Nine years ago I met Sarah, she was incarcerated in the jail where we had a weekly service. Some of the Christian women in her dorm talked to her about the Lord and encouraged her to come to our meeting. She never heard about the Lord in any depth until she landed in jail and it was there she began her journey and the Lord fell on her there in such a powerful way. 

We stayed in touch and some years later I asked her to join me and we continued to hold services at the jail together: we now alternate between the men and women each week. This week I had the women, she the men. When the women were coming downstairs to the meeting room, one of the women, let's call her Cheryl, noticed Sarah and called out her name; she and Sarah had been dorm mates together nine years ago in the jail when both were struggling with drugs and homelessness. There was only a minute for them to talk but Sarah told her how the Lord had rescued her and that the Union Gospel Missions women's program was a life saver for her. That was about all there was time for, so they said their cheerful goodbyes. 

Cheryl entered my meeting room first: a tall, lanky, extroverted woman of thirty, and she remembered me from nine years ago! We began chatting as the other women arrived, there were six altogether.

We began reading a list of "the promises of God" I prepared where we would discuss each one before moving on to the next. Before long something in one of the verses triggered Cheryl, I'm not exactly sure what it was but she began pouring out her story between sobs, admittedly it was hard to follow completely, but apparently she dated a man and this man harmed her four year old son. I couldn't make out precisely what she said because by now she was in the depths of anguish and sorrow groaning such desperate cries that all of us in the room were in tears as she tried to talk between these soul agonizing sobs. I've seen and heard countless tears fall, deep soul wrenching tears, but I've never heard anything like those haunting sobs last night. 

Apparently she felt completely responsible for what happened to her son, and she mentioned something that made me think this man may have dropped her son or intentionally hurt him, I just couldn't make it out, and didn't dare ask questions. After a long time she began to compose herself and I tried to direct the conversations and read scriptures that I felt would bring some degree of consolation. The meeting went on for an hour, and at least six more times she would break down into these consuming groans and sobs. 

At one point as she was wringing wet with self-loathing, she mentioned that when she saw Sarah before the meeting, and how God had rescued her, restored her losses and now she was helping other women discover the riches of Christ's love and salvation, and realized that in the last nine years she didn't heed the call and has gone through such horrid suffering and loss that she sobbed out, 

"I'm done with this! I'm going to stop resisting God and I'm going to get in the program Sarah did and stop running; I've tried everything but God, and I'm done! I'll gladly take a year and try what Sarah did! I can't go on like this!"

She said this in such wrenching pain, floods of tears and sobs, it was like I was watching a woman in the throes of agonizing labor birthing, not a child, but a soul! I stood there watching a woman being born again! 

I wish words could capture the emotions and spiritual drama of the evening, but they simply fall short. But when Christ orchestrates the salvation of a soul through countless seemingly incidental happenings, well, we stand in awe of His love for us. 

Our time was up, she felt vision rising, a ray of hope breaking through the hopelessness, and a determination in her like few I've ever seen. We prayed, she prayed, thankfully I had a pamphlet on the Missions women's program and gave it to her and we said our emotional good-byes. 

Every woman there as well as myself, felt like we'd been through an emotional wringer! But a good one. We all knew something profoundly eternal took place that night.  

 

It was ladies night at the jail yesterday; the female population is low and I usually have four to six women that want to "come to church." 

Last night the first woman arrived and we sat and chatted for a while when she began to pour out her past so freely. It's not unusual that women open up and share, but usually it's after I've built a  rapport with them. This woman was in her forties and like so many there she was missing many teeth and her face betrayed her past of struggle. No one else arrived so I knew the Lord must have something special for this woman, when just then another woman entered. She was well over six feet tall, and had the most beautiful skin you've ever seen! It was a deep, dark ebony that immediately reminded me of Song of Songs 1:5 where the Shulammite bride declared, "I am black and beautiful." 

