The Other Side of Faith: My Story: From Prison to the Pulpit, From Lost to Found

By Diegon Kares

My motive for writing this book is to encourage the 30 percent of genuine Bible-reading believers to stand fast and on the word of God (Galatians 5:1). And to also encourage vigorously the 70 percent of nonreading Bible Christians to take the further step of faith to realize the fuller revelation and benefits of salvation like in Isaiah 61:1–7 and Isaiah 58, for example. For without this next step of faith, mountains would not come down, obstacles will not be removed, and onlookers will continue to look at Christianity as weak and lean.

My working continuously from fifteen as a schoolteacher to now at seventy as a substance abuse counselor, pastor, child support specialist, workshop instructor proved it to me. Delivered from twenty-five years of alcoholism and its detriments proved it to me. Living unscathed with dangerous criminals in seven correctional facilities, including Rikers Island, proved it to me. Watching individuals in prison threaten to kill me and beat Jesus out of my —— and then became my friend proved it to be so. Delivered from low self-esteem and clinophobia proved it to be so. Going for 1 percent in math to graduating magna cum laude at forty-four proved it to be so. Working on Wall Street for twenty years in and out of the mix unscathed proved it be so. Delivered from two cancers without surgeries and be handsomely paid proved it to be so. Having enormous peace and security and hope in Christ proves it to be so. Watching all of my bills disappear by standing and applying the word of God as Joshua 1:8 states proves it to be so.

As one inmate counselor once told me, “Christianity works for those who work it, not for those who don’t take the time to prove it so.” Jesus Christ said this to be true, and I believe it because it works for me and followers like me with no regrets in every situation of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798888327913

Book preview

cover.jpg

The Other Side of Faith

My Story: From Prison to the Pulpit, From Lost to Found

Diegon Kares

ISBN 979-8-88832-790-6 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88832-791-3 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Diegon Kares

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Before the Light: Early Faith

Chapter 2

Witchcraft

Chapter 3

Foundations for Faith

Chapter 4

Wall Street

Chapter 5

Seeing the Light

Chapter 6

Behind the Wall: Rikers

Chapter 7

Rays of Glory, Rays of Grace: In the Moment

Chapter 8

My Story: Rays of Hope; Dancing in the Light; Ulster County; Cape Capri

Chapter 9

When Hell Was in Session

Chapter 10

Valley of Miracles: My Story

Chapter 11

Capekill Correctional: Days of Glory

Chapter 12

The Deeper Side of Faith: The New Season

Chapter 13

The Deeper Side of Faith: Checkmate

About the Author

Prologue

Today I am one of the most contented individuals on earth because God had led me and is continually leading me to new revelations of Him. He lit my life when I came in to the world (John 1:9). And today, He is continually lighting the wicks that he had created inside of me to be lit by that flame, by His holy word. I feel and see things in more satisfying ways, depths, and heights that only God can allow. But it was not always so. Even now, I serenade my wife for hours after meeting her again after forty years.

But it was not always so.

Before you begin to read this story, I want you to know that many people call on Jesus for help, but their knowledge of their Jesus is so wane that they fail to realize their expectations or the abundance of them as God would have us to realize. Even Jesus of the Bible says, I could do not any mighty work in Nazareth [His hometown] because the people had no faith. They knew Him as the Son of Mary and the brother of James but not enough faith to believe that He was the Son of the living God. Read Hebrews 11:6. Our depth of expected abundance must match the height of our knowledge of God/Jesus. It's said, Without faith, it's impossible to please God, for he that cometh to God must know that He is and that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. How many people do you know who diligently seek God? Not many. Yet those same people, who aren't diligent, still expect great things from a God who is moved by knowledge of Himself. It's called faith. God is moved by faith in and of Him. You can come to realize and live this faith now.

Recently I lost a great deal of money and had to borrow from everyone that I knew, some multiple times. It came to the point where I couldn't borrow from anyone else or from the same people. My only reliance had to be on God all by Himself; it had to be on Jesus of the Bible, the Son of the living God, the Son of David, and Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I called on Him by name and substance, and I do know Him by a great knowledge and substance. I called for divine financial assistance, and out of the blue, someone who was a little acquainted with my story—not family, not necessarily friend—asked me to allow her and her husband to help me. They are not even from my hood or color, religion or creed, but they asked me to allow them to help me.

Their help gave me a new start in life, and even though I am not debt-free, I could now, after years of darkness, see a hopeful light at the end of the tunnel. I became so delivered that I began to write this account of my life's exploits. I was so inspired by God's divine intervention, by the experience that I even went to a rough neighborhood to give out invitations for a revival to be held Friday 23, 2015.

