By John Ramirez
In Isaiah 39:1-8, we read about how Hezekiah was told by the Prophet Isaiah that the Lord told him to tell Hezekiah to get his affairs in order because he was going to die. Knowing Isaiah to be a true Prophet of the Lord, Hezekiah knew that this was a true word from the Lord. Yet, even knowing this to be true, Hezekiah showed a HOPE in God that displayed that he knew nothing was impossible with God. He did this by weeping bitterly to the Lord and asking God to remember his faithfulness and how he walked with a whole heart before the Lord and did what was “good.” Hezekiah would not have done this had he NOT believed that God had power over life and death and could preserve him and “take away this cup” from him. Hezekiah HOPED in the Lord and stood on that HOPE!
In February of this year, I was set yet another date for execution. This would be my third date that the State of Texas has scheduled me to be murdered by an intentional drug overdose. My murder date was set for September 8th, 2021 . . . 4 days ago! Obviously, I am still here . . . and ALL GLORY goes to God for pulling me out of this furnace. Now I am a firm believer that God works ALL THINGS out for our good and that he speaks to us in a multitude of ways, which confirms his hand is in the things happening to us. So, I want to share with you and testify to the things my God has done for me in these last months, leading up to my murder date. Bear with me if I get long-winded, I just don’t want to leave a single detail out because I want whomever is reading this to know how GREAT my Lord and Saviour is.
As I said already, this was my third date since being on LIFE row. LIFE row is what me and my Tank Nation family and many guys in the faith-based section call death row. Tank Nation is what we call all the guys involved in the prison radio station we have here at Polunsky Unit because it is called “The Tank.” Each time we are given a date, we have to go to the “death watch” section, where they house us guys who have an execution date scheduled. During my first stay on death watch, I developed the habit of mentally preparing myself for the trip to Huntsville. Going over the last walk in my head, imagining laying down on the gurney as the staff strap me down and put not one but TWO IVs into my arms, and then feeling that first sensation of the drugs hitting my system and beginning to kill me. It is the most chokingly nauseating feeling I have ever been able to imagine. Yet, I force myself to go over it again and again and again so that I can numb myself to it little by little. So, when I do reach that point, I will be well prepared to shoulder it. Four days ago, I had to actually put that self-numbing training to use as I was taken to Huntsville and put into the holding cell, just feet away from the death chamber. Thankfully, I didn’t break! Although I’d be lying if I told you that this little exercise I just described to you was the only reason why I didn’t break while facing my own murder that day. Let me tell you a bit about that other reason.
I’ve been a believer in God and his Son Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah) for years now. Ever since I was a young child, I’ve had some form of religion forced upon me in some fashion or another. So, little by little, I was picking up on many of the main points of Christianity and the Godhead, though I didn’t get what you’d call SERIOUS until about the time they murdered one of my bros here in 2015. My faith has been a staple in my world for more than half my time on LIFE row. Through much studying and fellowshipping with my Brethren and loved ones, I have become strong and firm in my faith in God Almighty. Right after the state-wide COVID lockdown which shut down prison visitation and most of the recreation and shower times, we were greatly blessed with our own prison radio station, which is mostly run by prisoners in general population and overseen by the Polunsky Chaplain Department! There are many shows that aim toward a specific audience, such as rock music, hip-hop/rap, alternative, Spanish music, R & B, etc. Each show has its own host and prisoners who participate in the banter and giving of a biblical-based encouraging word. There are also shows which are solely for the purpose of giving updates and announcements about prison news and happenings. It is these shows, hosts and participants that give the encouraging words which have greatly helped me to not only strengthen my faith, but to also build a strong community of Brethren who I can lean on and depend upon for support and uplifting.
