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INCARCERATION OF THE HEART
It took going to prison for Tina to realize that she’d already been incarcerated by bitterness and unforgiveness all her life.
By Doug Bender
When Tina was growing up in Dallas, she would invite people over to hang out. But when they arrived, she’d greet them by saying, “I don’t want no company.” And then she’d turn them away at the door.
“I was an angry, bitter kid,” Tina says. “I was just so heavy and dark.”
Not everyone saw this side of her, though. Tina went to church every week and did well in school. These positive images were part of the façade she built up around herself. Inside, she was angry and hurt. Her homelife was troubled, especially after Tina turned 12 and her mother married a man who became abusive. Up until then, her mom had been single.
Tina herself also ended up in a number of unhealthy and even abusive romantic relationships that only made the pain she felt worse. It would eventually take a prison sentence for the walls in her heart to come down.
A TOXIC JOURNEY
“I became this prodigal kid,” Tina says, “and I was on that journey for years.”
After high school, Tina studied cosmetology, enjoying the artistic expression the career offered. She got her license and worked as a stylist for several years. Then she moved to New York, where she fell in love with fashion and began designing and sewing clothing. Moving away gave her distance from some of the pain of her youth.
After three years in New York, Tina felt she was strong enough to return to her home state. She moved back to Dallas and started her own fashion design business. She had hoped to avoid falling into some of the unhealthy patterns she had left, especially participating in toxic relationships.
“I hadn’t changed enough to create those healthy boundaries,” she says. “I started running with some people that I knew from my youth. I wasn’t making good, wise choices.”
Tina reconnected with her high school boyfriend and had a son with him. But this man didn’t want the child, and the relationship ended. Not long after, Tina started dating another man. She wanted so badly for this relationship to be different.
LOVE LIFE IN RUINS
“I dreaded being a single mom,” Tina says, remembering the struggles of her own mother. “I didn’t ever want to be that. But I ran right into it.”
Tina and her boyfriend broke up after about a year, and then she found out she was pregnant. They got back together and got married. But the relationship only spiraled downward, becoming abusive.
“I didn’t want to stay in that toxic [situation],” she says. “Things got a little more amplified between me and him, trying to co-parent our daughter.”
Eventually Tina and her husband separated again, but he would still come to the house. They would fight, things would escalate, and Tina would call the police. This happened multiple times. She frequently felt unsafe and threatened by her estranged husband. Then one dreadful day, he came over again, and they got into an altercation. Tina felt like she needed to defend herself.
“I ended up shooting him,” she says. “I didn’t find out he passed away until I was at the police department.”
Tina's daughter and son
AT THE END OF ALL HOPE
Tina was charged with involuntary manslaughter. She spent the next two years on house arrest awaiting trial. Eventually she was declared guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Her children were only 6 and 9 years old.
“I was devastated,” she says. “So devastated.”
When she first heard her sentence, Tina’s initial thoughts were of concern for her kids. She thought about them graduating from high school and college, and even getting married, all while she would be behind bars. Her children would live with Tina’s mother, which she was grateful for, but they would not be with her.
She went to prison continuing to think of this missed future, a life away from her kids, and it led to her becoming suicidal. She couldn’t stand the thought of life without her kids.
“I took a lot of pills,” Tina says, describing her attempt to end her own life.
Afterward, when she realized she was still alive, she cried out to God, “If You will give me peace, I will serve You for the rest of my life.”
That very moment, she felt God’s presence.
[Tina] cried out to God, “If You will give me peace, I will serve You for the rest of my life.”
LEAVING ANGER AND FINDING FREEDOM
Experiencing God’s presence motivated Tina to make changes in her life. She began seeking out a Christian community and attending classes in the prison chapel. It was there that one day she noticed a Prison Fellowship® Angel Tree flyer. She could hardly believe that strangers would be willing to purchase and deliver gifts for her children, but she quickly filled out the application and called her mother.
Tina says, “The people from the church came over and brought the gifts to the house. My mom thought that was just amazing.”
Tina and her mom were both elated—and the kids were too.
God provided Tina with the encouragement and strength she needed for her time behind bars. She moved into the faith-based dormitory at her prison and met other women who were growing in their relationship with Jesus. Tina also began reading Inside Journal®, a quarterly newspaper published by Prison Fellowship.
“It had stories of hope and stories of forgiveness and stories of miracles,” she says. “And it had good resources in there, too.”
Tina felt God challenging her to grow and to experience life like she had never known. She began to understand that she had been “incarcerated” long before she was sent to prison.
She sensed God tell her, “You are incarcerated to shame, to regret, to bitterness, and to unforgiveness.”
Finally, she began to break free from her old ways of thinking. Before prison, Tina had attended church all her life, but she had never really understood what it meant to live in forgiveness and peace. She decided to let go of the pain, abuse, and bitter memories she had held onto for so long and walk in the freedom that Jesus promised.
Throughout her time behind bars, Tina worked hard to stay in contact with her kids. Her mother would bring them in for visits when possible. Tina would call and write. And she would tell everyone she could about how helpful Angel Tree® was in connecting and strengthening the family.
CONNECTING WITH HER PURPOSE
In December 2013, Tina was released from prison. She came home exactly one day after her daughter’s birthday and in time to celebrate Christmas with the family.
“When I got home again, I was thinking about all the stuff I wanted to do,” she says. “And I knew right away that I wanted to get involved and get connected. And that’s how my life has been these 11 years since being home.”
Tina volunteers at a local women's shelter and facilitates a faith-based 12-step program at the parole office. She’s also active in her local church, Antioch Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, where she regularly serves by speaking in prison about the freedom she has found in Jesus. And last Christmas, her church partnered with Angel Tree.
“It’s been the greatest joy to have been a recipient and now be a co-director of the prison and jail ministry at a church that partners with the organization that blessed me,” she says.
God has even brought healing in Tina’s love life. She met a wonderful man named George after leaving prison, and they fell in love. The couple celebrated 10 years of marriage in June 2025.
“I was a really angry, bitter person who covered it all up with a façade,” Tina says. “But now I’m as light as a feather. The peace that surpasses all understanding, that’s an amazing place to be. And that’s by surrendering every day to God.”
“The peace that surpasses all understanding, that’s an amazing place to be. And that’s by surrendering every day to God.”
—Tina
