’s heart, dismantling her desire for approval and replacing it with humility and trust.
“I just had to remember that we’re all sinners and that Mark has been redeemed,” Joy says. “I learned to hold my head up high.”
“As I looked around, I saw our small group circling us, sitting all around us and praying for us during the message."
—Joy
HELD TOGETHER BY LOVE AND TRUTH
Mark surrendered on Dec. 28, 2011, at FPC Duluth, a prison camp six hours north of their home. Joy drove him there, and a friend from church came along so Joy wouldn’t have to drive home alone. Over the next year, the local Body of Christ showed up in ways big and small.
They left gift cards for gas on Joy’s porch. They prayed for her and invited her to holiday celebrations and picnics. They wrote letters to Mark and sometimes came along to visit him.
“If I hadn’t had my church, if they had left me alone and I had to go through it all by myself, then I do not know if our marriage could have survived it,” Joy admits. “I think I would have divorced him, so my image wasn’t tarnished. I would have felt so alone.”
Joy says that in addition to helping in practical ways, her church friends loved her with their words, reminding her that she is God’s beloved, that Mark has been forgiven by Christ and is loved, that no sin we commit can separate us from God.
“They spoke God’s truth to me when I forgot,” she says. “And they also continued to help Mark transform into a godly man. That transformation—along with their support—is what saved our marriage.”
Mark and Joy wrote each other letters every day. They talked as often as they could. And finally, in the late fall of 2012, their separation was over.
Once again, the church came through. A friend offered Mark a job at a drug and alcohol treatment center, giving him a ride daily until Mark was allowed to use his own car. Mark became certified as a drug and alcohol counselor and began a new chapter.
Outrageous Justice made Joy aware of issues she hadn’t thought about—even after experiencing the justice system firsthand.
OUTRAGEOUS JUSTICE
Eight years later, Prison Fellowship hired Mark as a prison ministry manager, a role in which he establishes and leads in-prison programming in facilities throughout the Midwest. When Mark was hired, he and Joy learned that Prison Fellowship offered an online study of the book Outrageous Justice®, a small-group curriculum designed to awaken Christians to the need for justice that restores. Intrigued, they signed up.
Outrageous Justice made Joy aware of issues she hadn’t thought about—even after experiencing the justice system firsthand. She was so inspired that she asked a pastor at her church if she could lead an Outrageous Justice small group during the six weeks of Lent. He agreed.
Joy expected four or so people to sign up. To her surprise, there were 20. The group included a juvenile court officer, a judge, and a police officer.
At the beginning of the class, the police officer supported harsh penalties for anyone who commits a crime. Joy wasn’t sure how he’d relate to the ideas presented in Outrageous Justice. But on the last day, he came up and gave her a huge hug.
“That was the best class I’ve ever taken,” the police officer said. “It opened my eyes. There is a different story.”
NO ACTION WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE
Once the class was over, the group members wanted to know what they could do to help people impacted by incarceration. They settled on Prison Fellowship Angel Tree®, serving about 50 local families the following Christmas by bringing gifts to children on behalf of their incarcerated parents.
Joy says that 12 of the families lived in their town—a fact that shocked some members of their predominantly white, affluent church. She is grateful for the way her church is realizing that incarceration touches all kinds of people.
“If you have contact with the justice system, you keep it like a deep, dark secret,” she says. “It’s just really humbling and shameful to admit. But that’s changing. The more people start to understand this more, the more things shift.”
The next spring, Joy led another Outrageous Justice small group, and the group decided to throw a Christmas party at the church for Angel Tree families. The following year, there was another Outrageous Justice study and another new initiative for families of incarcerated people—this time, a back-to-school supply drive.
Joy is currently leading a fourth group of church members through Outrageous Justice. The church now serves more than 200 Angel Tree families and has caught a vision for in-prison ministry, with many eager to go behind bars as volunteers. But Joy’s deepest ministry commitment is to Outrageous Justice.
“Outrageous Justice has been the catalyst of all of it,” Joy explains. “People just aren’t aware. I wasn’t aware of all the injustice that is happening. The number one purpose is to inform, because you can’t have action until you know.”
Twelve years after being carried and cared for by her local church, Joy now delights to equip its members with information—along with a personal story—that is unleashing powerful ministry.
“My church is appropriately called Hope. My church family has always kept me grounded in the everlasting hope found only through Jesus Christ.”
—Joy