From Life in Prison to Life with Jesus and How You Too Can Be Transformed

A Conversation with Sharon Dutra

In this episode, you will get to know Sharon Dutra, the founder of Be Transformed Ministries, formerly an ex-convict and drug addict, whose encounter with Jesus radically transformed her life. Most importantly, you will meet a woman who loves the Lord Jesus with all her heart and serves him with sincerity and joy.
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“When I met Christ, I had nothing in my life. Nothing. Not possessions, not family, not friends, not self-esteem, not anything. He restored my life completely.”

Sharon Dutra gives us the joy of hearing how Jesus radically transformed her life. She details her life before knowing Christ—a miserable life she wanted to end—and then tells us how God not only rescued her from sin and death but also restored her life. She shares with us how she met her husband, Michael, and how they began Be Transformed Ministries. As you listen, you will be wowed by the power of Jesus to change any life, you will hear in Sharon’s reflections how precious God’s Word becomes to those who know Jesus. 

Guest Bio

Sharon Dutra would define her life before Jesus as “a hopeless mess,” until he transformed her in 1989 in her prison cell. Since that time, Sharon has earned her Registered Nursing Degree with honors, has founded Be Transformed Ministries with her husband, Michael, and written several books intended to share God’s love and truth. She has recently self-published her autobiography, The Conviction. It is her joy to serve the Lord by serving people, which she most often does through leading women’s Bible study groups. I (Eden) first encountered Sharon through reading her testimony in an article published by Christianity Today.

Book Recommendations
Every episode we ask our guest to tell us about a few books that have changed their lives. Check out Sharon Dutra’s recommendations and consider adding them to your bookshelf!

What the Bible Is All About

by Dr. Henrietta C. Mears

This book helped Sharon become familiar with the Bible when she first became a believer.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary Set (2 Volumes: Old Testament and New Testament)

by John F. Walvoord

This commentary set helped Sharon continue to enjoy learning from the Bible day by day!
Transcript

Eden: It’s a joy to actually meet you. I’d love to start by getting to know you a little bit more, if that’s okay. I usually like to ask, what are a couple of things that bring you joy?

Sharon Dutra: Well, I was thinking about that. And always the first thing that comes to my mind is loving and serving Jesus is my greatest joy. And I know that sounds really Christian. But it’s true. It’s really my gig. He delivered me from the from the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock (Psalm 40:2), and that is absolutely the truth. That’s why God’s Word is so awesome because it’s so real, it’s so pure, it’s so reliable, and he speaks to us every time we open his Word, even if it’s like in Leviticus or whatever—which is one of my most unfavorite books of the Bible (Three Tips for Reading Leviticus). But it’s there for a reason, and it set up the atonement pattern that was going to come later when Jesus gave his life for our sin on the cross. And so everything in the Bible speaks to us and gives us wisdom, and knowledge, and discernment, and joy, and hope for the future and mistakes that have happened in the past, and how to be redeemed. I mean, it’s all there. And so that’s why I love God’s Word so much. And so God’s Word brings me great joy.

Another thing that brings me great joy is my husband, Michael. I adore him. We’ve been married for 33 years and we’re still happily in love. I mean, of course everybody’s got their issues. We have served the Lord together all these years. He’s a great, wonderful man. He’s a true believer and we have exactly the same mindset when it comes to Jesus and the Word and ministry and all that.

Then thirdly, teaching and writing are my gifts. And I thank God so much for giving me these gifts that I can turn around and glorify him with what he’s done from my terribly broken life in the past. And so that brings me great joy.

Eden: Oh, wonderful. And can I ask how you met Michael?

Sharon Dutra: We met at Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center in the Santa Cruz Mountains (California). Real quick, I went there, I had just gotten out of prison, I was only out for ten months. I had a job, and my boss said, “Why don’t you check out Mount Hermon because they’re having a singles conference?” And I’m like, first of all, I’ve never heard of Mount Hermon. Secondly, I’ve never been to a Christian retreat of any sort. And thirdly, I am not looking for a man. I was happy the way I was, and I really wasn’t looking for anyone.

Anyway, he (Michael) had gone through a nasty divorce, and he had been to Mount Hermon in the last couple of years before we met to receive healing from people who had also been through broken relationships.

