jail

“First Corinthians 13…”

I’m opening a small Bible that I brought to give to one of the inmates.

“Where is that?” Jessica asks.

“It’s right here.” I push the Bible towards her, keeping my finger on the page.

Kara glares at her from across the table. It’s her Bible after all. I just gave it to her. Jessica grabs my pen and starts to mark the page.

“Do you mind if I make a little mark here? Just so I can find it?” Jessica doesn’t even look up.

Kara leans forward, starts to say something but stops. She looks exhausted, her hair is a matted mess like she’s been sleeping in the woods, but I catch a little fire in her eyes, then she sits back, shaking her head. She’s too tired to care. “No, it’s alright,” she says softly even though Jessica has already underlined the chapter number, a small mark that she won’t ever look for.

I want to check my watch but I don’t want them to think, no, to know that I am tired too. I stand and walk back over to the whiteboard.

Love is patient…

The topic is Love tonight at the jail. I picked it – it’s February after all. I realized scrolling through past lessons that I had picked Love last February too, but I can’t remember how it went. Better than this, I bet. It’s an off night. Only three came out, for reasons I can never understand, and sometimes that works for the best. A small group is less intimidating, the girls can open up more and God will help me. But tonight it’s two new girls and Gail, an older woman who I swear lives here. Her sentence stretches out past the horizon, due to frequent trips to the hole. Someone told me she lived on the streets with “her man.” But it’s been a while.

Love is kind…

I draw two big hearts side by side and write WORLD over one and GOD over the other.

“Tell me what kind of love the world gives,” and I watch their faces twist up in confusion so I reset it. “Ok, what kind of love does God give us?”

“Unconditional,” the girl with the matted hair says flatly.

“Good!” I write it inside the God heart, then write Conditional in big letters in the other heart. Now they get the game. The God heart fills up with Freedom and Forgiveness and the World heart fills with selfishness and shame. I feel like this is too easy so I throw in some Greek.

Eros. Phileo. Agape.

“Agape sounds Indian,” Gail says.

“No it’s Greek,” I correct her, feeling the foolishness of this conversation. I can see her bumming money at the bus station. Hey do you want to hear some Greek? As soon as I tell them that Eros means sensual or sexual love they completely regress to somewhere around fourth or fifth grade. I sit back down, feeling defeated and a tad disgusted.

Love never demands it’s own way.

I’m praying under my breath as I try to rustle the last shreds of my lesson together. Gail senses my despondency.

“I can be mean sometimes,” she says.

“Well, I know you can be sweet sometimes too Gail. ” I’m touched by her honesty. “And I can be mean too.” My words settle like pretty snowflakes.

Then Gail says, “I wish a was a bird. A big bird.” I wonder where she’s going but I want to think of David writing a psalm about flying away.

Jessica starts to laugh at her. “So you can escape?”

“No, so I can poop on everyone who’s pooped on me.” By now Jessica is sputtering and turning red, and falling into Gail.

Love bears all things…

“Then you want to be a horse!” as she demonstrates the size of horse manure with her hands. Kara is silent, her face expressionless and it occurs to me she may be withdrawing form something. Or very medicated.

“Ok guys, back to love.” They stop laughing and look up. I feel like the kind of teacher I couldn’t stand. Dull. A droning voice. Even my notes wonder what I’m doing.

Jesus made a point of showing us over and over that what we thought we had was beside the point. Five fish. Two mites. Or should we just call down fire and toast them all? I remember one time when my husband and I were pastoring that I confessed to my mother that I felt like telling everyone to go to hell. She thought that was terrific. But it wasn’t – it was a screaming indication that I was spiritually bankrupt. I was sitting at the piano smiling every Sunday, embracing women I considered faithless and teaching their little demons about Jesus in the cold basement. Apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5) Oh yeah, I forgot. Again.

An exasperated Jesus asks his disciples, “Are you being willfully stupid?” (Matthew 15:16, MSG) They weren’t getting it. Neither was I, trying to love what i thought was worth it, with a small love that I manufactured for my own benefit. And here I was again; a teacher trying to teach something that I understood but didn’t really know. I forgot AGAIN.

Love hopes all things..

“Do you want to know why I’m here?” They are silent. “I’m here because I love you.” The words come out soft and I am as surprised as they are. Yes, that’s it.

