"I'm ready to be a man."

I saw Landon again today. He told me that he talked to his girlfriend, the mother of his child, the same day that I spoke with him.

"I told her I was sorry for deserting her and our daughter. I told her that I'm ready to be a man, get married and start providing for them. I also told the other girl that it was over between us."

"That's great, Landon," I responded. We talked some more, and in the course of the discussion Landon assured me that he had given his life to Christ. I knew the next part was going to be difficult for him to hear.

"When you get out of jail and before you get married, where do you plan on living?"

"With my girlfriend."

"Did you ever consider living elsewhere until you got married?" I asked.

"Oh, she would never go for that!" he said emphatically. "She already doesn't trust me as it is. If I didn't live with her, she would think I was cheating on her."

I explained to him that if he wanted his future marriage to be blessed, he needed to start things out right. "My wife and I were overly physically intimate before we got married," I confessed, "and that caused problems in our marriage which we have had to work through." He admitted he couldn't live with her and not have sex. "You need to take the lead in this, Landon, even if it's hard for her to hear it."

He thought about it for a while. Finally he said, "I'll talk to her about it." Pray for courage for Landon. Pray also that he is able to get into a work program to support his son.