He saw me on the deck, and he came out. It was at night, the stars were shining, and I was out there because I was hot—we had just played ping pong—and I was just enjoying nature and the Lord and talking to the Lord. And I hear the sliding glass door open and I’m like, “Oh my gosh. It’s probably some geek coming to hit on me.”

I saw him, and he was gorgeous. And I’m like, “Oh my gosh!” I don’t get nervous. I already told you that I’m not a nervous person. But my goodness, he was so gorgeous. And I just blurted out my life story in the first 15 minutes of meeting him—and we’re talking a nasty background.

Anyway, he comes from a family of highway patrolmen. His father was the captain of the highway patrol in Marin County (California), and his brother was a sergeant in San Francisco (California). So for me, ex-drug addict, lived on the streets, I was homeless, walked the streets and ended up in prison, tried to commit suicide, all this stuff, and he’s just like, “Oh my gosh. You are the person that the Bible and my parents told me to stay far, far away from.” But the Lord spoke to him and said, “You need to give her a chance. She’s been redeemed.” So he said, “Okay.”

Within four months we were married. Again, we’ve been married for 33 years, and God has done amazing things through our marriage all these years.

Eden: Wow. Praise God! That’s such a neat story, and one that you’re still living. That’s so wonderful. Awesome.

Well, I want to hear a little bit more about your story, but first I’ll ask, as you talked about the Bible being so precious to you and such a source of joy, is there a part of God’s Word that’s especially precious to you and why?

Sharon Dutra: My life-verse that I have had all these years is Joel 2:25 and it’s that he (God) will restore the years that the locusts have eaten. Locusts are insects, and they come in swarms. There are different kinds of locusts—the swarming locust, the devouring locusts, all that. When they come in, whatever was there is completely gone. It’s demolished. It’s not there anymore. That’s really what happened in my life. When I met Christ, I had nothing in my life. Nothing. Not possessions, not family, not friends, not self-esteem, not anything. He restored my life completely.

As far as the Bible itself, you know how hard it is to pick a section of Scripture that says, “that’s my favorite.” So I was thinking this morning, I thought, “In” and “amen.” So “in the beginning” (Genesis 1:1) and “come, Lord Jesus, Amen” (Revelation 22:20). From Genesis to Revelation is my favorite part.

Eden: Yes, that’s a great answer!

I’ve been meditating on the verse from Psalm 27 that says, “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!” (Psalm 27:13). And then it says, “Be strong, and take heart” (Psalm 27:14 NIV) and “wait for the Lord,” (Correct, Psalm 27:14 NIV) or “hope in the Lord” (Psalm 31:24). I can’t remember, maybe I’m getting my translations mixed up. But that verse talks about how we not only have hope that God will make all things right in the end (Revelation 21:5), but we do have hope that in this lifetime we’ll see his goodness. I think that is something that you have experienced in great measure.

Sharon Dutra: That is very true.

Eden: So I’m excited to hear about your story. So would you be willing to share with us how you met Jesus, and how he transformed your life?

Sharon Dutra: I have a long testimony, and I obviously won’t share all of it here, but you can see it on YouTube under “Sharon’s Story of New Life.” It’s about a 15-minute video, and it’s impacted people all around the world. I’m not saying I’m world-famous at all. That’s not my point. It’s just that many, many, many people have been impacted by it. And it’s really the redeeming story of Jesus, and the person that I was.

I was born in L. A. (Los Angeles, California). My dad was a womanizer and an alcoholic. My mother left me when I was five. I was in foster homes, girls’ homes, juvenile hall. And all of those experiences left me with really deep issues of rejection and abandonment and self-loathing. I tried to commit suicide four times—I overdosed four times—and nearly died. And, of course, God had a different plan for me.

I met my ex-husband—he was a firefighter—in prison. I met him—I was in the California Conservation Corps—and we started writing letters back and forth. When he was released, we got married and then had two children. I had already been drinking and using pot from the age of about 13. By then I was a heavy drinker, and I had already tried every known drug to man except for intravenous drugs.

