A Brother I’m Going to Keep

November and December are coming.

For most of us, those months mean family.

Thanksgiving tables. Christmas mornings. Children and grandchildren coming home. Familiar voices in familiar rooms. Traditions repeated so many times that we hardly think about them until someone who does not have them reminds us what they mean.

For Marvin, November and December mean something different.

They are reminders of what he does not have.

Marvin is the man I have written about before as the man nobody visits. He is also the man who watches for a white car.

My white car.

He knows that when he sees it coming, someone has come to see him.

We were sitting together at Prayer and Share one evening, talking about struggles. Marvin began talking about the months ahead and how difficult the holidays can be for him. These are the times when people naturally think about family, and family is something Marvin has spent much of his life without.

Then, almost in passing, he said something I was not expecting.

“But I did meet someone who actually saved my life.”

He paused.

“I can’t mention his name.”

Then he elbowed me and looked over at me.

Everyone at the table smiled.

So did I.

Then Marvin said something I don't think I will ever forget.

“And now I have a brother that I know I’m going to keep.”

I don't know exactly what to do with a statement like that.

Part of me wanted to laugh because of the way he said it. Part of me wanted to hug him. And part of me felt the weight of what he was saying.

I told him that he had more than one brother now.

If he belongs to Christ, then he belongs to the family of God. He has brothers and sisters all over the world, many of whom he will never meet this side of heaven.

That is what Christians believe.

And then another thought came to me.

Do we?

Not whether we believe it doctrinally. I think most Christians would readily agree that those who are in Christ are brothers and sisters. We sing about it. We preach about it. We call one another brother and sister without giving the words much thought.

But do we believe it enough to live like it?

Because Marvin makes that question harder.

It is easy to talk about the family of God when the person beside us looks like us, lives like us, comes from a background we understand, and has a past that does not make us uncomfortable.

It becomes more difficult when our brother lives behind razor wire.

I don't say that to judge the Church. I am part of the Church. And I know my own tendency to keep people at a comfortable distance.

I also understand why prison makes this complicated.

Crimes matter. Victims matter. Justice matters. Being a brother or sister in Christ does not erase consequences, remove the need for wisdom, or require us to pretend that terrible things never happened.

But neither does a prison sentence erase the family of God.

That evening, sitting at a table inside Parchman, I looked at a man who has spent years knowing what it means for nobody to come.

Nobody waiting at visitation.

Nobody pulling into the parking lot.

Nobody whose car he recognizes from a distance.

And now he watches for a white car.

That thought breaks my heart a little.

Not because there is anything particularly important about me or my car. There isn't.

What matters is what that car has come to mean to him.

Someone came back.

And then came back again.

And somewhere along the way, a man who had learned not to expect family began using a different word.

Brother.

Pastor Eddie was sitting with us that evening. I was grateful for that. I listened as he encouraged Marvin and reminded him of truths that prison walls cannot change.

Marvin belongs to Christ.

And if he belongs to Christ, he belongs to us.

That leaves me with a question I have not been able to shake.

If Marvin were released tomorrow and walked through the doors of one of our churches Sunday morning, would we recognize him as family?

Would we sit beside him?

Would we invite him to lunch?

Would we introduce him to our children?

Would there eventually be a place for him at our Thanksgiving table?

Or would “brother” remain a word we were comfortable using only while he was safely behind the fence?

I don't know how every Christian would respond. I don't even know how I would have responded years ago, before I knew Marvin.

Proximity has a way of making theology personal.

It is one thing to believe that God adopts sinners into His family.

It is another thing when one of them elbows you at a prison table, tells you that you saved his life, grins, and calls you his brother.

Maybe Marvin was right.

Maybe he finally has a brother he is going to keep.

But that night he reminded me of something bigger.

So do I.

Because if we are both in Christ, I don't get to stand outside the family and decide whether Marvin belongs in it.

Our Father already has.

Stephen Jernigan, September 25, 2026