“I’m here because Jesus loves me. I don’t deserve it, but He does and He’s put His love in me. That’s why I’m here. Because I love you. And Jesus loves you.”

Kara looks up from the table, her eyes searching. Jessica and Gail are looking straight at me, and I know I saw just a small flash of hope, like a shooting star.

Love rejoices in the truth.

As I drove home that night I prayed for Kara and Jessica and Gail. I knew that despite my dumb lesson in Greek, that the Holy Spirit was able to take my notes and breathe upon them – to feed 5,000 with two loves of bread, to feed three women with the feeble prayers of another woman who knows what it’s like to be held captive, without hope, then set really free. And He is still able to teach an old teacher a new lesson in Love – even when I’m willfully stupid. It just takes a spark, a small spark of humility and a flash of hope. That’s all He really needs.

Love never fails.

*** All names have been changed, except Jesus.

(All Love scripture from 1 Corinthians 13, NKJV)

Confession: I was going to just put a big Temporarily Out of Business sign on this blog. I am in the final steps of completing a book I have been working on forever, and my focus has shifted. The book calls me constantly– when I’m cooking, driving, working, even sleeping– or trying to. Last night I got up after flipping around like a fish on a deck for an hour and reached for a scrap of paper and pen, hoping my scrawl would make sense in the morning. It did, to me only. It’s consuming, especially now that I can see the finish line, I can see an actual book with a cover and pages inside.

So there is some truth to that. Blogging has been edged out of my field of vision, for now. But the bigger truth is the book turns me into a Monster and I’m afraid to come out, to let people see me. Of course, my husband gets to see the Monster. You can ask him, but I’m sure he doesn’t see it as a privilege. I scare myself, then I’m on my knees asking God, “What is wrong with me?”

In Mary Carr’s book, The Art of Memoir, she notes,

“In some ways, writing memoir is like knocking yourself out with your own fist.” Yep, in a lot of ways. Then you wake up on the floor and have to climb back to your feet, back to the past that calls you.

“I’m not done with you yet!”

It’s made me think a lot about reconciliation, or how I can be friends with my own ghosts.

I go down to the county jail every week and sit around a table with a group of women in colored jumpsuits and we talk about this often. They are literally wearing their past mistakes, at least one of them, so it’s an easy subject to approach. So is a sleeping monster. As I sit there with my Bible in hand, I realize I often wear a colored jumpsuit too. I am captive to my past.

Forgive. I say it a lot. It’s a prickly subject to tackle with a group of people who have experienced immeasurable pain at the hands of people they should’ve been able to trust. Or the girl whose brother died in her arms from a gunshot wound. Forgive. If we don’t, we are chained to the past, a short, thick chain. I have experienced the phenomenal freedom and healing that comes from this simple act of obedience. I forgave my father, I forgave my son’s murderers. Why can’t I forgive myself for good and slay the Monster that keeps arising from the smoking ashes of my past?

For the accuser of our brothers and sisters

has been thrown down to earth—

the one who accuses them

before our God day and night. Revelation 12:10 NLT

This Enemy is activated every time a soul says Yes to Jesus. Sure, non-Christians wrestle with the past too. But the Enemy knows we are forgiven and that our pardon is forever. His job is to keep us from realizing we are free, that the door has been unlocked all along.

“God’s most powerful revelation is of His grace.”

I found this quote in the midst of my son, Spencer’s papers. It was just like him to jot down thoughts, often profound ones, in the midst of lists of things to do. Prayer lists in between “oil change” and “taxes.” This statement was easy to pass by, but it caught me, like God was saying Pay attention here!

Grace. The word all on its own brings a sense of freedom and relief, like you want to breathe it. Inhale Grace, exhale Redemption. Maybe it’s that simple. Powerfully and profoundly simple.

It takes guts to look back and be honest. It takes the mercy of God to not let it kill you. And it takes the boundless grace of God to turn it into something beautiful. But the Beautiful is His – His righteousness, His glory along with all of the praise. I still have to look in the mirror every day and say, “You again.” I don’t see beauty or honor, but maybe I can at least see a woman who is free. I don’t have to befriend the ghosts – I can leave them where they are, behind me – with the colored jumpsuit. And then I can show the same grace to others.

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have laid hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14

…and finish the book.

Love Lessons From Jail

Temporarily A Monster