May 6, 2015
A "Lifetime" of Forgiveness
I was fortunate to participate in a Lifetime documentary focused on people who make mistakes and are preparing for prison. The series is called "24 to Life" and will air sometime late this year. My friend and prison consultant, Justin Paperny, founder of Etika LLC, introduced me to the Lifetime opportunity and I am thankful both for Justin's help as well as the Lifetime experience. The producer and his team thoughtfully captured the final days before I left my family to serve a 63-month sentence in federal prison.
I will be talking more about the Lifetime experience but first I want to shine a light on what I feel is the core value that I hope this documentary portrays, which is forgiveness. Forgiveness is a gift. Its like realizing after driving through an intersection and causing a terrible accident that the right-of-way is something you are given, not something you have. Forgiveness comes from grace and is supported by love. Illuminating the pain that mistakes can cause, and the power that forgiveness offers, is the reason why I was attracted to the Lifetime project. Exposing my family to something well outside of our comfort zone was a risk, but there is a positive message of hope that accompanies the negative, and sharing that news might benefit us all.
Forgiveness has graciously flowed from my family and friends, and I have purposefully asked for their forgiveness where there was any doubt. Those close to me have told me that they forgive me, and I know that in many ways it is simply because they love me. Clear explanations of what fundamentally drove my bad decisions have been difficult to capture, but I continue to work on identifying each component. Love and forgiveness seem dependent upon each other, and I believe that both must exist in harmony for either to survive any significant struggle. In some ways when love and forgiveness interact under challenging times, growth opportunities in our relationships are possible beyond anything else we may have experienced.
I am hopeful that through the words of forgiveness my family has expressed to me, they feel peace as a result. That is the near-term benefit. Receiving forgiveness, however, is an active process and not just an event. I have put my family in a difficult position that nobody was expecting, and they have done their part by meeting the challenge powered by faith and love. The process moving forward is up to me. I am immersed in an environment that seems equally satisfied if I do almost nothing as it is with trying my hardest to overcome hardship. My family has invested their forgiveness in me, and to ensure that its impact reaches its highest potential, what happens next is critical. Success in achieving the goals I have set for my prison journey is what I will continuously measure against, and the performance I achieve will provide return on the forgiveness investment that others have made in me.
This is the discussion on forgiveness that I wish I had had the clarity to describe in the Lifetime documentary before I self-surrendered last week. Anyone who watches the show when it airs, I hope you will refer back to this message. A famous quote: "Experience is the cruelest teacher. It gives the test and then it gives the lesson." As I progress each day, learning from this prison experience, I will continue to share my thoughts hoping that someone reading this may find value in lessons learned. I am certain that those who have invested their forgiveness in me will feel gracious if the behavior of others is influenced in positive ways as a result of learning from our experience.
Kevin Boardman