It was on one of these shows that our Tank Nation Bro who goes by Lil Chris, talked about the three men in the book of Daniel and how they were threatened with being thrown into a fiery furnace IF they did not submit to worshipping an idol that the King had instructed all the people to bow down to. They are quoted as saying to the King, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of your hand, O King. But if not, be it known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. (Daniel 3:16-18, emphasis added, ESV translation).” In the NKJV translation, the part I emphasized is said as, “But even if.” (Emphasis added). This was something that resonated with me deeply and so I held onto this passage and started writing and ministering to a person close to me about it, saying things like “EVEN IF,” ‘even if I gotta go to my rest, we gotta trust Dad” (we call God “Dad”).
This became a regular little word of encouragement that I fed to my loved ones and friends. I believe that IF I could behave in the same manner as Meshach, Abednego and Shadrach did when facing that fiery furnace, then it would be the greatest show of “walking out” what I believe in my faith in God. So, I became DETERMINED to not break when facing my own fiery furnace in the form of that death chamber and its gurney, which has claimed so many lives already.
At another time on one of these shows is when I heard the story of Hezekiah . . . who was also a King! Though King Hezekiah was for God and worshipping him and him alone! Hezekiah was greatly distressed at the news the prophet Isaiah brought him about his upcoming death. He turned and faced the wall and wept bitterly while praying to God. He asked Dad to remember how he walked faithfully and with a whole heart and to remember the good that he’d done. Hezekiah did this because he knew that God could remove even death from him and so he stood on that HOPE and waited on the Lord. God heard his prayer and saw his tears and indeed removed death from him and “added 15 years to his life.” (Isaiah 38:1-5). He turned his back on that reality of his upcoming death and prayed to Dad and HOPED in God delivering him from that death.
Then something miraculous happened: God showed up! That HOPE that Hezekiah had in the Lord, gained him 15 more years of life! After I heard this message on the show, I began to also stand on this passage in the Bible as well. I shared this passage with my loved ones and some of the Brethren here on LIFE row, too. On the day of my execution date, during my last visit with my loved ones, I asked them to pray with me (as we always do), except this time I wanted us to keep our eyes open and to stare into each other’s eyes as we prayed to Dad. I like to pray by one of us opening up the prayer and then the other closing it out. While I was praying, when I got to the end of the things I wanted to say, I added a little something extra. I told Dad that now I was going to be a little greedy and ask for something I wanted . . . because I try not to ask God for anything as if he’s a magic genie granting wishes. I began to weep while staring into my loved one’s eyes and told God that he added to Hezekiah’s days, and that I was now asking him to please give me more time with my loved one to be with her and do more “good” in his Kingdom work. I sincerely begged him to let me stay a while longer with the wonderful things he had given to me and then I ended our prayer.
This was literally about 15 minutes before the Administration was at the door to take me to be stripped out and put onto the transport van that would drive me at breakneck speed to Huntsville to be murdered. I prayed that prayer because I truly believed that God COULD remove even death from me and preserve me ALIVE! While at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, I asked for a Bible and opened it up to Isaiah 38 and read it once or twice and left it opened to that passage the entire time I was in that holding cell. Every so often, I’d tap the open pages and nod my head and say to myself “Let it be your will and not mine.” On all my phone calls, I just kept drilling into my loved ones that EVEN IF God took me to my rest, they should not be sad or hurt because it would have been God’s perfect will and he is never wrong. I’d tell them things like, “Praise Him for ending my suffering and taking me into glory.” I’d tell them that dying was easy and that living was the hard part! Over and over and over again, I’d say those words to them . . . EVEN IF we gotta stand on what we believe . . . because this would be my greatest moment to “walk out” what I say I believe and if I broke at that crucial moment, it would seem that I didn’t really believe what I thought I believed.
Having to keep it together while talking to my 15-year-old son as he cried on the phone to me was a feat that I can only thank God for because, on my own strength, I’d have never been able to do that! But as the scripture says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). I shared my thoughts about “not breaking” and holding it together so that we could show the world what true belief in our Dad looked like in us. My loved ones’ disposition in maintaining that unified show of God-given strength only helped in me keeping it together while at the Walls Unit. Just as the three men in the book of Daniel said . . . EVEN IF . . . I will not bow down to the death you threaten me with, State of Texas, because my God is able to deliver me from you, just as he delivered them and delivered Hezekiah as well!
