AMAZING STORY
A Mother’s Betrayal Sends Son to Jail
By Rod Thomas
The 700 Club
CBN.com -“When I start walking in the house I hear this ‘Freeze!’ and I see these guys running towards me from the alley and I see guns pointed at me.” Frank Thomas had no idea why police stopped him. But when they searched his car, “They found drugs in my car. There was an ounce of crack cocaine rocked up and packaged to sell, and they found several thousand dollars in the glove box.” In that instant, Frank’s dream of making a new start faded away.
Frank grew up in a poverty-stricken home in Kansas City, Missouri, where every day was a struggle to survive. “We had one another and we did whatever we needed to do in order to keep moving forward. So it was tough,” he remembers.
Then at 16, he went to work for his uncle who was a successful business owner. He started to believe he had a chance for a better life. “It really helped me to understand that I did have some level of control over my circumstances. If that's what it takes in order to be who he was, then that's what I want to do.”
Frank enjoyed working, and did well in school, but his mother took his money to pay rent and utilities. “It caused friction between my mother and I because I felt like the roles had reversed to some degree, and I didn't feel like she was fighting anymore for my brother and I.”
Still, Frank worked hard and made his way into college; but when he arrived, he lost his focus. “I didn't go to class. All I did was stay up late drinking beer with my buddies and would sleep late and we'd make it up in time for lunch and we'd go eat lunch together and then we'd go hang out and play video games.”
Frank was put on academic suspension and lost his financial aid. “I had an outstanding balance of several thousand dollars that I had no idea where I was going to get the money to pay. I went back to Kansas City and my mother picked me up at the train station and, I dreaded going back to that dilapidated house that we lived in.”
His mother had been selling drugs to make ends meet and with the next semester fast approaching, Frank was running out of time and patience. “I told my mom, ‘give me those drugs, I'll sell them.’ I really didn't want to deal drugs, but I wanted to get out of there more,” Frank said. “And if that was a way to do it, then that's what I was going to do. Three weeks in to my drug-dealing career, I get busted.” As a first-time offender, he was given probation.
His girlfriend had moved to California, so he decided to join her there. “This is where my dreams are going to come true." my plan was to complete the probation and get my record wiped clean and get myself back in school at some point and move on with my life.” Sometime later he went home to appear in court for an outstanding traffic violation.
One day he let his mother use his car while he was out. When he returned, the police were waiting. They searched the house and then his car. “They come back and they read me my Miranda rights and they arrest me. And I say, ‘for what? I didn't do anything wrong.’" The evidence proved otherwise. Police found drugs and cash inside the car and a gun in the house. They accused him of running drugs from California to Iowa. Frank saw no way out. My mother had put them there because my father, he was known to steal her drugs and her money and take the car and be gone for days. She didn't say anything. She just allowed me to go to jail for drugs that she had planted there.”
Frank faced 60 years in prison. His lawyer tried to make a plea deal for a shorter sentence, but the judge stood his ground. He says, ‘No deals. No deals. They think they have enough evidence to convict you,” Frank recalls. “At that point in time I knew I had no choice but to fight for my life. I wasn't going to plead guilty to 60 years for something I didn't do.”
Still feeling the sting of his mother’s betrayal, Frank was out of options and out of hope - until he found a Bible in the prison library. “I grabbed the Bible because I’m like, ‘Where do you go when the one person in the world turns their back on you – my mother?’ I was down to nothing. I had nowhere else to go.”
He also started praying. “I'm just saying, ‘Lord, help me. Save me. You know I’m innocent, Lord. Please help me get out of here.’”
One day, a fellow inmate spoke to him about Jesus. “He's like, ‘have you ever confessed that Jesus is your personal Lord and Savior and for forgiveness of your sins?’ I said, ‘no.’ He led me in the sinner's prayer.”
On the day of the trial, his mother again withheld the truth, but Frank knew God was there with him. He prayed, ‘Lord, Your Word says the truth will set me free. I believed that the truth was going to set me free.” After deliberation, the jury reached a verdict. “He says, ‘we the jury find the defendant on count one, not guilty; on count two’ not guilt; on count three, not guilty.’ And I just fall to my knees and I said, ‘thank you, Jesus, thank you, thank you, thank you!’"
Now a free man, Frank returned to California where he got a job and started attending USC. He also forgave his mother, who was there when he graduated with honors. “I knew like I had to forgive her. I had to let it go in order for myself to be free. I knew that if I was ever given another chance there was nothing short of death that could stop me from achieving the success in life that I felt like God called me to,” Frank said.
He eventually married Erica and they started a family. “I finally understand my identity. Most people find their identity in their earthly father. Well, it took me a long time to find my identity in my heavenly Father, and it's made all the difference in the world.”
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