Set Free: One Woman's Journey from Life in Prison to Finding Hope Within

Imagine spending a significant amount of time in prison for a crime you did not commit. Most assuredly, a roller coaster ride of emotions including anger, rage, hopelessness, and sadness will engulf you as you sit within the steely cold environs of your jail cell. But then what? Repeat the same gamut of emotions day after day without ever finding resolve or try to do something positive with each and every thought you have?

Wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, Missouri native Judy Henderson spent 36 years behind bars, left to wonder how she got there with little hope of ever finding her way out. But rather than becoming just another statistic, Henderson chose to cling to her faith, praying for justice, and believing that one day she would be set free.

In her new book, When the Light Finds Us: From a Life Sentence to a Life Transformed, Judy shares her incredible journey of wrongful imprisonment, the power of faith in the grimmest of circumstances, and her fight for criminal justice reform.

I recently sat down with Henderson to discuss how she was able to maintain and prosper in her faith for the balance of her incarceration, how forgiving her accusers set her free, and why she continues to advocate for imprisoned mothers today.

For every author, there always seems to be a moment where you say to yourself, “I have to write this book!!” For you, what was that moment with When the Light Finds Us?

I never planned on writing a book when I came home (from prison). I never planned on being public. I never was public with my case. I was just going to enjoy my nine grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and have a very quiet life. But as people started hearing about my story and asking me to speak at different churches and different companies, I saw how it touched people. I saw how it opened sides of them that they hadn't noticed before about themselves, or how they didn't know how to handle a situation. And they said, ‘Judy, when you started talking, something inside of me just started changing.’ And I said, really? And they said, ‘What you've been through and you're not bitter, you're not angry. How did you do that?’ And I started thinking about it, and I thought, wow, it was only through God.

Wrongfully accused, you spent 36 years behind bars in prison. How did you maintain your faith through so many years of injustice?

I maintained it through the love of my family and my children because I thought God loved us so much, and that's a powerful emotion. Love can either make or break somebody. And the love I have for my family, my children, and that they have for me, gave me the courage to fight what I knew was wrong, and to just pursue being free, and to be with them and as soon as possible. It might have taken me 36 years, but that's okay. That’s because during that period, I was given so many gifts and so many blessings. And that's when I figured out, this is a book that can help other people. My experience could help other people in situations that battered women and people fighting different things in their life that they don't know how to get through. I was in a very dark, angry, bitter, evil place, and to still learn to love people and get rid of anger, that was a journey.

Speaking of journeys, how did your faith shape your journey, both in prison and when you were released?

There was a verse that I put above my cell mirror. It was Jeremiah 29:11. “I know the plans I have for you. They are plans for good and not disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” And I thought, oh, wait, Jesus said that He has a future for me. Prison is not a future. Prison can be a place where you can receive your gifts and find your purpose. And that's what I found out. I stood on that and I said, God's promises are yes and Amen. He promised me a good life and a good future, so I'm going after it.

Would you say that was the most profound spiritual lesson that you learned in prison? Or is there something else that you feel was it?

I think that was one of the most important lessons or experiences that I had. But then learning how to share that love with other people that I didn't even know, that wasn't family, and teaching them how to love themselves. And I found out this is what my purpose is, helping people get into another plane in their life that's joyful, that's happy. It's getting them to love who they are, getting them to understand they're a mother. It’s about how to be a mother from behind bars, because there's so many in there that didn't have mothers to be mothers to them. And so these children, we were just doing a generational curse here with every family member, kept going to prison, and that needed to be broken, that needed to be brought to light. And do these women understand, do you realize that your children are going to be either your next generation of offenders if you don't change, if you don't show them that how much you love them, and teach them a different way? And so, I help create different programs not just for the children and the mother, but the whole family unit. We're talking about grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, all of them coming together as a unit, teaching them the love of God, and showing them how they can have a better life than what they had created already.

I want to dig into that a little bit more in just a minute. But first, as I was reading about your story and reading the book, a word that kept popping up for me was forgiveness. Obviously, at some point you needed to forgive and you did forgive, but was forgiveness difficult for you? Was it difficult to forgive the justice system, the people who convicted you? Who was the most difficult to forgive in all of this?

I wrote a letter to my prosecutor after I had been incarcerated for about 20 years. And I told him, I just want you to know I'm not angry. I'm not bitter toward you for doing a job that you were elected to do. You did it to the best of your ability. So, forgiving my prosecutor was one step. And so every year at Christmas time, I said, I want you to know what I've done this year. You know, how my family's doing, and everything that's going on in my life. And he ended up becoming one of my biggest advocates because I was able to step up and forgive him. And he let the governor's office know that I was the only case that he had ever prosecuted, where he had nightmares about it, and he wanted me to come home. That is a miracle in itself. And I thought, you know what? That right there is a miracle because what convicted felon of capital murder forgives their prosecutor.

What is one thing you wish people knew about life in prison?

I want people to know that people in prison don't always judge a book by its cover. Because whenever people look at me, they think I'm there to talk about some medical miracle if they put me beside somebody. I noticed this at a conference I just went to. Somebody was giving this great talk, and she had tattoos all over her, nose ring, everything. And I told my attorney that was sitting next to me, I said, you know what? If you put her and I next to each other and said, which one do you think is the convict they would pick her every time. And that's sad. Don't judge a book by its cover because you would think I was your next door neighbor or somebody you'd be going to church with, not some convicted felon.

Broadening out our conversation, how do you advocate for incarcerated mothers today, and why is that such an urgent issue?

Because there's women in prison that should be out of there. They should not be there because they have circumstances, mitigating circumstances that were never taken into consideration. They have children that are growing up without them that they need to nurture. Many of their children are in the foster care system that shouldn't be there. So, take all the victims into consideration. Even the children are victims. So, let's do something about that. And so, I advocate with senators and representatives to change laws. From inside the bars, I created and helped create the Battered Woman Syndrome law, which is now a defense for any woman that kills her abuser. Now we're working on a survivor's bill for any offender that has any kind of trauma, abuse, or PTSD in their lives, for that to be taken into consideration along with their history while they're incarcerated.

We want to produce citizens that are productive. We don't want you just releasing somebody because you think that they've served enough time. Look at who they are. Look at them as a person, not as a number. And so, my advocacy work doesn't only pertain to that, but it also pertains to whenever they come home, helping their families understand what they're going to go through. I've gone to families and talked to them before. Their loved one has come home to say, ‘Here's what you expect to expect.’ Be patient, be kind, be understanding. We want to give them a hands up, not just a hand out. We want to help them build a good foundation to raise their families.

After people have had a chance to read When the Light Finds Us, what would you like your readers to take away from that experience? What is your greatest hope for the book?

My greatest hope for the book is that people in prison can feel inspired and feel courageous. That there isn't anything that they can't overcome and that God is the one that's going to guide them. Because He's already there, and I want them to understand anything they need, God gave it to them the day they were born. It's already inside them. And everybody thinks they have to have more trials to get more strength. Don't pray for more trials or more strength because you're going to get more trials. So, why don't you ask God to help you use what he's already given you?

TO PURCHASE WHEN THE LIGHT FINDS US: FROM A LIFE SENTENCE TO A LIFE TRANSFORMED:

WATCH JUDY HENDERSON SHARE HER TESTIMONY: