Another one of those nights where my mind just doesn't want to shut off! I drank my tea, read my book, even shed a few healthful tears as I related to what I was reading. I said my prayers and got into my cozy bed feeling the warmth and loving tenderness of a compassionate God all over me!
Still, sleep alludes me as those "loose ends," keep finding their way to the front of my memories. Things I haven't gotten past, people I haven't entirely forgiven, or things I'm still wondering about my future. I finally realized though that all these loose ends are attached to one common thread...my heart!
Isn't that always what God is asking for, our hearts? And isn't that always the one thing we have the most trouble giving to Him in fullness?
"The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us or forsake us, that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules, which he commanded our fathers." - 1 Kings 8:57-58
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith" - Ephesians 3:14-17 (read the whole thing though, verses 14-21...there's a lot of powerful reasons why Christ wants to dwell in our hearts!)
I think of prayers that many Christians fervently pray, for God to cleanse them, to purify them, to renew their minds and align their hearts, and to forever change them. I can't count how many times I've asked God to have His way in my heart and to change me from the inside out so that I may be more like Christ.
What I heard very profoundly tonight was this: "Let your heart be changed!"
Maybe that doesn't have as much of an impact on you as it is having on me, or perhaps it does! Either way, the key word here, isn't "heart" or "changed"...it's LET! Let as in, allow, release, yield etc.
In my life, I have learned to recognize one particular occurrence that happens in my heart that is sure evidence to me that God is present and that He is doing a work in me. It's not a vision, or a feeling, not a voice or even a whisper. It's...a softening! That's the best way I can put it. The moments in my life when I feel most touched by God are the times when He is softening my heart.
We all know the phrase, "He is the potter, I am the clay," but I've taken a pottery class or two (definitely don't have a knack for it!), and even though I wasn't a master on the potter's wheel, I knew one thing...you don't use hard clay to make pots! It seems like I may be preaching to the choir about letting our hearts be pliable to God, but I also feel that if we truly understood the point of that message we wouldn't need to hear it as often...but we do need to hear it! At least I know I do...until I have mastered being soft, I need to continually be reminded that my heart is still too hard in places and I need to surrender those areas to God.
I also think of a good hug. There are stiff, awkward, or "casual" hugs for people who maybe don't know each other so well yet, or else it's one of those quick hello/goodbye type of hugs. But then there are those hugs that seriously have healing powers! Do you know what I mean? Have you ever cried in someones arms, maybe a close friend or family member when you really needed a deep secure place to cry? Or what about a hug from a loved one whom you haven't seen in a long while? I'm talking about the kind of hug where your entire body experiences a sense of instant comfort and security. The moment that you go from being completely tense, to completely relaxed and at peace...That's the kind of softness I'm talking about!
There are no safer arms than those of God Almighty! Nor a more comforting place to find peace and rest from your troubles.
"Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.
He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men!
For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things." - Psalm 107:9-9
"Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free." - Psalm 118:5
...Goodnight friends!
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."
It is somewhat of an American custom to run ourselves at full steam until we dry out... Until there's nothing left in us but the ashes of burned up dreams.
We humans are so good at multitasking that we are able to juggle many things while accomplishing nothing at the same time! Eventually the balls will drop; sometimes one or two at a time, or sometimes all at once, and when they hit the ground that's when we look up at God and say, "this is not what I expected!"
I have often read about the children of God in the wilderness and thought, "why wouldn't they just listen? Why didn't they trust God?" or "what's wrong with them, they say all those miracles?" But today as I read through Hebrews 4, which also includes a quotation from Psalm 95, I realized that I'm not all that different from them!
When I come to my whit's end I find myself asking questions like:
God, why did that have to happen?
What did I do wrong?
God, why have I come this way?
Didn't I do everything I was supposed to?...This is not what I expected!
The children of God in the same way tested Moses' judgment as well as God; "why have you brought us this way? We didn't know it would be this hard! What about this...what about that? This is not what 'we' expected!"
