Foreword
It’s easy to come away from Grace Behind Bars thinking Bo Mitchell was guilty of a lot of things —workaholism, coming on too strong, a brash business style, not being the kind of husband and father he knew he should be —in short, guilty of everything but the charge that landed him in federal prison.
Yet you won’t hear that from Bo. He accepted responsibility, took the heat, and served his time. It took what many saw as an unjust sentence to break him and show him God’s reason for allowing his plunge from respected civic, business, and Christian leader to felon.
Bo and his wife, Gari, had taught classes on marriage. Behind bars, with little to do but face his true self, Bo learned how much work he had yet to do as a husband.
Proud of his son and daughter, Bo had thought his Father-Knows-Best style should only spur them to great things. Behind bars he learned he had serious strides to make as a dad, too.
A fund-raiser, a churchman, an enthusiastic witness for Christ, Bo loved solving people’s problems, making things happen, getting things done. Behind bars he had to face that even many of his most productive ministry accomplishments were driven in part by a need to please and be seen as the hero.
Grace Behind Bars is an emotional, gut-wrenching tale —told with brutal honesty by Bo and Gari —of a man who seemed almost overnight to go from the height of accomplishment and achievement to the depths of despair. Gari, suffering through her own serious physical challenges, proved heroic in both her support for Bo and in lovingly but frankly helping him face himself.
Much of what Bo saw he didn’t like.
Yet he came to realize that it took such a blow to get his attention. And somewhere in the darkness of his hellish existence, Bo mustered just enough wherewithal to allow God to work. He and Gari allowed themselves to be spiritually sifted —which, according to their poignant accounts, had to feel more like being bulldozed.
The process wasn’t pretty, and neither was it quick. But in the end Bo emerged a changed man, he and Gari living testimonies to the power of Christ to heal, forgive, reconcile, and restore.
Bo was not lost, needing to be found. He was not hell-bound, in need of a Savior. He was a born-again Christian, so busy for God that he lost his way without even realizing it.
The crucible of incarceration laid him low, and his and Gari’s accounts serve as sobering mirrors to readers. I found myself angry on their behalf for the injustices they endured, as well as weeping for their son and daughter, who stood with their parents throughout the ordeal.
Not long into Bo and Gari’s bare-knuckled account of a test so fierce it could only transform or destroy a couple, the hard truths they learned began applying to me.
At times I wanted to turn away or tell myself this was just their story —and good for them for gleaning so much from the agony. But at last I had to face the truth: Grace Behind Bars isn’t just the Mitchells’ story, their test, their sifting.
It’s mine, too. It’s all of ours.
Jerry B. Jenkins
Novelist and biographer