A bus ride reminds a prisoner how God has changed him.

My transfer to another prison came unexpectedly. I had no idea where I was going. Leg shackles were cuffed to my ankles before I climbed on board the bus. They hurt and made the four-hour trip even more uncomfortable. This was not my first bus ride or my last.

The Department of Corrections has a fleet of buses it uses to transport inmates to prisons all over the state. If you have never ridden on a DOC bus with 45 inmates, I can guarantee you it’s an experience you will never forget or want to repeat. The inmates are squashed together like sardines in a can. Their property is laid on the floor or in our laps. Most inmates start smoking the minute the bus starts. No one is supposed to smoke on the bus, but it’s hardly ever enforced.

I always try to get a seat near the window so I can breathe some fresh air—and for the view. For most of my 21 years of incarceration, my view has been from a cell window.
Occasionally a mockingbird will appear and interrupt part of the panorama. But looking at razor-wire fences every day is not an inspiring view.

The scene from a DOC bus along an interstate highway isn’t spectacular to most inmates. They would rather spend their time telling war stories. But the view captivates me and compensates for the abhorrent bus ride.

I was especially drawn to the new cars I saw passing by. I’ve seen pictures of them in magazines and on TV advertisements. But seeing them live and moving next to me is amazingly different.

Twenty-one years ago I owned a body shop. I prided myself in my knowledge of cars. I knew the make, year and model of most of them, even the foreign cars. But the only ones I recognized now were the older models.

“What kind of car is that shiny new one there, Roy?” the inmate beside me asked.
To my chagrin I shrugged my shoulders.

“That’s a Cadillac,” another inmate said.

“A Caddy?” I said, incredulous.

I used to work for Nolan Brown Cadillac with my father. Cadillacs were my favorite cars, and I owned several of them from the time I was 17 until I came to prison. I couldn’t recognize them now. Then I noticed the emblem on the hood. “It’s a Caddy,” I smiled.

“Hey Roy?” someone asked. “Do you think they will have cars when you get out?”

“I don’t know,” I said. He must have been reading my mind. “Cars sure have changed. Who knows what the future will bring,” I said. But the unchanging emblem on the hood of the new Cadillac gave me hope.

It was not a bad bus ride, I concluded as we arrived at my new location. I got to see new cars I never saw before, and it reminded me how much things had changed since my incarceration. How much I have changed. My hair is gray, and I have some wrinkles I never had before. But the biggest change is the change God has performed inside me. I am no longer the man I used to be. God is making me into the man he wants me to be, and God’s not finished yet.

The sun shone on my one good eye as I walked off the bus. The familiar scene of the razor-wire fences again dominated my view. Hope, however, dominated my thoughts. It reminded me that no matter how much the world changes I can walk into the future confident that no matter what happens, God, the emblem of my life, is faithful. He never changes.

So as I step into my new reality I remember: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

Roy A. Borges is a prisoner in Mayo, Fla.