Thank God...no really...THANK GOD for His mercy and His loving kindness! How many times did I forget to look back and remember all that God has done in my life? If I start to lose faith, or if my heart has become hardened and dis-trusting in God, it is because I have forgotten the immeasurable goodness He has shown me, and I have failed to remember the great works of His hands!
"when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, 'They are a people who go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.' Therefore I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest." Psalm 95:9-11
God showed them His mightiness in plain sight, right before their eyes...and when things got hard in the wilderness they forgot His ways, as if those signs and wonders never happened at all! Hebrews 4 goes on to say that it was their disobedience that kept them from entering God's rest.
I've been finding myself in a season of Ecclesiastes, where everything is vanity, and everything is pointless. What is it that I've been striving for all these years? I don't know what it was to begin with, but I obviously still haven't found it yet! I did what everyone else told me I should do; I ran hard and juggled a busy schedule to accomplish all these goals and aspirations, but then I burned out and ran out of steam.
I did wearily reach the end of the track I was on, however...but to my dismay I looked, and there was nothing there! I wasn't listening! My limited little one track mind was focused so hard on my "goals," that I left God somewhere back at the station. And let me tell you, it's a long, weary, lonely and even bitter road to walk on the longer you wait to turn around and ask God to tow you back home!
I guess I'm on a train analogy for some reason tonight, but it illustrates my point very well. Our hearts can be as stubborn and single minded as a run-away train on a one-way track (which weighs up to 8,000 tons or more by the way!).
"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts." Hebrews 4:7 and Psalm 95:7-8
It takes a soft, humble heart to turn back to God when you've been going the wrong way, but I've learned that you have to let go of some things in order to do that.
"Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand." Psalm 95:1-7
"For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
...Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:12,13 & 16
We humans are so good at multitasking that we are able to juggle many things while accomplishing nothing at the same time! Eventually the balls will drop; sometimes one or two at a time, or sometimes all at once, and when they hit the ground that's when we look up at God and say, "this is not what I expected!"
I have often read about the children of God in the wilderness and thought, "why wouldn't they just listen? Why didn't they trust God?" or "what's wrong with them, they say all those miracles?" But today as I read through Hebrews 4, which also includes a quotation from Psalm 95, I realized that I'm not all that different from them!
When I come to my whit's end I find myself asking questions like:
God, why did that have to happen?
What did I do wrong?
God, why have I come this way?
Didn't I do everything I was supposed to?...This is not what I expected!
The children of God in the same way tested Moses' judgment as well as God; "why have you brought us this way? We didn't know it would be this hard! What about this...what about that? This is not what 'we' expected!"
Thank God...no really...THANK GOD for His mercy and His loving kindness! How many times did I forget to look back and remember all that God has done in my life? If I start to lose faith, or if my heart has become hardened and dis-trusting in God, it is because I have forgotten the immeasurable goodness He has shown me, and I have failed to remember the great works of His hands!
"when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, 'They are a people who go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.' Therefore I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest." Psalm 95:9-11
God showed them His mightiness in plain sight, right before their eyes...and when things got hard in the wilderness they forgot His ways, as if those signs and wonders never happened at all! Hebrews 4 goes on to say that it was their disobedience that kept them from entering God's rest.
I've been finding myself in a season of Ecclesiastes, where everything is vanity, and everything is pointless. What is it that I've been striving for all these years? I don't know what it was to begin with, but I obviously still haven't found it yet! I did what everyone else told me I should do; I ran hard and juggled a busy schedule to accomplish all these goals and aspirations, but then I burned out and ran out of steam.
I did wearily reach the end of the track I was on, however...but to my dismay I looked, and there was nothing there! I wasn't listening! My limited little one track mind was focused so hard on my "goals," that I left God somewhere back at the station. And let me tell you, it's a long, weary, lonely and even bitter road to walk on the longer you wait to turn around and ask God to tow you back home!
I guess I'm on a train analogy for some reason tonight, but it illustrates my point very well. Our hearts can be as stubborn and single minded as a run-away train on a one-way track (which weighs up to 8,000 tons or more by the way!).
"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts." Hebrews 4:7 and Psalm 95:7-8
It takes a soft, humble heart to turn back to God when you've been going the wrong way, but I've learned that you have to let go of some things in order to do that.
"Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand." Psalm 95:1-7
"For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
...Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:12,13 & 16
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Alien in my fish tank!
Meet Houdini. He is a giant golden Mystery Snail that I adopted a few months ago, and he's been the star of the show in my aquarium ever since! I love to sit and watch him as he goes about his business. Though it is only a 5 gallon aquarium, he never takes the same route twice. If you think of snails as being slow, as I did, that's not entirely true! I was so impressed the first time I put Houdini in his new home, as I watched him zip around the perimeter of the tank in under a minute.
Then he did something amazing, and at first I wasn't sure if I should say, "cool!" or "creepy!" I watched as he made his way up the glass to the top of the tank, then to my surprise he let go of the glass and glided across the top through the water! His soft body was all spread out and flowing through the water, and he also had all four of his "antenna" sticking straight out. It looked like a little alien flying around in my tank, and I'd never seen a snail do that or anything like it! He still does it every now and then. Upon further observation I have discovered that the reason behind it is actually attempting to land on the top leaves of the aquarium plants! Don't worry, he doesn't eat all my plants, just the algae that grows on them :)
I feel a tiny privilege that I get to have such a unique little creature residing in my bedroom aquarium!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Face to Face
Me and my dad (written June, 2009)
Alright, I know this has been a long time coming, and I know many of you have been waiting for the full report on meeting my Dad this summer. There has been a lot for me to process, but finally your wait is over! Part 2, following this post, will be a raw look into my journal; just hours after meeting my biological father for the very first time! This post is for those of you who don't know the full story:
My dad went to prison the year I was born, in 1985. He was convicted of murder charges, among other things, and was sentenced to life without parole.
Growing up I didn't know much about him, except for a few letters here and there. As I got older though, and began asking my mom more questions, the toll of not only having an absent father, but one who was incarcerated for a brutal crime, became an even heavier weight on my shoulders. The more I learned about the kind of man he was, and the things he had done before going to prison, the more I feared him.
The letters he sent came in variations. Some were friendly, some incredibly boring (to a teenager!), and then there were some filled with cruel words and manipulation that, even though it was coming from him, still crushed my spirit so much!
Finally, there came a time in my life where I surrendered the heart he had broken to Jesus Christ, and he mended it! God revealed himself to me as my heavenly Father, who was with me all along, and had never left my side!
With my new heart, and God as my strength, I started responding to my dad's letters again, but this time with an anointing to speak truth into his life with boldness, and faith that it would make a difference.
Though my feet were now on steady ground with Christ, there was still fear ruling in my heart toward him; fears of never wanting to meet him, of what would happen if he ever somehow got out of prison, and fears of letting him get too close to my heart again. After all, he is my father. He is my father, but after all, he is a murderer!
One day while in a prayer meeting, in the year of 2006, I received a word from the Holy Spirit that my dad was going to give his life to Christ. It knocked me to the floor in tears and in praise!
Still, I had no desire to go and see him. Then, this past February 2009, God woke me up in the middle of the night asking me to go! It took me another month of wrestling, but the Lord was insistent, so finally I surrendered my fear and decided to trust and obey.
A couple of months later I received a letter from him, telling me of how in the middle of the night…in February, he poured out his heart in prayer to Jesus Christ from his prison cell and accepted Him as his Lord and Savior! He had been attending a church ministry in his sector for the last several months.
It was all the confirmation I needed to show me that God is so amazing, and that He had a much greater purpose in this than I realized! I made my plans, set a date, and recruited a few close friends to go with me.
Part Two
Journal Entry: June 18, 2009
Today I took one of the biggest steps of faith in my life, and went to see my dad face to face for the first time.
There was a battle going on in my heart; I felt great peace in knowing I was doing what God had asked me to do, but there was also great fear of what I was about to do. I still didn’t understand why I was going, or what to expect to find when I got there.
I packed my bags, jumped in the truck with my wonderful friends, and off we went. The drive was pleasant; full of delightful conversation, laughter, and beautiful scenery. It was everything I needed and more to stay uplifted and optimistic.
Then we approached the outskirts of Salem, and immediately my nerves rose up within me. As we began looking for our exit it seemed like the closer we got, the more my stomach sank and the harder my heart pounded with anxiety. My breath grew shallow and tense, and my hands went cold and stiff around the steering wheel.
The anxiety I was feeling was so intense that I could no longer stay engaged with my friends in the passenger seats as they carried on in conversation.
“Jennifer, are you ok?” Katie asked from the back seat.
“Yes, I just know we’re getting closer!” I said.
After a few times of them having to repeat entire sentences to me, seeing as how I was now in my own world, we switched the atmosphere in the truck from small talk to prayer. We prayer for God’s peace and comfort to settle my nerves and my emotions, for God’s strength to cover my weakness, for courage and boldness to replace my fear, and for Jesus to give me a heart of compassion, grace and mercy instead of anger, resentment, or bitterness.
When we got to the parking lot we gathered in a circle to pray. My heart was pounding hard by that time, and my nerves were practically shooting out through my fingers, but I knew I was supposed to be there! I felt the anointing of the Holy Spirit cover me like a cloak as my dear friends prayed over me. It felt as if each prayer was being fastened to me like a piece of armor, and as I walked toward the front door there was a sense that I was walking down a path that the Spirit of the Lord had already been down and prepared before hand! I was filled with joy, strength and anticipation with each step.
I find it so interesting that the same level of anxiety your body goes through when experiencing great fear, such as that when you’re life is being threatened, or such as having a fear of heights or small enclosed spaces, feels very much the same as being on the flip side when you are experiencing the thrill and excitement of doing something new and crazy. Doing something bold, daring, and outside your comfort zone, though it is good, gives you the same adrenaline rush as if someone were to hold a loaded gun to your head!
The Prison
The Sergeant at the front desk was incredibly kind and encouraging. He assured me that everything they did was for my complete safety through the whole process. He even phoned ahead to the police chiefs in the visiting area to tell them it was my first time visiting in a prison.
I was allowed to go in with another family. Going through the series of locked gates and corridors was a little overwhelming. We had to keep strictly to the right along the wall so that the chiefs could keep a clear view down each hall at all times, and no gate was opened until the previous gate was closed and locked behind us. The whole system stirred my fears up all over again. At this point, there was quite literally no going back!
“Are you Jennifer? We’ve been expecting you!” is the greeting I received from two large and stocky police chiefs as I entered the room. They sat me down at a visiting station; two chairs facing each other, separated by a small coffee table, right in front of the chief’s station. This had been arranged in advance as a result of the phone call the Sergeant at the front desk had made when I first came in.
The chairs were all color-coded in neat rows; red on one side for the visitors, and blue on the other for the inmates. The room was packed with inmates and their families. It was such a strange place. Here I was in a room with all these big tough men, in prison for various reasons, and all that mattered to them right then and there was their time with those they loved. I watched as they reached across the tables for the hand of their wives or girlfriends, and traded their points in so that they could hold their children for just a few minutes. Next to their families, none of these men really looked like criminals.
I spent another 45 minutes waiting for my dad. The waiting was the hardest part of it all. The longer I waited, the more nervous I became.
“What will he look like?” I thought. My mind was reeling with questions and senerios, and even though I’d never met him, and had nothing to prove to him, I still caught myself thinking, “will he like me?” or, “will he think I’m pretty?” For the first time in my life, I realized I was about to experience in person what it is like to be a father’s daughter! All the thoughts and feelings I’d missed out on and wondered about growing up, in the absence of my father, came flooding into my heart all at once. Suddenly I felt like a little girl again, and I was also suddenly feeling extremely vulnerable!
