One week down...

One week ago today, I drove up to ominous fences with barbed wire wrapped high and thick walls with no windows, and our state and country flags blowing glory in the wind.  We walked into the jail lobby where my husband was to self surrender.  They told him he was to go outside to where 2 garage doors were and there would be a door with a buzzer that he was to buzz to get “processed”.  That word made my stomach churn as I thought of a human being processed like a piece of meat, stripping all the nutrients from its natural state and made into something we can preserve.  And then I thought about God’s “processing”.  Where He strips us from all the things that keep us from knowing Him and loving Him and walking in His Grace and tears started falling.  He loves us so much that he would allow a season of having life beat the tar out of us and stripping us down naked from all the material things of this world and now here in this gritty place, the illusions of white picket fences and big houses and bleached smiles, we come to a more humble and REAL view of who we are and coincidentally a more glorious view of who God is.  And it is beautiful.  

Rick walked outside to the garages, pressed the button and they told him to come in.  I hugged him tight and watched him walk through the door.  And then I turned and walked alone back to my car and wept.  I couldn’t even bear to think about what they were doing to him and how they would treat him and what he would be eating that night and where he would be sleeping.  How his rights and privacy and comforts were all gone.  And we were in the “system” that takes forever to get things done.  He was supposed to have gone to the place that he would be serving.  Not a county jail.  The federal prison he is suppose to be at doesn’t have glass or bars or barbed-wire fences.  It’s a camp where they sit around all day reading, working out and playing cards and you can hug and touch your loved ones. 

I drove home in the drizzling rain and my mom met me with my daughter and we went and got the boys at the bus stop.  Saxon asked if I took daddy in which I told him that I did and then they didn’t really ask any more questions.  They spent the night at my mom’s that night, which ended up being really nice as I got a little alone time just to pray and think of my husband and petition God on his behalf that He would take care of him.  

The next morning I went to the grocery store and called home to talk to my mother in law who said Rick had just called her and only talked to her for a couple of minutes telling her to tell me I needed to do everything I could to get him out of there.  Then he had to go because he was going to lose it.  My heart just dropped.  It hurt so much to hear that.  I came home and called the jail in which they told me he had already been housed so I could go visit him.  Wil came over and went up there with me.  We walked up to the visitation area.  There was a long line of people that went through this hallway with a metal detector and it smelled of sterile must.  I looked around at all the people there to visit their loved ones.  Most of them seemed at ease, like they had done this a thousand times before.  There was a whole different type of people there than what I am used to hanging around.  Rough looking, jerry springer type of bunch, but not all of them.  They were all very cordial and polite.  Even the rough looking woman guard who was directing us in the hallway was kind.  She wore a starched buttoned down khaki shirt, tight brown utility pants and army combat boots and she walked around as if she ran the show.  She was probably in her early 50s and had a tooth or two missing, but the outfit and attitude were suited for her job.  I bought it, not sure if people would take me seriously if I was dressed like that, but she fit the part.  

I was looking forward toward the dark window where people were walking up to show their id’s.  We had to get Rick’s inmate number to be able to know where to go.  I’m not sure why you have to have an inmate number or why they are called inmates.  That word seems to close to primates which you visit at the zoo which this was feeling all too much like.  I could see bars up ahead that I had never seen in person.  I love to watch all those shows on Discovery ID where people commit horrific crimes and then they reenact them and make it into a drama and it’s a bit glamorized (my husband thinks I’m disturbed).  But here in real life I am walking into one of these facilities so I can see the one I love.  I saw doors automatically opening and shutting as they allowed people to come in and out.  I saw glass with phones and people talking to people thru them realizing that this was how I was going to have to see him.  I looked over to my right, and there sitting on a bench was a young Hispanic woman bouncing a baby on her lap and I was overcome with compassion for her.  I thought to myself, poor thing, her husband and baby’s father must be in here.  And then a huge burst of reality struck me across the face that that is what I am here for.  My husband is here too and I am coming to see him because he is the man who I love and am married to and share 3 beautiful children with and who the Lord loves and has so graciously allowed me to come and see that day. 

 Wil and I checked in and went and waited by the bars to open so we go in to the little area where I could see his face.  We walked down the nasty smelling hall and into a room where he was sitting holding the phone with his head down and face and eyes red.  I sat down and picked up the phone, again, am I really doing this?  Is this really my husband in an orange jumpsuit behind this glass window?  He could hardly speak.  The horror and reality of what he was experiencing was all hitting him and it was heart breaking to watch.  I just wanted to hold him and tell him that God has his arms around him and loves him and Grace would bring him thru.  

Thankfully, I had talked to my sister-in-law, Robin, before I went, who had encouraged me to be his cheerleader and be strong for him and cheer him on and not fall to pieces.  I think I would have fallen to pieces had it not been for that little pep talk.  I just told him that I loved him and that God allows suffering because it gives us Him, the giver and sustainer of life!  I reminded him of Jonah who was in the belly of a whale for 3 days.  And all the other prisoner stories that we have heard of men being freed from the noose that pride and arrogance and shame strangle around their neck.  God is recreating him, He is with him, He is sovereign and in control and to just rest in that as he waits to be moved to the federal prison.  Federal will be like a vacation resort after he leaves this place.  He shared with me of the kind of people and gangs that were in there and white supremacy group.  He had to buy his own underwear and soap and deodorant and shoes.  He told me how nasty the food was, he had nothing to even compare it to, and that he couldn’t go outside.  His strong spirit was being crushed and it hurt my heart to see.  He talked to Wil for a second and then said he had to go and left.  I wanted to say goodbye one more time but he was gone.  

I have been back 2 times since then.  I watch the people as they come to see their friends and family and I watch the other inmates come to see their visitors.  The momma’s with their babys and the daddy’s with their children.  Loving and caring for them so tenderly and sweetly.  I watch the inmates talking to their loved ones eyes red, tears streaming, bodies shaking.  And all the while Jesus whispers to me that these are HIS people.  And I get the privilege of walking along side these suffering souls and sharing with them in their suffering.  This is where Christ hung out.  This is where he proclaimed the good news!  And He is proclaiming it to me all over again and in a new and beautiful way.  

As Isaiah said so long ago…

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners;  -Isaiah 61:1

Loved the book “The Same Kind of Different as Me”.  At the time I read it, it seemed obvious to me that we are all alike.  But that is easy to say when I live in a suburban neighborhood that on the outside is not too different from Wisteria Lane.  All the walls of class and race and all the ugly names we classify people as who are not like us and stereotypes of people in jail are crashing down and I see souls.  Souls who long for HOPE!  Souls that are broken and lost and in need of a Savior.  Souls just like me.