This is an important book.

What happens when a juvenile is sentenced to life in prison for mistakes made as a child? Can a person really change?  Does God care about everyone?  Does he care when we suffer?  This is a true story that will make you consider the roles of justice and mercy not just in society, but in your life.

I discovered this book Letters to a Lifer just a week or so ago, when I connected with a friend in my Stake over Facebook.  He and I had gotten to know each other last year through my calling, and I really got to know and admire his father, the Bishop of a ward in our stake, at Girl's Camp last year...however, in those interactions, I never heard about this.

This book is written by his mother, Cindy Sanford, and is their family's remarkable, brave, and touching story about their experience befriending and coming to love a young man who is serving a life-sentence in prison for a crime he committed at the age of fifteen.

I read one or two chapters and immediately declared that this was going to be one of my new all-time favorites...and I was right.

Remember when I read "The Hiding Place" and it changed my life forever?  Well, this book is so much like The Hiding Place in so many ways.  It teaches such similar lessons.  It causes the reader to look inside of themselves in a way that most books don't.  It is full of tragedy (less so than The Hiding Place) and also full of hope...maybe even more-so than The Hiding Place, because this story happened and is happening today.

I love a good, true story...and you will love this one!  I almost never tell my readers to go out and buy any book, but in this case, I'm saying: Pick it up today!!!  You can find it on Amazon or read more about their story here.  

All of the proceeds from the book are donated to MIMIC, a program that help families of inmates and mentors at-risk kids in Philadelphia.