STUTTERING TO HEAVEN

One cold November evening, I was waiting in the prison health care unit, while  many other prisoners milled around.  Suddenly, above the noise in the crowd,I heard that funny, familiar  loud  voice, as a friend of mine burst through the door.  “Oh!  Here comes Ma-Ma-Matlock,” Bucky a short guy teased.  “W-w-what kinda trouble you getting into   today?” “Hey,” Matlock rejoined with a sparkle in his eye.  “A man’s g-g-gotta have a s-s-some fun n-now andth-then.”

Yep, there he was, the infamous Ma-Ma-Matlock, navigating his wheelchair with his strong muscular arms, smiling, as he rolled through the entry way.

An older  man, a double leg amputee, he was eminent and known throughout the prison. Indeed, since Mat-lock stuttered, to many, he seemed like a fool. Since he couldn’t walk, folks just wrote him off. Yet, In the last years of his life, the few of us who knew him  knew, that he  was one book you sure couldn’t judge by its cover.

As I waited for my turn in the health care line, from across the room, I caught a glimpse of him, backing up his wheelchair against the wall.  Then as was his custom, he pulled out his well worn Bible.  He always kept that Bible by his side. As his eyes moved slowly across the large print page, he became quiet. All was still.  No more laughing, and joking with the others.  The only thing I noticed, as he sat in rapt attention,   were the excited expressions of joy that lit up his face.  “oh, wow!  That’s beautiful!  Amazing’” I’d  hear him exclaim, How jubilant he’d become when reading God’s Word!

Robert Matlock, from Detroit, had been convicted of the murder of his girlfriend.  Along with addictions to alcohol, hard drugs, and gambling, he had a serious anger problem and violent temper .

One tragic day, when he was still at home,  an important pension check  had come  up missing.  His girlfriend was the only other person around at the time, so Matlock, becoming enraged, quickly blamed her . “What did you do with my check!  You took it!” he shouted.  There was venom in his voice.  “I’ll kill you!” he roared, as he beat her to the ground.  Instantly, there she lay, dead, in her own pool of blood.

Suddenly, shattered, jolted, by the force of what he had done,    Matlock, as if blasted by explosive dynamite,  was mightily thrust from sin to the love of God.

Rushing out quickly, he wheeled himself  to the nearest police precinct a few blocks away.  “I k-k-killed my girlfriend!” he choked out, through gut wrenching sobs.  “Matlock, go home.  You’re drunk,” the officers  laughed.  As per usual, they  sent the old “fool” away.

However, determined to do what was right, Matlock just wouldn’t give up.  That night, He boarded a bus for Toledo.  Once there, he   went straight to the police. “I k-k-k-killed my g-g-girlfriend,” he told them, trembling from head to toe. The police then contacted the Detroit P. D., who   sent a contingent to Matlock’s apartment.  They immediately confirmed that “Yes,” the murder had occurred.

Matlock spent the last years of his life in prison at the former Ryan Correctional Facility in Detroit.  During that wondrous, grace-filled time, leaving the path of darkness behind, , he dedicated his life completely to God.

Contented and peaceful, he smiled a lot.  Three simple blessings brought him joy: reading and listening to God’s Word,  playing the tambourine in church, and feeding the birds, whenever he was outside.  Sitting in his wheelchair in an empty place in the yard, often, I would watch him, throwing out leftover breadcrumbs he’d saved up from chow.  “Want a hand?” I’d ask.  The birds’ all hover around.  “Sure,” he’d beam, for to Matlock, they were all his friends.  The birds wouldn’t bring him any harm.

What most people didn’t  know about Matlock was his generosity, and deeply compassionate heart.  Every Wednesday morning, when commissary time came around, only buying the basics for himself, he gave  most of his money to children’s charities, while saving the rest for  Bible reference books.  To Matlock, the thought of children suffering  was intolerable.  Children, to him, were sacred and beautiful, like the birds.

Since Matlock suffered from congestive heart failure, Over the course of the last two weeks, he spent more time in the hospital than in the prison.  On that blessed  November evening, Matlock went to be with His Savior and  Lord.  Suddenly, I glanced over to where he sat against the wall. Slumping in his chair, I couldn’t see his eyes, so I hurried over to see what was going on.  “Matlock, you ok?” ai asked.  I could feel my own heart pounding in my chest.  His breathing was shallow, and I couldn’t get a pulse. “Excuse me!” I yelled.  “Can a nurse come and help?”  Together we lifted him up onto a gurney.”   The minutes past.  The ambulance was called.  Matlock rallied a little, beginning to talk.  “Hey, Kevin, can you make sure, that whatever money’s left, you send it to “Feed The Children?”  Then his eyes closed.

Matlock taught me one important  thing: never   to judge a person by his outsides.  .  His confession to the Lord was genuine and simple:  “Lord, I have sinned, and I am sorry.  I have done what I could for the least of Your creatures and children.”

He learned to live small, so  God could live large, and handle what we could never understand.

In reflecting  on his life, I see, that he spent time, as he truly wanted to:  in   focusing on God, and in listening to His voice; in being as a child, like the children that he loved, flying as an eagle with the birds.