I became newly excited. I want you to be also. Trust me on this.

If you are suffering regrets, losses, disappointments, drama, aloneness, despair, or whatever, I want you to call on the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Son of the living God, to come to your rescue. He will come because He does not go back on His word. He said that He is close to the brokenhearted.

His word will not come back to Him void but go out and perform that which He orders.

In Jeremiah 31:3, God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love and with loving kindness I am drawing you unto myself. Man does not think like that. You will have to be his friend, family, or someone nice to him. But God loves all of His creation and begs us to let Him draw us to His heart.

It's the Spirit that draws, the flesh profits nothing. (John 6:63)

Just trust me and take a little step into the stream of healing, Jesus.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble. (Psalms 46)

Do you have trouble?

Just a little glimpse of the God of whom I am speaking. In Exodus 19:20–24, God says to Moses, Go down and tell the people not to come close to the mount because the Lord will break out on them (just paraphrasing). Even the priests were given the same admonition. Why? You see, the love of God was giving instructions to prevent the other part of God from destroying them. God never said I. He said, The Lord. Just something to think about. God is gracious and will be a daddy, a shepherd, a lover, a helper, a friend etc., but He is also a holy God who demands that we walk in holiness. This is also why we need Jesus to be our Savior and covering.

Who do you know who grew up on the rough side of the mountain, devoid of faith as in the Bible, Hebrews 11:1, and ended up in the lap of Isaiah 61:3, 4 and 7, receiving a double recompense for his former shame, beauty for ashes, and now rebuilds the waste places with joy and contentment? Who do you know who even found faith by working from the little faith that he had and saw the beauty of God in so many things? Who do you know who came from the woods, hated by the valley people, envied of his friends and family, hated his own self because he lost himself and did not like who he had become? Who was also trained unwittingly to be jealous of everyone, not to trust anyone but to give and love everyone? Who do you know who was forced to accept the lowest of the low in society because he was rejected by his peers because he had excelled above them, outgrew them, and was lost in finding his own identity? Most of all, who do you know who, by faith, found himself, loves himself, loves his family, friends, foes, and God and has love to still flow over on others? Who do you know who was so blessed by God that after concluding this book, he will mysteriously meet the love of his life that he had lost forty years ago, and marry her. You are about to meet him now. Add to those experiences, three years in seven prisons, including the infamous Rikers Island among other experiences of dynamic proportions.

He saw miracles as a child but did not quite understand what they were, tried to rescue the nailed Jesus off His cross at the Roman Catholic Church, then met the same Jesus in a prison cell where he became born again. He was a schoolteacher at fifteen and became a probationary assistant head teacher at sixteen years of age, having studied from Cambridge in London. He taught for five years, many times he taught his own peers whom he had left behind. He bought friends just because he was shunned by his mates due to the fact that he seemed to be in a class of his own. That was not his intention. But he loved the God that he knew and prayed devoutly at home and even in the Roman Catholic Church when church was not even in session.

He grew up amid proven witchcraft and treachery because of his brilliance, and lived to now tell about it. He saw his friend crash and break his neck, and killed his companion just as he had seen in a vision having been assisted by a spiritualist. Linda Blair, stand back. Then there were the hunting sessions and the dangers that went with them. There was not much joy in most of his friendships because he grew up with much pain interwoven with them. He could not look his friends in their faces because of unspoken resentment brought on by the way he was trained (love everyone but trust no one). Then there was the pain of missing his father, who traveled for many years to thirteen countries, and was left to be trained by thieves, robbers, murderers, haters, and the like.

Years later, he will come to love every one of them by the grace and power of God. Sometimes the pain of missing his father was so great that he learned to stuff the pain into an invisible emotional compartment way down in the recesses of his soul. (Most of us carry much grief there also.) Now at seventy, many consider him emotionless. But he has emotions; they are just so hard to reach. He has experienced so much pain, and to survive, he learned to compartmentalize the pain instead of venting (not a good recommendation). Here is where Isaiah 1:18 comes in. God teaches us to come and reason with Him, and whatsoever sins or situation that we are wrestling with, He will cleanse any sin and give peace and contentment in their places. Philippians 4:6 is a good place to begin to discipline one's mind. It states, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be known unto God; and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will comfort your heart and mind by Christ Jesus.

