prison

Woodside Cemetery

Like most Hallmark holidays, Valentine’s Day, a day that supposedly promotes love, has a high probability of doing the opposite. Ok maybe not promoting “hate” – how about just plain old anxiety/depression?

I’ve noticed a trend in health care over the last few years. When I review a patient’s history, there is frequently a diagnosis of “Anxiety/Depression”. I see it so often I shorten it to “Anx/Dep”. If it’s a trend in health care, then it’s worth noting. The world, at least in these parts, is unhappy.

Happiness is an unalienable right, or at least the pursuit of it. But it can be elusive, the Golden Carrot that we are all running the race for, right? Happiness may be tied to a promotion, our children, a trip to the Caribbean. But it’s here, then gone, like stardust. Like Valentine’s Day.

I am old enough to remember Valentine’s Day before the PC Squad took it over. You could actually go to school and get zero Valentine’s Day cards while your classmates were showered with love and Snoopy Valentines. I’m not saying that ever happened to me. I think I got one or two anyway.

This time of year is dark for me. The shadow of my son’s birthday looms just ahead, February 19^th, a silent day that I still don’t know what to do with, so I walk around in a fog, disoriented and moody. Years ago, the pain was crushing and I would gasp for breath. Nowadays it’s a familiar ache that reaches way down into the Mom place. I think it’s behind my heart. I could cry, but I’d rather do something Spence would like – tell someone about Jesus, love someone that needs it.

St. Valentine, so the story goes, had it kind of rough. Claudius, the emperor of Rome, felt that unmarried men would fight better, die better, if they weren’t tethered to sweethearts and those pesky kids so he decreed a ban on marriage. Valentine intervened, converting soldiers to Christianity before secretly marrying them. No box of chocolates – he was beaten, stoned then beheaded, on February 14^th,273 AD. And we pout if we get 6 roses instead of 12.

I’ve been trying to prepare a Bible study on Love for a group of female prisoners. I imagine “Anx/Dep” is pandemic in prisons. Love is a confusing concept, and so many have been abused, used and rejected under its banner. The problem is we can’t survive without it. God made us to love as much as we need breath.

I’m no expert on this topic. I am 60 and I still have to really focus on loving people the way Jesus wants me to. It’s just not natural – I want to step back and gently shut the door on them, turn and make some tea and be left alone with a good book. Spence had this uncanny sense of drawing towards those who were the most rejected. It was like Jesus was holding his hand and pointing the way to go, often obscure places no one else saw. It was not easy for him, a kid who was unbearably shy around people he really wished he could trust. When he was alone, he prayed for those he couldn’t get to personally. He didn’t get to see those prayers answered and he often mistook God’s silence for displeasure. Did I tell you he was stubborn too? That no matter how many times a mother tried to tell him he was loved, he argued. He got that from me. Maybe the stubborn part too. When I get to see him someday, I’d like to say, I told you so, but I doubt it will even come up.

When I look for Love, I look at Jesus. His love wasn’t some philosophical formula, or a flowery “Why can’t we all get along?” sermon. His love was sharp as a sword, His love made men put down their stones, His love was nailed to a cross. It was gritty, it was truth. His love was a glorious empty tomb.

Next to my son’s grave is a heart shaped stone, with a young woman buried beneath. On the stone is inscribed:

Do not stand by my grave and cry

I am not here, I did not die

I live with the risen Lord.

I love that, in fact it’s why I buried my son next to her, so I could read that as I stood looking at my son’s grave, trying to absorb the truth, that he was gone. Yes, he died and is no longer here, but he lives with the risen Lord. And out of the dust and disappointment of our lives, our failures, the Lord lives. He breathes life into death. He unwraps His children from the grave clothes of “Anxiety/ Depression”. He is Love eternal, unfailing, unchanging.

I’m going to make a Valentine’s Day pie for my Valentine, and tell my husband the same thing I tell him everyday – that I love him. He’s probably in the card aisle at CVS, like right now, grumbling that all the “good” cards are gone. Tomorrow, we will be a day older, and the country will be filled with half-eaten boxes of chocolates, mostly cream –filled. But no matter what you’re facing, Jesus has been there too. And He’s calling you to Him, “Come.” Come to a love that is unshakeable, unmovable.

The Apostle Paul, who lived long before Valentine, knew this love beyond what we can imagine; in prison, through shipwreck and beatings and being left for dead. It was a love he eventually gave his very life for, because he knew that true love is more than just a feeling, a poem or even a treasure chest of jewels. He said this:

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

Now I know what I’ll say to the girls in jail tonight. That Love is here, with us right now. And nothing, not even prison bars, can keep Him from us. I know they will really love that. It may be the happiest Valentines Day ever!

I counted – there’s 12!

david

Jermaine was running late. He had forgotten his wallet and had to backtrack. I sat in the prison parking lot and weighed my options. It was cold out, and I was nervous. Sitting in my car looking at my phone would be a poor way to kill time. I watched as yet another young woman ducked from her car with a toddler on her shoulder, still asleep from the trip, hurrying into the building.