I was so nervous that my whole body felt cold and tingly. I felt as though I was about to pass out, and then I finally became aware that I’d been holding my breath without realizing it! I was so amazed at how much physical stress my body was going through all on its own, just from my emotional anxieties!
The Visit
Finally, my dad enters the room. It felt like a clip from a movie, (in comes Marvin Sherman, play dramatic music). What was so amazing to me was that as soon as he walked in, all my anxieties went away. We made eye contact, and as he acknowledged me with a smile, my fears were immediately chased away and replaced with grace and compassion toward him.
We were allowed one brief hug at the beginning of our session, a hug at the end, and to have our photo taken. I stood to greet him, and then I hugged my dad for the first time! The crazy thing about it was that as soon as we hugged, there was something in me that was telling me this hug felt familiar. Not only that, but that after all this time, after so much pain, and after so much fear, there was still a little girl in me that wanted that hug to last a whole lot longer!
That really surprised me! I originally had no intentions of getting too close to him, but once I got there, saw his face, and looked into an older pair of eyes that were just like mine, everything changed!
The man that I saw sitting in front of me wasn’t a big scary criminal convicted of murder. He was just a man; a lowly, timid, broken man, who was burdened with such a heavy weight of guilt, shame, and regret. His embrace as we hugged was tight, but full of trembling, and it was then I realized that he was feeling just as fragile and vulnerable as I was!
I also realized that God was putting me in a powerful position over him, where I had the freedom to choose whether I was going to take advantage of his vulnerable state and possibly crush him, or to show him the incredible Grace of God that was and is continually shown to me. It was like God was saying, “look at what I am holding, and see how tenderly he is cradled in my hands…please, don’t break him!”
We made small talk at first, and the entire time he kept averting his eyes away from looking at me directly. The longest he would maintain eye-contact with me was no more than two or three seconds at a time. His demeanor was more like that of a child, rather than an adult, only this “child” was full of shame, and automatically took a self-assuming position of inferiority to me.
I just wanted to listen at first, so I waited patiently for him to find the words he was trying to say. He pointed out that I had his eyes, and spoke of how the last time he saw my I was only a tiny little baby. I asked about the rest of the family, and then our conversation took a huge shift.
He began to ask about why he was so bad, and what he had done that no one wanted to have anything to do with him anymore. He started delving into the things of the past, but before he could go any further I stopped him and said, “that’s not why I came!”
He looked at me slightly puzzled and responded with, “well then why did you come?”
“I came just because I wanted to meet you!” I replied, looking him square in the eyes.
Then, like a shy little child, his face lit up and he smiled at me, almost as if to say, “really?”
At that moment I felt a flood of great compassion for him rushing in and welling up inside me. It was more compassion than I can recall ever feeling in my whole life for anyone, and it was all coming straight from heaven! It was as if the Holy Spirit had been hovering over me the whole time, and then at that very moment fell upon me and took over from there.
We started talking about God and the Bible, and he shared with me about the Bible studies he’d been attending every week. I was actually amazed at how much scripture he not only knew, but understood! Then I was able to speak life into him from everything that God had taught me.
Apparently, some people were telling him that he could not be fully saved until he was baptized, and that he couldn’t be baptized until he got out of prison. My heart sank with sadness when he told me that. He was obviously greatly troubled by it, and with good reason! My dad was sentenced to life without parole, which means these people were basically telling him he could never really be saved!
Oh, but that’s just the open door God was giving me, complete with flashing lights and confetti (at least that’s how it felt!), to tell him the glorious truth about Jesus Christ! I assured him that since he confessed his sins and invited Jesus to be the Lord over his life, that he was indeed 100% saved and redeemed.
“You could baptize your-self with a cup of water in your cell if you have to!” I said with a smile. “Baptism is about a matter of your heart, not the physical act itself. The Bible says that all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. Baptism is just a symbol of you crucifying your old sinful self with Christ on the cross, and rising again, through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, as a new person.”
