From Here to There ...!

Over the last few years, I have developed a number of papers that become a packet of papers I mail certain jail inmates I have met in my prison ministry that God has impressed me with something special about that person so I build a letter of encouragement, a flier from inviting them to my church and the pages of the papers on a specific topic that captured my heart a a moment in time I expanded into words from my heart.  Last night was especially an evening when emotions were touched deeply especially in seeing a man I know well but was unaware of his presence in the jail so the reunion was emotional and tearful for both of us. So for my blog today, I am sharing with you the paper that was impressed in me to build when I awoke about 4:30 am with last night heavy on my heart. I hope you will be encouraged by these words as well.

From Here to There … !

September 9, 2014

Jim Williams

I awoke early this morning with my brain filled with thoughts of our world, some of the men I met at Stark County Jail last evening and some introspection of my own life coming from one comment in a sermon last night. That comment, which we use frequently, seemed to take feet for me when the pastor said, “from here to there.” He then went on with his sermon. My mind immediately registered on the “there” and not the “here” in my own life.

Sitting in the Chapel surrounded by about thirty orange-suited men of varying ages, colors, histories, challenges and dimly lit futures, my heart was again moved by the plight of the thousands of those men and women I get to meet every year, week by week. As the folds of my brain began to look around at these men, I was moved by the decisions and choices that had been made that all of us to that central location in that jail room.  That reality is always made more real to me when I see an inmate reappear after many months or years since the last time I saw him or her or to see an inmate I know well from outside that has been located into the jail awaiting a set of lawyers, prosecutors and the weight of the judicial system with the gravity and heartache of not really know what resides ahead for that inmate and his or her family.

 I heard a most intriguing metaphor recently that said that we all lived under the same sky but we all have different horizons.  Wow, that is a potent and staggering reality check is it not?  In two chapel services last night I had the chance to have a couple of minutes face time with perhaps six of the inmates some new and some returning.  As I listened to their stories of wanting prayer for their families and for their fellow inmates, I was touched deeply by the degree of physical tears that was evidenced then counterbalanced by a couple of the men that are truly angry, bordering on rage at their circumstance.  It is really interesting to see the contrast of a broken, contrite heart with a heart that is cold and angry, isn’t it? 

 Most of us are “here” be it good or not from a series or whole sets of choices over the years. I believe not a single one of those men I met last night sought or desired to be in that jail environment.  Upon my entry last night within thirty feet of each other, I saw three red, not orange, jump suited men in hand cuffs and shackles. The red is for flight risk or suicide risk and normally for major felons as was the case last night or I had seen one of the young men in the newspaper convicted of murder last Friday.  As I walked past this young kid, nineteen years old, tattooed heavily, with his eyes turned to the floor to not look at me, I reached out and shook his hand as he looked up at me saying to him, “God is very good, rely on that, Sir.” His whole demeanor changed and I saw tears well as I moved toward the chapel.  I passed two more red suited, shackled young men within the next fifty feet; three young boys with their lives dashed on the rocks of poor choice facing many years, perhaps the rest of their lives behind prison bars, for doing wrong. So their “here” has altered their “there” forever not to mention the lives of those they have hurt or killed, the family of the young men and a wasted capability to be a light in a very dark world; just so very sad!

 So how is your “there” as you read this for you will never reach your “there” until you go through the tunnel of your “here.  Our “here” is the journey we choose to trod in our life decisions on friends, relationship, choices of friends, education, values; all choices. Having seen just a few hours ago men that will be facing perhaps death or many decades of incarceration seems but a waste of the creation God did for each of us doesn’t it?  As I tell the inmates, I do not see them for what they did but rather for what they can be in this world needing their skills, talents and passions but now pretty much dashed on the rocks of poor choice. I detest waste in any form but none more detestable to me than to see the capability of a person frittered away for all the wrong reasons.

 The book of Esther, for me, is one of the most profound books of the Bible for we can all quickly identify with its winding story of intrigue, loyalty and love.  “For such a time as this” are words uttered about the reality to Esther that her challenge to save her people from annihilation resided with the fact that she was who she was at the time when her people needed her most and she had a choice to approach the king and plead for mercy for her people or hide the fact that she herself was a Jew and to live the good life in the King’s court. But she was who and where she was for that time when her people needed her most; God’s Will for her life!

As you face the uncertainly of your “there” from the vantage of your “here” as bleak and as dismal as that vantage may be, you are here for “such a time as this” for I believe this is true for each of us.  I believe each time I am granted life and breath to go back into a large group of men and women that have wronged many people as well as themselves and their families and friends, I am reminded that I am there for “such a time as this” to be a representative of God in a world of darkness.  As you read this, be encouraged for you are where you are for, yes, “such a time as this.”