The Lord is my shepherd….

What am I so afraid of? Well, it was a state prison, imposing in size, with a tall cement wall running around it, topped with barbed wire. It was obviously old. Small details, like a cupola on the main building, are never seen in modern design. I had just driven for several miles through undisturbed country. Rolling fields and thick woods, like out of Walden’s Pond, lined the road. Then, coming around a curve…Norfolk MCI, the state’s largest prison. But that’s not what I’m most afraid of.

I was invited to meet with Dave Myland, one of the three men convicted in my son’s murder, serving a second-degree murder sentence; life with a chance of parole after twenty years. It’s been eleven years since Spence died, and ten years since I saw David last. After two days of paneling a jury, a plea bargain was negotiated. They had been charged with first-degree murder, and had just watched their friend get sent away for life, without parole. Second degree looked like the better choice.

I had faced these two men that now lived inside this prison 10 years ago as I read a quickly written Victim Impact Statement. I was surprised then to look up and see that they were both staring at me, and listening. I said I forgave them. I said God loved them. Then I cried as they were led away in cuffs.

Now, exactly eleven years from the day I buried my son, I had agreed to a request from David to meet him. Having Jermaine with me was part of the deal. As it turns out, that part worked out well. Jermaine and Dave had been talking on the phone and two weeks ago, I got a call from Jermaine. David had prayed with him over the phone. He wanted what we had, complete forgiveness, to know the grace of a loving Savior. He surrendered.

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…

I got out of the car and walked towards the main entrance, following a woman in front of me, with two little girls skipping behind her, about my granddaughters’ ages. Once inside, I stood in a large crowded room, feeling conspicuous, the white middle aged lady with the deer-in-the-headlights look. A kind woman handed me a bright yellow form to fill out, with a pen. Windows lined the opposite wall where I could see prison officials shuffling papers behind thick plexi-glass and bars.

Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.

Jermaine finally arrived and we still had a lot of time to talk as we waited to hear our number called. I’m not sure why everything that has to do with the government needs to take so long, but here there was no exception. As a large steel door slid open, we were quickly pushed through and I took my cues from a little girl before me who had thrust out her bare arm to an expressionless female guard with a big rubber stamp.

The Lord is my shepherd, I have all that I need.

After being searched and moved through two more steel doors, I was surprised to be outside again, cold without my coat, then led into another building, sort of octagonal shaped. Once inside I found myself in a huge open room that reminded me of a waiting room in a train station, loud and echo-y, with vending machines everywhere and kids with lots of energy. I was expecting something different, like a small smoky room with rigid chairs and tense guards, maybe speaking through phones like in the movies.

I shall fear no evil, for You are close beside me.

I watched Jermaine as he scanned the room, realizing I didn’t really remember much about how David looked that one day years before. Jermaine smiled and I turned to see a young man in jeans and a gray sweat-shirt walking towards us, first greeting Jermaine then turning to me. Dave was bigger than I remembered, and perhaps looking a bit older than thirty but his eyes were gentle and it was easy to take his hand. Then I realized I wanted to give him a hug because it just seemed like the right thing to do. We stood there smiling and a little awkward while David looked for seats.

Driving up there, I couldn’t imagine what I’d say. There were things I didn’t want to talk about and I wondered what any of us had to say. But sitting there with these two young men, our conversation flowed naturally into a depth and openness that is rare in life, a sharing of hearts and hopes that was understood, an unspoken link between us. Not one of us would ever be the same after January 26th 2002. A prisoner, a pastor and a mother somehow connecting lives in a way that can only be orchestrated through the power of a loving God. Three sinners, equally precious to Jesus; forgiven, redeemed, restored. I don’t think God separates us on this level. The world does, the law does and that’s how it has to be here. But from a heavenly perspective, we are all desperate; prisoners and guards, judges and junkies. As the setting sun turned the chaotic din of the visiting room into a soft sepia hue, a guard shouted , “Visiting time is up! Say goodbye!”

Daddies kissed their little ones goodbye, girlfriends promised things in low voices and a few brave mothers, weary looking, hugged their sons and slowly moved towards the door. I was glad it was so simple and easy to love David, to want to embrace him and really pray for him. Jermaine and I walked out together to our cars, smiling, knowing that we were on holy ground, that God was again moving in unsearchable ways, glorious and mysterious.

I can’t explain any of this very well, because God can do things in a human heart that are absolutely impossible left to our own, and I understand His ways less now than ever. But as I drove the long way home that day, I knew I had again glimpsed a bit of heaven on earth, right in the middle of that prison. If you know Jesus this shouldn’t surprise you. And I felt both privileged and in awe.

He restores my soul.

The gray February sky stretched out before me over the highway, the clouds dark and almost obscuring the setting sun, allowing just a few rays to reach the frozen ground. I wasn’t sure whether I would sing or cry. I decided to sing.

Surely goodness and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life.

*All scripture from Psalm 23, NLT.

The Real Valentine (it’s not at CVS)

The Visit