by Charles W. Colson

You can hardly turn on the television these days without hearing the word
"repentance." It’s become, thanks to the Washington scandal, a hot topic.
And pastors all over the country are being asked, "How do you know when someone is
truly repentant?"

Well [a few days ago,] a Virginia man answered that question more eloquently than all
the pastors combined. On the surface, Daniel Crocker was the typical suburbanite. He had a
wife and two kids and a good job as a warehouse manager.

But Crocker had a dark secret: Nineteen years ago, he had taken the life of a Kansas
woman named Tracy Fresquez. Over the years, the burden of this secret became intolerable.
Eventually, Daniel Crocker turned to God for forgiveness, became a Christian, became
active in an evangelical church, and he and his family grew wonderfully in their faith.

But he could not bring himself to tell the police about his terrible crime.

It was when Daniel began ministering to a prison inmate that he came under conviction.
One day after Daniel returned home from a prison visit, he prayed with his wife,
Nicolette.

Daniel then began planning how to go about surrendering to the authorities. For
assistance, he turned to the Reverend Al Lawrence, a Prison Fellowship staff member and
assistant pastor of a local church. Lawrence is an ex-offender himself, and he counseled
Crocker and helped prepare him for prison life.

Lawrence told the Washington Post why Crocker was taking this extraordinary step:
"[Crocker’s] faith," he said, "told him he had to deal with that part
of his life that he’s been skirting over the years."

For Crocker, the hardest part was telling his children, nine year-old Isaac and
eight-year old Analiese, why he had to leave them. As the children tearfully begged him
not to go, Crocker, himself in tears, told them: "I have to do this. I’d be a
hypocrite if I raised you by the Word of God and I didn’t [turn myself in]."

So [last week] Crocker boarded a plane for Kansas where he was met by startled
prosecutors and charged with first-degree murder.

Prosecutor Paul Morrison says that while Crocker will receive credit for turning
himself in, "he also did a horrible thing" for which he ought to be held
accountable.

The apostle Paul writes that "godly sorrow leads to salvation and brings no
regret." By contrast there’s "worldly sorrow": grief over being
caught, not over having sinned. Paul warns that this kind of sorrow "produces
death."

The Crockers’ remarkable story is a timely lesson in what it means to repent. The
kind of repentance Paul describes produces changed hearts and changed lives. It
doesn’t ask "what can I get away with?" but rather "how do I make
things right?" I talked with Nicolette, and her faith is rock-solid. She will hold
that family together while Daniel’s away.

 © 1998 Prison Fellowship Ministries. We encourage liberal distribution of these
transcripts through email and print.

(Appeared in Weekend Encounter

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