Dennis Didn’t Die

In 2010 at Wishard Hospital, Dennis Irvin was diagnosed with stage three throat cancer. He was just beginning his 36-year sentence in a maximum security prison in Carlisle, IN. He was at the high point of his gang activities, which involved running a black market in three different prisons that supplied pretty much anything a prisoner wanted, including every kind of illegal drug.

Five doctors entered his room and from the looks on their faces, he knew things didn’t look good. The cancer had spread to his lung and from there the discussion turned to pain medication to keep him comfortable as he neared his inevitable death.

But Dennis didn’t die.

Irvin lived in the S.H.U.—a prison within a prison. It is a warehouse for the worst of the worst criminals. In the S.H.U. (Special Housing Unit) the prisoner can leave his 7 x 21’ cell three times a week, to shower or recreate. For that, he is handcuffed behind his back, attached to a leash and escorted with two guards at all times. There is no physical contact with anyone, no windows, no sunlight.

At this point Dennis Irvin is an inveterate liar and all around dangerous guy who is dying from cancer in a box with no windows. He has been told to get his affairs in order and wondered which affairs would that be? In this moment he realized his life was going to end soon, he was totally alone and had no one to call who would give a damn. Alone. Totally alone, the ugly truth crushed him.

In the endless days in solitary he “found the closet.” No one knew about it and he had never been able to look inside until that moment. It was crammed full of pain from being a little boy who was “beaten and abused, rejected and institutionalized, only to be mistreated and passed over again and again.” There was so much hidden away that he had refused to acknowledge, he was full of shame and ashamed of his shame.

I don’t know who gave him the Bible, but, in this wreckage of a human life, a powerful revelation broke through. Could it be true that old things pass away and everything can be made new? The closet doesn’t matter? My slate has been wiped clean? When he heard that Christ had born his shame, that Jesus said “it is finished” on the cross, he knew his old self was also finished.

He devoured the Bible. He was imperfect, he slipped, and regained his momentum. He saw the evil he had allowed to enter his life and learned how to keep it at bay. It was life changing, and it was healing him, body and soul—the kind of conversion that is hard for most to understand. It didn’t happen overnight, but the man of evil, took the Word of God and drank as from a fire hose. The closet was exposed and emptied of power. It changed and freed him.

He says “There was a time I prayed to get out of prison. Now I pray God will use me in prison to change lives.” Dennis Irvin is cancer-free today and awaiting release.

If this isn’t a Miracle, what is?
Nancy

He writes about it all and more in his 31-day Daily Devotion for Prisoners, “31 Days on the S.H.U.”