I was simply quoting scripture, but each time I went over it with him I saw new hope in his eyes, like I could literally see him being revived in his heart right there in front of me. What a beautiful sight it was indeed!
He then told me that he felt lighter, like a huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. If that in itself is not enough evidence of the real and mighty hand of God at work, I don’t know what is!
He proceeded to tell me that since he’d started believing in God he was happier, and life in prison even seemed a little easier than it was before. God had suddenly been answering all his prayers…all but one.
“The last prayer I was waiting on was you!” He said.
We talked a little while longer, and then as we said good bye we stood and hugged again. When we turned to part ways, I watched as he took the picture we’d just taken together, and tucked it gently into his front pocket, right next to his heart!
Alright, I know this has been a long time coming, and I know many of you have been waiting for the full report on meeting my Dad this summer. There has been a lot for me to process, but finally your wait is over! Part 2, following this post, will be a raw look into my journal; just hours after meeting my biological father for the very first time! This post is for those of you who don't know the full story:
My dad went to prison the year I was born, in 1985. He was convicted of murder charges, among other things, and was sentenced to life without parole.
Growing up I didn't know much about him, except for a few letters here and there. As I got older though, and began asking my mom more questions, the toll of not only having an absent father, but one who was incarcerated for a brutal crime, became an even heavier weight on my shoulders. The more I learned about the kind of man he was, and the things he had done before going to prison, the more I feared him.
The letters he sent came in variations. Some were friendly, some incredibly boring (to a teenager!), and then there were some filled with cruel words and manipulation that, even though it was coming from him, still crushed my spirit so much!
Finally, there came a time in my life where I surrendered the heart he had broken to Jesus Christ, and he mended it! God revealed himself to me as my heavenly Father, who was with me all along, and had never left my side!
With my new heart, and God as my strength, I started responding to my dad's letters again, but this time with an anointing to speak truth into his life with boldness, and faith that it would make a difference.
Though my feet were now on steady ground with Christ, there was still fear ruling in my heart toward him; fears of never wanting to meet him, of what would happen if he ever somehow got out of prison, and fears of letting him get too close to my heart again. After all, he is my father. He is my father, but after all, he is a murderer!
One day while in a prayer meeting, in the year of 2006, I received a word from the Holy Spirit that my dad was going to give his life to Christ. It knocked me to the floor in tears and in praise!
Still, I had no desire to go and see him. Then, this past February 2009, God woke me up in the middle of the night asking me to go! It took me another month of wrestling, but the Lord was insistent, so finally I surrendered my fear and decided to trust and obey.
A couple of months later I received a letter from him, telling me of how in the middle of the night…in February, he poured out his heart in prayer to Jesus Christ from his prison cell and accepted Him as his Lord and Savior! He had been attending a church ministry in his sector for the last several months.
It was all the confirmation I needed to show me that God is so amazing, and that He had a much greater purpose in this than I realized! I made my plans, set a date, and recruited a few close friends to go with me.
Part Two
Journal Entry: June 18, 2009
Today I took one of the biggest steps of faith in my life, and went to see my dad face to face for the first time.
There was a battle going on in my heart; I felt great peace in knowing I was doing what God had asked me to do, but there was also great fear of what I was about to do. I still didn’t understand why I was going, or what to expect to find when I got there.
I packed my bags, jumped in the truck with my wonderful friends, and off we went. The drive was pleasant; full of delightful conversation, laughter, and beautiful scenery. It was everything I needed and more to stay uplifted and optimistic.
Then we approached the outskirts of Salem, and immediately my nerves rose up within me. As we began looking for our exit it seemed like the closer we got, the more my stomach sank and the harder my heart pounded with anxiety. My breath grew shallow and tense, and my hands went cold and stiff around the steering wheel.
The anxiety I was feeling was so intense that I could no longer stay engaged with my friends in the passenger seats as they carried on in conversation.