We were married for probably a year and a half, and there were really weird things going on in our relationship. We would have company over, and he would disappear into the bedroom, and I’d go to look for him in the bedroom, and he was gone, and the proverbial curtain was blowing in the breeze. He had jumped out the window, and I found him across the street in the bushes. And it’s like, “What in the world are you doing?” Well, come to find out, he was using intravenous cocaine and speed. So when I found this stuff in the bathroom one day, I basically put out my arm and I said, “I want you to inject me.” And that started my love affair with intravenous cocaine for six and a half years. And I ended up using the pipe as well.

I was so broken. I was trying to fill that painful void, and I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to grow up. I didn’t want to be responsible. I really didn’t want to live is really the bottom line.

I ended up living on the street for two years in Seaside, California, and I would go up to the projects at night to get drugs, and even the local people didn’t go up there because it was very dangerous. People were killed up there and all that. I had been arrested 13 times. The last time I was arrested was on Fort Ord (California)—it used to be a military base near Seaside, it’s now no longer in operation, but I was arrested there. They took me to jail. They took me back to Santa Cruz, which was my county of commitment, and I was there for a month. Then they sent me to prison.

At that point I thought, “This is it. This is the end of my life. I just don’t want to live. I’m tired of this life.” And I was in the receiving unit, and you’re there for six weeks. You’re there in a small cell with another person who you’ve never met in your life and all of a sudden, you’re very intimate roommates. It’s very strange.

Anyway, one day she was in the kitchen, which is very rare. There’s probably 500 people in the receiving unit—this is in Southern California, California Institution for Women (CIW). She was in the kitchen, and it gave me time to reflect. I had just read a book called Devil Driver, and it was about Al Capone’s chauffeur, and he had killed people. He ended up going to prison. He got saved, and then he started a ministry and made these little booklets and then handed them out—sent them to prisoners all over the country.

And I read this book—I wasn’t looking for God—I read the book because it was a gangster book. It impacted my life tremendously. I got down on my knees and I wept and wept and wept for all of the pain, the heartache that I had caused others, the rejection of God, the hating of myself. I got up off the floor and I was a brand new person (2 Corinthians 5:17). Of course, it took years to overcome the issues, the deep-seated things that I had to deal with. But as far as my spirit was concerned, I was a brand new person (Ezekiel 36:26).

So I got on the yard—well they call it the yard, meaning the general population—and some of the ladies there I had run with on the street, and they were looking at me like, “Who are you? Well, you look like Sharon, but you are not Sharon.” And it was just amazing. They treated me differently. It was just amazing.

I became a song leader in prison, and I started teaching Bible studies right away. The chaplain had given me a brand new Bible, a very expensive Bible with his own money, it was a New American Standard Bible (NASB). I read it and read it and read it. I devoured it. It was like life, and it changed my life. It girded me for getting released and making a new life. I had no money, [just] $200 gate money, which was mostly gone by the time I got up to Santa Cruz. And I had a suitcase that the church had given me, and a guitar. And that was it. I had the clothes on my back.

Long story short, ten months later, as I said, I met Michael and I ended up moving up to Napa (California), where he lived. We were on the worship team. My husband is a drummer. I’m a singer, and I play the guitar. And then ministry. We started going into neighborhoods and trying to share Jesus. We made tracts to hand out to people in English and Spanish. Anyway, my goodness, there’s so much! This is all going to be in my biography (The Conviction) that I’m writing right now finally. So if you wanted to segue into Be Transformed Ministries since that was one of the questions?

Eden: Yeah. Tell us about that.

Sharon Dutra: We started Be Transformed Ministries in 2011, and that was after Be Transformed By the Spirit of the Living God, my first book, was published. I had written these studies for my women’s group, and they kept saying, “Sharon, you need to put this into a book.” We sent the little sheets of paper over to Michael’s group, and they loved it. So we realized that it was for men and women. Then we developed our ministry because we were like, “Well, how are we going to…” I hate the word organized, but, “how are we going to bring this together so that more people can get the word out?” So I wrote my second book, New Beginnings, which is understanding the basic principles of the Christian faith.

That’s the first one. That was in 2011. And then New Beginnings was in 2017. And that’s basically [answering], “Who is God? Who’s Jesus? Who’s the Holy Spirit? What is the Bible? What is communion? What is sin? What is faith?” Things like that. And then in 2020, I wrote Fishers of Men.