He grew up also in the city and felt rejected there also. He joined the drinkers and revelers. He loved them also. But to society, they were the riffraffs and scums of the earth, and he was also numbered among them. The day he picked up his GCE certificate for passing English language and literature from Cambridge University, he was the only student teacher on the island to pass English and English literature from Cambridge that year. He was accompanied by one of his best friends, an alcoholic like himself, but he loved his friend. He both amazed and embarrassed his girlfriend, who worked at the education department because she had called her coworkers to meet her brilliant fiancé, only to behold his disheveled, unkempt state. It was a shocker.

He eventually lost that potential love of his life and lived to regret it up to today. She was quite beautiful, full of vigor, and lovely and charming to behold. But as fate would have it, he was in the right place at the wrong time. He didn't have the skills to court or keep a woman of that stature. How painful to remember. She lived in the city; he lived in the country nine miles away, and there were no telephones at that time. And he couldn't marry her then, because he was just sixteen.

That boy was me. I was growing up on the rough side of the mountain, but fate was in my destiny. And faith and hope come with Jesus. I met Him twenty-six years ago, and it was a glorious encounter even up to today.

I lived by faith but had no idea what I was living by. I prayed like a priest but did not even know the power that was residing within me. Romans 8:11 says that if the Spirit/power that raised Jesus Christ lives in you, then that Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, will quicken your body by Christ Jesus. If I really knew what was within me, even at a low percentage, I may not have needed the spirits of alcohol to power my life. I would come to pass exams by faith, I skipped classes by faith, I overcame various sickness by faith, but at sixteen, I used alcohol in the place of faith and lived the sleep of death and a fragmented life for the next twenty-seven years in the bottle, with the devil and his demons. We walked hand in hand among the graves of setbacks and among the regrets of my neglected opportunities and failed dreams. I strove to escape that hell, but most times, I did not understand my own agony, and I was too blind to see it myself. Only my pain seemed to know his owner, and it lived in the bosom of my soul.

I traveled to the USA at twenty and lived in the bottle most of the time and zoned out on weekends. But by twenty-one, I graduated to drinking at the bars for twenty years and did all that any alcoholic did. I was a cross section of all alcoholics. I was the epitome of confusion. I was lost; I was sad; I was gluttonous; I was hurting, and I was a drunk and all that went with it. But I prayed to the God I knew. I guess I was growing in faith from the valleys of death. I worked in a bank on Wall Street for twenty years, and I drank. I played the fool with numerous illicit relationships; little remorse, but I prayed. I excelled at my job that was difficult for most but challenging and comforting to me. My bosses loved me, and I stayed, and resigned at forty. I loved people. I was the bodyguard for a loan shark. I loved him, too. I did not see anything wrong in that at the time. Even though he financed drug dealing, etc., I did not see the dark side of it. I only saw how that lifestyle kept me satisfied and lofty. I did not know that pride went before the fall.

I married thrice. By the time of this date, though, I am about to do a fourth. I did not know who she will be at this juncture, but two years later, she will mysteriously appear. She will show up mysteriously by the end of the book. The first wife, I loved her, but she was a liar and bisexual, and I hadn't the skills to live with her. And yes, I was an alcoholic who was too lost to see that whole picture. We got divorced. I married a childhood sweetheart whom I still love, even though I spent three years in seven correctional facilities because of her. She was beautiful but angry and unkind. I guess she was lost, too. She had her share of sorrow, pains, damages, and misguidedness.

By that time, I was living with much shame, pain, regrets, and twenty-seven years of severe inferiority complex. I once was told by my handsome cousin from the city that I was the ugliest boy in the world. I was twelve. I believed him. So I allowed that lying demon to haunt me all my life, like a fast-moving fire, always waiting to leap upon me on any given social event or alone moments. I always felt low on the inside, and as a result, I guess the alcohol helped me to find a world in which to live. I felt accepted by friends of that existence and among hidden diabolical demons. And I lived with myself. I made the rules and lived by them; many were quite self-defeating and damaging, to say the least. I was not on guard against spiritual forces in heavenly places, and I sure did not have on the breastplate of righteousness to protect myself from Ephesians 6:11–12 and Colossians 1:16 (demonic forces).

There were other demons growing within me at the time. I called my main demon Adrian. Due to early sexual encounters with friends, neighbors, and cousins, I grew up with intense lusts. From five years, I remember lusting at my schoolteachers and bigger girls (later). So by twenty, I had the demons of lust, anger, pain, lost, isolation, lack, envy, jealousy, sadness, smoking, alcohol, and all other demons that walked with them. I prayed a lot, but my prayers could not match the unseen network of evil with which I had to contend. At that time, also in my youth, from five to twenty, even the villagers turned on me because I had surpassed their children educationally (later). But now I was on Wall Street, making good money but feeding demons and living among them. I watched the demon of alcohol kill many of my friends. I watched the demon of cocaine kill many friends and thus their families, dreams, and goals. I saw one of my best friends, who only drank 50¢ draft beer, take one shot of crack, and never came back, even after two bouts in rehabs. He lost his wife, houses, his job as a supervisor, and then his mind. I pray that he has gotten better by now.

