I was looking through an old notebook yesterday, trying to find a phone number I'd misplaced, when I came across some old notes from two years ago.

The scribblings, as I remembered instantly, were from a visit I made to the Barnes & Noble at 66^th and Broadway.

At the time, I was looking for ideas on how to structure my book on the Bible, so I picked out a dozen or so current titles from the Christianity section and lugged them up to the café on the third floor to peruse over a coffee and cookie.

One of the books was by Chuck Colson, the guy who was jailed for his involvement in Watergate and wrote the 1976 runaway bestseller, "Born Again," detailing his ordeal, including how he came to his faith in Jesus Christ.

I don't agree with Colson's liberal neoevangelicalism, and it's clear he doesn't take the Bible literally, but I was so struck by a story he retold at the end of the book I'd selected, that I took notes from it.

His recollections were of a meeting he had with a 91-year-old woman, Myrtie Howell, at the Georgia nursing home she lived in as someone who was crippled and in continuous pain.

Myrtie's room, as Colson described it, had only one window and was "no bigger than a modest hotel room." All it contained was her bed, a 12-inch television, a dresser and mirror, two chairs and "a fragile desk crowded with Bibles and commentaries." Photos lined the edges of the mirror.

"I'd seen (prison) cells with more amenities," Colson wrote.

Myrtie was born in Texas in 1890 and by age 10 she was working in a mill for 10 cents a day. She only had one year of schooling.

She married at age 17 and had three children within a couple of years. One child died at the age of two and her husband was killed in an accident in 1940, resulting in the loss of their home.

Myrtie ran a dress shop and then a little café. Colson said she became very depressed upon being placed in the nursing home and "wanted to die."

She prayed to God to help her through her situation and an answer came to her in three words—WRITE TO PRISONERS.

Myrtie, as Colson writes, "had never given such a task the merest thought," but she knew of a penitentiary in Atlanta. She sent off this note: "Dear inmate, I am a Grandmother who love and care for you who are in a place you had not plans to be. My love and sympathy goes out to you. I am willing to be a friend to you in correspondent. If you like to hear from me, write me. I will answer every letter you write. A Christian friend, Grandmother Howell."

Thus began her successful letter-writing ministry which she occupied her days with. As Myrtie told Colson, "I've had the greatest time of my life since I've been writing to prisoners. And, you know, once I turned over my life to Him—I mean, really did it—He took care of all my needs. Things go right before I even think about 'em."

She said of her writing technique, "His Spirit works. I obey. I don't put anything in there that I feel's of self, of flesh. As He gives me, I write it."

In another thought, she emphasized, "Christ doesn't deal with quitters. You can't quit ever."