That is more of a discipleship book. So it’s basically laying the foundation of our relationship with Jesus, surrendering, time spent with Jesus, and then the inner workings of discipleship, which is sharing our faith. What are our spiritual gifts? How do I discern God’s will for my life? Things like that. And so now I think I’m finally on the road to writing my own story, but it’s totally different writing a Bible study than it is writing your own story. It’s very different.

Eden: Absolutely. Yes. As you’re writing your own story, I guess, what is your vision for what you hope will become of that story?

Sharon Dutra: Well, the book that I read in prison, Devil Driver, it was so impactful in my life. And I’ve read other testimonies. I’m reading a book right now, Wetherell, her first name was Wetherell (Johnson), anyway, she was the lady who founded Bible Study Fellowship, and it’s her story. So while I’m reading these books, I’m thinking, “What is it that’s keeping my attention? What is it that makes me want to go to the next chapter? What is it that I can impart in somebody’s life to allow them to have hope that they can change?” Because change is really what it’s all about.

And my feeling lately is more of you, Lord, and less of me (John 3:30). I really, really mean that. I know what my flesh looks like. It was, I would say, “feo” in Spanish. It’s so ugly. And yet when the Lord is working through my life, it’s a beautiful thing (Galatians 5:16-24). And so I truly want more of the Holy Spirit to have control of me and less of my flesh to be controlling things.

Eden: Yes. Well, we look forward to the day that that book comes out, and we’ll pray that that effort is sped along.

Sharon Dutra: Thank you!

Eden: Well, thank you for sharing with us your story and a little about your ministry. For your life right now, day to day, what does it look like for you and your husband to engage in Be Transformed Ministries? Does that look like hosting Bible studies regularly? Does that look like finding ways to share your book with others? Practically, what does that look like for you guys?

Sharon Dutra: That’s a good question. We are both retired. I retired on purpose. I was a Registered Nurse—that was another miracle of God that I actually got to be a Registered Nurse. I graduated with honors. I didn’t think I had a brain cell left in my head. And God just completely transformed that part. But I retired early so that we could do full-time ministry.

Our ministry is sending books out and also handing books out wherever we go. But we have a very large prison ministry. We’ve sent out tens of thousands of my books for free to prisoners in the United States. My books are now in five languages, and they’re being used in ten countries. And we get stories all the time from people whose lives who have been transformed by these books. And, of course, it’s not me. I mean, I wrote the books, but the Holy Spirit is using them to truly help people with forgiveness and guilt and commitment. You know, there’s such a rich life in Christ.

We are about to embark on another Bible study. We’ve taught a lot of small groups together and separately, men’s and women’s groups. We had Long COVID for a year and nine months. We were out of commission, and the books were still going out. But we were so sick, we thought we were actually going to die.

Eden: Oh, my!

Sharon Dutra: And so God spared us from that too and is healing us. And so we’ve been in ministry now—Be Transformed Ministries has been along for 13 years now, which is longer than we ever, ever, ever expected. It’s gone way further than we ever expected. And really, our passion is to reach into people’s lives, to help them to understand salvation, to make a solid commitment to Christ, and then disciple them so that they can learn how to walk in the ways of the Lord.

Eden: As a follower of Jesus, in light of what he’s done for you, and in light of what you know from Scripture, how would you say someone is transformed?

Sharon Dutra: Really great question. I believe that—and I think it’s Scriptural—that it really begins with a period of not just an experience, but there needs to be, in my opinion, real repentance and realizing that we are who we are—we’re broken, we’re empty without God, and we’re going nowhere, really, no matter how much we’re making it in this world as far as money or job or whatever. We’re really no one without Jesus in our lives. And I think we really need to come to that realization before anything else can happen.

Salvation is a free gift (Ephesians 2:8-9). We don’t have to do anything to work for it. There’s nothing that presupposes salvation. But if we don’t have a heart of sorrow for our sin and repentance and a desire to surrender to his [Jesus’s] authority and his lordship and his loving hand then we’ve missed the whole step that’s essential, because that’s the foundation of the new house that’s going to be built.

