I have been to Rome a few times.   My daughter Becky takes me with her when she travels.  There isn't enough time to see everything, so she lets those who go pick out something we particularly want to see or do.  Once, I chose to see the place where Paul the apostle was locked up in jail.   I don't know what I expected it to look like, but certainly not what I saw.

It wasn't a building, it was a cistern.  A huge hole in the ground carved out of solid rock.  There was an opening on the surface where they let down a ladder.  And when Paul was in this rock cavern, they pulled the ladder out.  It was cold.   How he stood it without complaining I do not know.  He wrote letters to the churches from that cell.  We now are blessed with those letters in our New Testament.

In a particular letter he wrote to Timothy--who was like a son to him--we find one of the few times that Paul lets us know just how human he was.  He says,  "Please come as soon as you can….when you come, be sure to bring the coat I left at Troas…and also the books, but especially the parchments."  He continues:   "The first time I was brought before the judge, no one was here to help me, but the Lord…who gave me the opportunity to boldly preach a whole sermon for all the world to hear.  And he saved me from being thrown to the lions."   Paul ends by saying, "Do try to be here before winter."  II Timothy 4: 13-21.

I can only imagine what he was going through.  He was bitterly cold in that cistern.  He needed a coat before winter.  And the coat was in Troas.  But he especially wanted the books and parchments.

He also wrote to the Philippians, "I can do everything God asks me to with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power.  But even so, you have done right in helping me in my present difficulty."  Phil. 4: 13-14

I climbed down that ladder into the hole where he was jailed.  And now, when I read the letters that Paul wrote, I have a picture in my mind of him trying to write in the dark, probably with only a candle.  Dependent on others to bring him paper, pen, and whatever they could.  Hour after hour, day after day, waiting.  Waiting on a trial and a sentence.  Writing encouragement to Christians.  What a blessing he is to us who read what he wrote.