WorkWell’s grads from September 2024
Murry Roberts: A Changed Man
When Murry Roberts (not his real name) was in prison in Trenton, his sister and her daughter came to visit. His niece, who was a child at the time, climbed into his lap. “Uncle Murry,” she said, “when are you coming home? I want to play with you.” The question upset him. He had no answer.
Roberts, now 73, was one of eight former inmates who graduated in September from WorkWell’s program helping people transition from prison to employment. His niece’s question, posed more than a decade ago during his 39 years of incarceration, may have helped him find the solution that changed his life.
Before incarceration, Roberts’s life involved drinking, drugs, and “being up to no good”—including committing a murder. “I took a life. I didn’t mean to, but I did,” he said. Incarceration didn’t change his attitude—until one night when, sitting in his cell, he suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of God’s presence. Roberts had always been a believer, but he hadn’t practiced. That night everything changed: he had the intense sensation that God had spoken directly to him. “It might sound cliché, but God said, ‘Sit back and let me show you that I am God.’”
An astonished and humbled Roberts fell to his knees. “‘God,’” he cried, “‘you said if somebody called out to you for help, you would help.’” From that point on, his life changed. “God enveloped me. I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink, I’m respectful, I’m humble and I have a purpose in life now.”
Upon his release, Roberts applied and was accepted to the four-week WorkWell program. He made the most of the short month of training. The secret, he said, is being open. “You’re going to learn something positive and helpful. All you got to do is just listen and participate, and it will come to you.”
Roberts had nothing but praise for WorkWell’s staff and curriculum. “Everybody in this program was so helpful. They just had a genuine concern for me to do better.”
On graduation day, he had already received a job offer from Children’s Futures. “I’m feeling really good about today. I might do a dance or something,” he said. “I’m headed on the straight and narrow…. All praise goes to God.”
Roberts also reserved some praise for his sister, whose daughter—now in her twenties—helped motivate him throughout his imprisonment. Both attended the WorkWell graduation. “I have a beautiful sister,” he said. “She always stuck by me. Even though I’m older than her, she was my inspiration.”
As he was about to leave WorkWell’s celebratory lunch for another job interview, Roberts described his “simple formula for love and life: treat people the way you want to be treated…. You never know when you are going to run into an angel. And they do walk the face of the earth.”