I think that we have to get to that point where we just say, “I am”—no matter how good we look on the outside—”I am broken without God’s Spirit living within me.” And when we come to that point, then he says he will not turn away a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). And we don’t have to sob. We don’t have to have this big life like I had. Everyone’s salvation experience is different. But after that, then we start to see the Lord. And of course, the Bible is the most essential ingredient, and prayer, I believe. Because without those two things, we will never get to know the Lord.

People just don’t read their Bibles. They go to church. They hear the sermon. How do you know the sermon is right? A lot of times the pastor’s talking so much about their own stories and little stories to entertain people. I want to hear the Word. I want to hear the Word expounded. I want to hear what would Jesus do? What did that person do in that situation in the Bible? Because that’s meat. That’s life. That’s our living water. Our living bread, as it were. We have to get into Bible reading, even if we’re not a reader. Maybe just audio Bible or something. Get the Word inside of your heart and your mind.

Eden: As you were talking, I thought of how to be transformed—as you’re saying, you’re going to undergo a change. The word transformation is like a butterfly goes from a caterpillar to a butterfly. It goes under an absolute redo of whatever it began as.

Sharon Dutra: It’s a metamorphosis.

Eden: Yes. And in order for that to happen, you have to submit to the fact that who I am today is not who I need to be. As you were saying, Jesus cannot come and rebuild us and remake us if we’re not willing to say that “I need that, and that what I am in my sin is not who I ought to be.” But then also to be transformed, as you said, is something done to us. It’s not something that we can do on our own. We do participate in it. I think of when the Word says that “we need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12), which sounds like it’s all on us. Then it says, “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work according to his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

Sharon Dutra: “For his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). That’s right.

Eden: It begins with repentance—and it’s a wonderful thing, as you said, to experience Jesus transform you—and that’s something that he continues to do for our whole lives. We never get past the point of needing him to reform and reshape who we are. But we have the hope that that process will end in glory, which is a great thing to look forward to.

Sharon Dutra: Absolutely. Our blessed hope.

Eden: Yes! Well, are there any books outside of the Bible—you did mention one of them, the one that you read in prison, but aside from that book—are there any books that have really transformed your walk with Jesus outside of the Bible?

Sharon Dutra: When I became a Christian originally, the book that helped me understand the Bible a little bit was called What the Bible Is All About by Henrietta Mears. And she was, I think, early 1900s. She actually became famous, but she was amazing. And that book really helped me get into the Bible and understand what the books were about and stuff.

Then the other book that I’ve been reading for years is the commentaries (The Bible Knowledge Commentary Series) by John Walvoord. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him.

Eden: I’ve heard his name.

Sharon Dutra: I think he was the president of Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS). And his commentaries are amazing and very down the center. You know what I mean? Not too left, not too right, and really super foundational, biblical, theologically sound, in my opinion. And that’s really helped me with my Bible study reading, too.

Eden: Wonderful. I’m glad that you said commentaries, because I think when someone hears the term “commentary,” they think—or at least I think—boring, stuffy, academic book. But commentaries have been one of the most transformational books in my life. They’re wonderful. If you get the right one, they can be a wonderful companion to reading your Bible because the author typically goes through a whole book of the Bible and helps you understand the context of the book and the message and the themes, but then also helps you understand passage-by-passage through that book. So they’ve been wonderfully helpful in my life, and I’m glad to know of a new author that I’ve never considered before.

Sharon Dutra: Yeah, his last name is spelled W-A-L-V-O-O-R-D. It’s probably Norwegian or something. But it’s really great. It’s the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible commentary.

Eden: Wonderful.

Sharon Dutra: And they’re really, really great.

Eden: Thank you so much for sharing your story and your life with us.

Sharon Dutra: Oh, it’s been such a great pleasure.

Eden: Thank you so much for listening to our podcast today. If you enjoyed our conversation, I would encourage you to like or subscribe to our podcast so that you can hear the next conversation. And if something that you heard today spoke to your heart or got you thinking, I would encourage you to not let the day go by without talking to God about what’s on your mind. We believe that he loves you and that he’s pursuing you today out of that love.

Credits
The Bibles.net Podcast is hosted by our editor, Eden. But it is the collective effort of both our team members and friends. We want to especially thank Austin, Jenny, Wynne, Juan, Owen, and Evelyn for their help with audio, video, editing, graphics, and publishing.