“Jennifer, are you ok?” Katie asked from the back seat.
“Yes, I just know we’re getting closer!” I said.
After a few times of them having to repeat entire sentences to me, seeing as how I was now in my own world, we switched the atmosphere in the truck from small talk to prayer. We prayer for God’s peace and comfort to settle my nerves and my emotions, for God’s strength to cover my weakness, for courage and boldness to replace my fear, and for Jesus to give me a heart of compassion, grace and mercy instead of anger, resentment, or bitterness.
When we got to the parking lot we gathered in a circle to pray. My heart was pounding hard by that time, and my nerves were practically shooting out through my fingers, but I knew I was supposed to be there! I felt the anointing of the Holy Spirit cover me like a cloak as my dear friends prayed over me. It felt as if each prayer was being fastened to me like a piece of armor, and as I walked toward the front door there was a sense that I was walking down a path that the Spirit of the Lord had already been down and prepared before hand! I was filled with joy, strength and anticipation with each step.
I find it so interesting that the same level of anxiety your body goes through when experiencing great fear, such as that when you’re life is being threatened, or such as having a fear of heights or small enclosed spaces, feels very much the same as being on the flip side when you are experiencing the thrill and excitement of doing something new and crazy. Doing something bold, daring, and outside your comfort zone, though it is good, gives you the same adrenaline rush as if someone were to hold a loaded gun to your head!
The Prison
The Sergeant at the front desk was incredibly kind and encouraging. He assured me that everything they did was for my complete safety through the whole process. He even phoned ahead to the police chiefs in the visiting area to tell them it was my first time visiting in a prison.
I was allowed to go in with another family. Going through the series of locked gates and corridors was a little overwhelming. We had to keep strictly to the right along the wall so that the chiefs could keep a clear view down each hall at all times, and no gate was opened until the previous gate was closed and locked behind us. The whole system stirred my fears up all over again. At this point, there was quite literally no going back!
“Are you Jennifer? We’ve been expecting you!” is the greeting I received from two large and stocky police chiefs as I entered the room. They sat me down at a visiting station; two chairs facing each other, separated by a small coffee table, right in front of the chief’s station. This had been arranged in advance as a result of the phone call the Sergeant at the front desk had made when I first came in.
The chairs were all color-coded in neat rows; red on one side for the visitors, and blue on the other for the inmates. The room was packed with inmates and their families. It was such a strange place. Here I was in a room with all these big tough men, in prison for various reasons, and all that mattered to them right then and there was their time with those they loved. I watched as they reached across the tables for the hand of their wives or girlfriends, and traded their points in so that they could hold their children for just a few minutes. Next to their families, none of these men really looked like criminals.
I spent another 45 minutes waiting for my dad. The waiting was the hardest part of it all. The longer I waited, the more nervous I became.
“What will he look like?” I thought. My mind was reeling with questions and senerios, and even though I’d never met him, and had nothing to prove to him, I still caught myself thinking, “will he like me?” or, “will he think I’m pretty?” For the first time in my life, I realized I was about to experience in person what it is like to be a father’s daughter! All the thoughts and feelings I’d missed out on and wondered about growing up, in the absence of my father, came flooding into my heart all at once. Suddenly I felt like a little girl again, and I was also suddenly feeling extremely vulnerable!
I was so nervous that my whole body felt cold and tingly. I felt as though I was about to pass out, and then I finally became aware that I’d been holding my breath without realizing it! I was so amazed at how much physical stress my body was going through all on its own, just from my emotional anxieties!
The Visit
Finally, my dad enters the room. It felt like a clip from a movie, (in comes Marvin Sherman, play dramatic music). What was so amazing to me was that as soon as he walked in, all my anxieties went away. We made eye contact, and as he acknowledged me with a smile, my fears were immediately chased away and replaced with grace and compassion toward him.
