They look up from the table as the officer unlocks the door. I’m just one broken woman coming to talk to other broken women. On the outside, they may look at me and feel no connection at all. I’m dressed in nice clothes, they wear borrowed jumpers; I’ve had a mirror to look in and fix my hair, they’ve air dried their hair if it’s been shampooed at all; I’m free and can leave at the end of the hour, they are forced to remain until a Judge says otherwise. What they can’t see are the scars I carry from a broken life. They weren’t there to see the Lord put me back together. Just one broken woman, loving other broken women for Jesus sake. A group assembled at the table and I handed out the song sheets. I told them about my new favorite song by Zach Williams, “Chain Breaker.” “Let’s just read the words, can we?” I asked. If you’ve been walking the same old road for miles and miles If you’ve been hearing the same old voice tell the same old lies If you’re trying to fill the same old holes inside There’s a better life There’s a better life If you’ve got pain He’s a pain taker If you feel lost He’s a way maker If you need freedom or saving He’s a prison-shaking Savior If you’ve got chains He’s a chain breaker Tears were already spilling down two faces. And I knew, I just knew. It’s so weary being chained to lies, chained to addiction, chained to the past. A better life? Please. Where? How? For me? Chains tell you that’s the lie. To believe, to hope for more. Chains tell you that you can’t possibly change. Chains tell you that it’s pointless to even think about a future. Chains tell you as soon you leave jail, you’ll end up right back where you were. We started singing that song. “There’s a better life”. Oh yes indeed. He’s a Chain Breaker. I couldn’t stand there and sing that with the women if I didn’t wholeheartedly KNOW it! I silently prayed as I sang that the message would GET THROUGH! Tears kept falling and I saw women trying so hard to believe. Two women were on lock down in their cells. I hadn’t noticed until I heard a voice say “Can I have one of those pages?” and a hand reached through the narrow opening in the door. She followed along as we sang all the songs. She’d been in here before and she remembered one that I’d sung in her cell block last time she was locked up. “Next time you come, could you bring ‘My God is Awesome’”, she asked. “I love that song.” There was desperation in her eyes and a sadness that seems to cloak all the women, as if it’s part of the assigned wardrobe. “Jumpsuit? Check. Flip flops? Check. Sadness? Check.” She seemed so tiny, so fragile, so beaten up by the world that she kept crawling back too. I told myself I would be sure and pray with her before I left. I had asked God what to share with the women before I went in and as I was looking through the Word I stopped at Psalm 27. Verse 5 really stood out to me: For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock. I felt the Lord directing me to speak on “Foundation”. Where are your feet planted? Are we standing on sinking ground or have we planted our feet on the rock? After all, you can’t move anywhere unless you know where you are. I started singing the song: The wise man built his house upon the rock The wise man built his house upon the rock The wise man built his house upon the rock And the rain came tumbling down You can’t sing that song without doing the motions, so I started building my house with my hands and one of the girls’ faces lit up…..”I remember that song”….and she started doing the motions with me. We talked about what it’s like to stand on a firm foundation and what happens when we look around and decide we’d rather toss caution to the wind and place our foot in sinking sand. It only takes one small step and we start sinking. “Help!” We cry out. We are rescued and as soon as we grow complacent, or board, or we seem to get amnesia about all the awful days….we step right off the rock and back into that sinking sand. “Help! We cry out again. Over and over again this can play out in our lives. After a while, our friends and family may grow tired of coming to our rescue (and at this, several women nodded in knowing agreement) but I promised them that according to His word, Jesus would never turn away when we cry out to Him. We talked about what quick sand they needed to get out of (bad friendships, addictions, wrong choices) and how they needed to get to the solid rock. I asked if anyone wanted specific prayer…… “Yes, please pray that this addiction won’t control me any longer” said one. “I need prayer for hope. I’m just living life day to day. Does God still have something for me?” asked another sweet lady. “Please pray that I can find new friends” said yet another. We stood, we held hands, we implored God to move. He did. Stacy* kept walking around after the praying was done with tears and rejoicing all mixed into one. Praising God for deliverance and for salvation and for freedom. We started singing Chain Breaker again and then someone asked Lucy* to sing the song she always sings “Take Me To the King”. There were more tears and more rejoicing. Stacy was still in tears and so I went to hug her and she wrapped her arms around me and as I hugged her I noticed my arm around her. I know this will sound crazy, but it didn’t feel like my arm. It felt almost like an out of body experience, as if Jesus was hugging her and I was just there to help Him do it. She was crying and saying “you came in here for me. You came in here for me.” I thought about how I almost didn’t. I knew there had been another chaplain from a church that had visited that morning. I almost just stayed home. Now I know why the Holy Spirit wouldn’t let me. It was almost time to go so I went to my friend on lock down and asked if I could pray with her. She promised me things were gonna be different this time. She was gonna go to rehab. I hope with all my heart she means it. She stuck her arm back through the opening and I took that fragile hand and asked that somehow she would know and feel Jesus holding on to her, just as I was holding her hand. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I’m back in here”, she kept repeating. Maybe to me, maybe to God. And I thought about the gentlemen I’d met in the lobby while waiting to go back. He was there to visit an ex-girlfriend. I told him how nice it was that he cared enough to visit her. “Oh, I’ve been in jail before. I know what it’s like to feel forgotten. To have no one visit you, to have no money in your jail account….i just couldn’t leave her in here like that.” I have no idea who is visiting my friend on lock down. Does she have money in her jail account? Does she have a friend writing letters of encouragement? I let go of her hand after we prayed. I gathered my Bible and my notebook and the officer let me out. I looked back at the women and they began to clap. They have a reason to rejoice! Psalm 27 says Hear my voice when I call, Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. 8 My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. 9 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior. 10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. 11 Teach me your way, Lord; lead me in a straight path And He will lead them.