Regularly scheduled executions go through, usually beginning around 6:00pm on the day your date is scheduled, so they usually take you to the death chamber around 5:45pm to strap you down and put the IVs in your arm. 6:00pm came and went and still I was waiting in the holding cell. 7:00pm came and went and still I waited. 8:00pm gets here and still there I am, just talking to God to “let it be his will and not mine and EVEN IF he takes me home, to help me to NOT fumble the ball at the most crucial moment in my walk with His Son Jesus Christ.” This sentiment kept running through my mind again and again. 9:00pm came and still me and the TDCJ guards in the holding area with me were all just waiting . . . them for me to be taken to the gurney, me for God to show up and show out! I was thinking to myself that EVEN IF it turned out I had to go to the gurney, I was READY with a praise report on how Dad gave me a whole three extra hours of life when I should’ve been murdered shortly after 6:00pm! Then we all hear the footsteps of many walking behind us where the Chaplain had explained the staff would be passing by IF the execution was in fact going to go through.
I immediately felt a skip in my heartbeat, but then immediately calmed it with the mantra I had been telling all my loved ones up until that point: EVEN IF! That Chaplain stood and gave me a look as if to convey that I should prepare myself for walking to the gurney and then he walked to the death chamber door and opened the little mini window that allows them to look into the death chamber; then he said the strangest thing! He said something along the lines of “Well, huh, they’re turning off the lights and everything.” I chuckled and said something like “Well, they ain’t going to execute me in the dark, so I guess that’s THAT” and was at once assured in my mind and heart that yeah, Dad had indeed “added to my life” and given me extra time with my loved ones, as I had asked him to! HALLELUJAH . . . God is good ALL THE TIME . . . and God is NEVER LATE but always RIGHT ON TIME! The wardens (both from Walls Unit and from Polunsky Unit) soon thereafter walked into the holding cell area and announced to me that indeed I was GRANTED a STAY by the Supreme Court.
Little did they know that it was really the Supreme God that moved the hearts of the Court Justices to spare my life. In 1 Corinthians 4:3.4, it says, “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself, for I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.” Zechariah 7:9 says, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another.” (Emphasis added)
I received an encouraging word through my Tank Nation radio family here at Polunsky Unit and clung to it for dear life! (No pun intended). Then after coming back to the Unit and listening in on many of the shows that I always listen to, I received multiple CONFIRMATIONS from these same Brethren that originally gave me the encouraging word to begin with. Two that stood out were from my Brethren Lil Chris who we dubbed “Black Jesus” and from Red Diamond, the host of the R & B show. The former in his encouraging word this week on the Rock show, literally said he felt that the topic of HEZEKIAH was not exhausted and that there was “more meat” there for us to take in. He explained how Hezekiah “turned his back” on that pronouncement that he would die, and confidently turned toward God because he knew nothing was impossible with our Lord. That HOPE that Hezekiah showed in God gained him 15 more years of life. Not by him earning it (because we’ve all fallen short), but by God’s GRACE!
Red Diamond speaking on the issue of me being granted the STAY, pointed out Hebrews 10:23,35,36, where it describes us holding fast to our HOPE and not wavering. It speaks of us NOT throwing away our confidence but enduring so that we do the will of God and receive our reward! Two things I clung to for dear life the whole time I faced down my own murder—even to the death house in Huntsville! PRAISE DAD, I am still here today to testify to this great miracle of God showing up and showing out for me: a despicable condemned murderer! God’s grace is always sufficient. Let us not forget that this is the third time God has added to my life! All GLORY be to God in heaven in the name of our Lord and Saviour Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah)!!! AMEN and AMEN.
in His service,
“! Eno Tsol”
“All that gives off light, must endure a little burning!”
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