We were allowed one brief hug at the beginning of our session, a hug at the end, and to have our photo taken. I stood to greet him, and then I hugged my dad for the first time! The crazy thing about it was that as soon as we hugged, there was something in me that was telling me this hug felt familiar. Not only that, but that after all this time, after so much pain, and after so much fear, there was still a little girl in me that wanted that hug to last a whole lot longer!
That really surprised me! I originally had no intentions of getting too close to him, but once I got there, saw his face, and looked into an older pair of eyes that were just like mine, everything changed!
The man that I saw sitting in front of me wasn’t a big scary criminal convicted of murder. He was just a man; a lowly, timid, broken man, who was burdened with such a heavy weight of guilt, shame, and regret. His embrace as we hugged was tight, but full of trembling, and it was then I realized that he was feeling just as fragile and vulnerable as I was!
I also realized that God was putting me in a powerful position over him, where I had the freedom to choose whether I was going to take advantage of his vulnerable state and possibly crush him, or to show him the incredible Grace of God that was and is continually shown to me. It was like God was saying, “look at what I am holding, and see how tenderly he is cradled in my hands…please, don’t break him!”
We made small talk at first, and the entire time he kept averting his eyes away from looking at me directly. The longest he would maintain eye-contact with me was no more than two or three seconds at a time. His demeanor was more like that of a child, rather than an adult, only this “child” was full of shame, and automatically took a self-assuming position of inferiority to me.
I just wanted to listen at first, so I waited patiently for him to find the words he was trying to say. He pointed out that I had his eyes, and spoke of how the last time he saw my I was only a tiny little baby. I asked about the rest of the family, and then our conversation took a huge shift.
He began to ask about why he was so bad, and what he had done that no one wanted to have anything to do with him anymore. He started delving into the things of the past, but before he could go any further I stopped him and said, “that’s not why I came!”
He looked at me slightly puzzled and responded with, “well then why did you come?”
“I came just because I wanted to meet you!” I replied, looking him square in the eyes.
Then, like a shy little child, his face lit up and he smiled at me, almost as if to say, “really?”
At that moment I felt a flood of great compassion for him rushing in and welling up inside me. It was more compassion than I can recall ever feeling in my whole life for anyone, and it was all coming straight from heaven! It was as if the Holy Spirit had been hovering over me the whole time, and then at that very moment fell upon me and took over from there.
We started talking about God and the Bible, and he shared with me about the Bible studies he’d been attending every week. I was actually amazed at how much scripture he not only knew, but understood! Then I was able to speak life into him from everything that God had taught me.
Apparently, some people were telling him that he could not be fully saved until he was baptized, and that he couldn’t be baptized until he got out of prison. My heart sank with sadness when he told me that. He was obviously greatly troubled by it, and with good reason! My dad was sentenced to life without parole, which means these people were basically telling him he could never really be saved!
Oh, but that’s just the open door God was giving me, complete with flashing lights and confetti (at least that’s how it felt!), to tell him the glorious truth about Jesus Christ! I assured him that since he confessed his sins and invited Jesus to be the Lord over his life, that he was indeed 100% saved and redeemed.
“You could baptize your-self with a cup of water in your cell if you have to!” I said with a smile. “Baptism is about a matter of your heart, not the physical act itself. The Bible says that all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. Baptism is just a symbol of you crucifying your old sinful self with Christ on the cross, and rising again, through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, as a new person.”
I was simply quoting scripture, but each time I went over it with him I saw new hope in his eyes, like I could literally see him being revived in his heart right there in front of me. What a beautiful sight it was indeed!
He then told me that he felt lighter, like a huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. If that in itself is not enough evidence of the real and mighty hand of God at work, I don’t know what is!
He proceeded to tell me that since he’d started believing in God he was happier, and life in prison even seemed a little easier than it was before. God had suddenly been answering all his prayers…all but one.
“The last prayer I was waiting on was you!” He said.
We talked a little while longer, and then as we said good bye we stood and hugged again. When we turned to part ways, I watched as he took the picture we’d just taken together, and tucked it gently into his front pocket, right next to his heart!
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