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In Granny’s church they brought in a real Christmas tree and set it up in the same place every year; on the right side of the church, the corner behind the organ. If I breath in deeply right now, I swear I can still smell the fresh pine needles that had fallen on the floor and been crushed under foot by all the kids, who against the wishes of their parents, would not stay away from the tree. I loved it when they put up the tree, because I knew it wouldn’t be long before we’d be making chain links out of red and green construction paper to decorate the tree. Ms. Hines, our Sunday School teacher, would already have cut out perfectly even slips of green and red paper and all we had to do was to grab a stack and start pasting them together. Half of the fun was after we finished making our chain, we would put glue on the palms of our hands and let it dry and then slowly peel it off as if we were creatures from a wax museum made of solid wax and we were molting. Ms. Hines would always say “now children, that’s a perfect waste of good glue!” I always figured any sentence with the word “perfect” in it couldn’t be that bad. Funny how the second grade mind works! I look down at my hands now. They’re fidgeting with a loose thread of this jumper. When they issued the jumper to me, it had obviously seen its’ share of wear and tear. I was just glad to have something with long sleeves as the evenings get rather cool in here. I would give anything to be back in Ms. Hines class gluing pieces of construction paper. Anything to keep myself busy. Being locked up for these last few months has made me stir crazy. And with the holidays approaching, it’s worse. Granny always had stuff for us to do around the holidays. She prided herself on her sugar cookies and thought the least we could do was to help decorate them. “Baby Jesus came to show love, and that’s just what I’m doing when I hand out these cookies. So you children best decide you’re gonna decorate those cookies with every bit of love you got!” Granny would say. And she didn’t take any goofing off when you decorated her priceless Christmas gifts. She carefully set out bowls of candy beads that looked like pearls, sprinkles in Christmas red and green, and little M&M pieces. She would frost the cookies with her special designs that made the cookie into a tree ornament, or a jolly round Santa, or a Christmas tree. We were each given a tray of cookies to decorate. It became a contest between us to see who could decorate the best cookies. My brother was always the slowest because he said he had to make sure that no two cookies were alike. It used to drive me crazy because we weren’t allowed to eat the extra cookies that Granny made for us unto ALL the cookies were decorated! There was nothing to compare to the way that one of Granny’s sugar cookies just melted in your mouth. “Lunch trays” shouts the Guard, interrupting my imaginary holiday baking. I’m not really even hungry today. It’s Mystery Meat Monday anyway. I can skip it. I settle back on my little wad of a pillow and think about all the ovens being turned on and trays of warm cookies being left on counters to cool. Do the mom’s in those kitchens know what a blessing it is to be able to bake cookies? Do they feel rushed by the calendar and the endless to do lists? Do they wish they could just put their feet up and not have to even see their kitchen till New Years? Do they grumble when the kids drop sprinkles on the floor? Do they grudgingly pull up stools and let the kids help do the dishes? Knowing that more soap might end up on the floor than on the dishes? I remember those hectic days. The few years that I was actually sober enough to be a mom. I would give anything to go back. Granny used to let us help hand out her bags of cookies to the neighbors on her street. She would say, “no one is a stranger when you hand them a cookie and a smile.” I sure could use both of those right about now. *A fictional series of an inmate's life. Not based on any real person |
AuthorHi! I am Donna and I'm traveling. It's a journey to discover who I am in Christ every day....no looking back, face to the Son! Come join me! Archives
October 2017
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