I damaged the second wife I loved. Whether it was her doing or not, I contributed to a great deal of it. That I could admit today, but not at that time. I was too blind to see. And the demons and company with whom I walked were just as blind as I was. I was in pain, but I prayed. A little faith.

I resigned from my job at the bank at forty to escape the pains and agony and confusion; hurt the woman I loved so much and went off to prison, even though the judge offered me five years' probation. God, through an angel, had told me to go to prison and study God's work. By faith, I ignored my friends and the demons, which traveled with me, and went to Rikers Island for three months. I enjoyed the three months and missed Rikers when I was sent upstate. By faith, I accepted my lot, trusted God, and off I went. Details will follow all that I am noting in this opening prologue.

I understood death and joy at Rikers Island. I understood survival and wisdom, even among demons. I met God. I lost fear as I used to know it. I waited for death, which only came and killed the old me to let the new me rise up. I rose up in Cape Capri Correctional Facility. I am from the Island of St. Capri, and they sent me to Cape Capri (joke later). I was converted in Cape Capri by the last man they had sentenced to the electric chair at Sing Sing Correctional. They had commuted his sentence to life. That was the story he told me. I became an evangelist in Cape Capri when I met Jesus. Before, I only read and heard about Him.

I became a Bible Christian and was taught how to think like a Christian by one minister whom I had disliked and resented. I learned to have compassion and regard for gays, drug users, the lost and the found, and killers etc. I loved everyone, even a man who said he was Satan. I befriended another inmate who threatened to beat Jesus Christ out of me but later became my best friend and went to church with me. Through him, I was put in charge of a chapel when the leader there heard my testimony. My faith was growing from one seed to seed.

I became an avid Bible reader and student. I needed to understand all that the words meant, not just to read but how they applied to life; did they really work? And I saw God's word work so many times that now I am one of the most joyous Christians you could ever meet, even amid daily setbacks and problems. I am an assistant pastor after twenty-four years of alcoholism, three failed marriages, three years in seven prisons, four years of suffering to complete my BA—which I accomplished with distinction—four years of Bible school amid excruciating pain and agony and hell living with my third wife. Not that she was bad, but it was painful living with an imperfect human when you yourself were on the mend. I had to consider myself a minus ten in many cases, like algebra, and worked to attain a zero or plus one.

I met the devil in prison, but I also met his match. I met Jesus Christ. I met others of different faiths who helped me along, and I met many who assisted with my growth, miraculously.

Take this journey with me and see the other side of my faith play out. See how I walked and crawled through the barbed wires of life, three months in the belly of the dragon—Rikers Island—and now experience the glorious world of Jesus Christ and some of heaven on earth. If you have been broken, so was I; if you have been neglected, so was I. If you are in pain, I was there. If you lost your way, find it through my walk. If you are disgusted, walk with me. If you want a change overnight, give me your hand. Whatever ails you, God has a plan for you (Jeremiah 29:11). It says, I know the thoughts I think towards you, says the Lord; thoughts of peace, to prosper you and not of evil to give you an expected end. Let me help you find your way. I guarantee you, by the reading of chapter 1, you would see life through a better lens because God promises us beauty for ashes if we trust in Him.

Most Christians never experience most of what their Christian faith offers because they do not practice most of what they read, and faith without obedience does not work to our best interests, if it works at all. Hebrews 4:2 says that the same Gospel preached to us today was preached to those of old but it was not mixed with faith in those who heard it. (Whatever we hear biblically speaking must be mixed with an internal understanding and trust in God to accomplish what God says it could.)

If you miss your children, I have six of my own with whom I am now in communication. Some I communicate with better than others, but contrary to the song that says, What gone bad a morning can't come good ah evening, God says no. He brings life from death because He is the resurrection and the life. He makes peace in the lives of His children, and snapped the spears of destruction that are aimed at you and me asunder.

All neglected opportunities He brings back and better. (Psalms 46)

John chapter 2 tells of Jesus's first miracle at Canaan in Galilee. The wine at the wedding was good, but when they ran out, and Jesus miraculously made new wine,