Then a third woman arrived, she was in her early forties, very pretty but wore such sorrow in her face I immediately remembered her from the previous meeting. My heart went out to her in the previous meeting and I was so glad she came again because I prayed before I came that I could leave them with hope, a ray of gladness, and some degree of the joy of the Lord. 

I have a number of topics I'm ready to discuss depending on what opens up. This was the night to simply read through a series of 12 scriptures that reveal how the Lord loves us and is ready to forgive us.

As we read a verse we then discussed how it struck us, and they were all very engaged and it was the kind of candid meeting I long to have where the sense of the Lord's presence fills the room. 

Nearing the end of our time, the woman who came in last began sharing how her partner had been outside the jail earlier, yelling for her as he wept loudly. He is deep in addiction and has attached to her so strongly that he feels like life without her isn't worth living. This isn't a new story, many partners are so dependent on the person they love it becomes a suffocating obsession, and like this man, he would go to her workplace, home, and tonight, even the jail. I had to talk with her about this! So I asked if she could stay and talk, and she said yes she wanted to, so as the others left we had some privacy. 

These are difficult situations because there is so much to cover in such a short time, what should take hours and hours of counseling is left for me to summarize in thirty minutes! And it may be the last time I ever see her. But the Holy Spirit was heavy on the room, the words flowed, her heart was open, and I left feeling I did all I could do, which of course, is never enough. But God....

 

 

 

  In my work as a volunteer chaplain in the county corrections center, the vast majority of  men and women I speak with grew up in horribly dysfunctional homes where they were left to fend for themselves. They were never taught personal grooming, how to apply for a job, much less the social graces. There's no way to calculate how this impedes and hinders their way in life. 

My Mother grew up in a loving family and had five sisters. They lived simply and were what we might call, Lower Middle Class. Even so, each of the sisters were sent to "Charm School." Charm school in the forties was a type of etiquette or finishing school, where women were taught the social graces, personal grooming, and how to present oneself in polite society.  Here is a summary of what they were taught.

1. Poise and Deportment:

How to walk gracefully

How to sit and stand with proper posture

 How to enter and exit a room with elegance

 2. Etiquette and Manners:

Table manners and formal dining etiquette

How to greet others and make polite conversation

Social customs for different occasions (e.g., weddings, dances, tea parties)

3. Grooming and Personal Care:

 Skincare, hair styling, and hygiene

 Makeup application and wardrobe coordination

 Voice modulation and diction

4.  Dating and Marriage Preparation:

How to behave on a date

The role of a woman in relationships and, eventually, marriage

Often included instruction on being a supportive wife and mother

5.  Domestic Skills (in some programs):

 Cooking, sewing, entertaining, and home management

There were "charm schools" for men, although not nearly as popular. 

I couldn't help but think how important these skills are for anyone. But sadly many today grow up "feral" or peer raised with little or no instruction, guidance and support, much less, love and security. 

When I was a young boy I always admired my Mother's poise, dignity, charm and manners. I don't know how much of this came from her Mother or from Charm school, but she always held herself with a sense of decorum that I felt and helped shape me in some small way. 

 

 Here's a riddle by Francis Bacon --

"For occasion turneth a bald noddle, after she hath presented her locks in front, and no hold taken." 

Bacon is here referencing a common saying and imagery of his time, personifying opportunity (occasion) as having hair at the front and being bald at the back. 

This emphasizes that if one does not seize an opportunity when it presents itself (by its forelock), 

it quickly passes by, and there is nothing to grasp once it is gone.

 

 You are gods*

"Has a more ominous and marvelous phrase ever been uttered by the All-knowing?

Hold your first child in your arms and feel genesis-like, 

then stand in the cataclysm of addictions and smell sulfur on your breath.

Sit in the reverberating atmospheres of choral voices lifted in stained light cathedrals 

and afterwards pull the trigger with a calloused hand.

In your dusk grief, curse down the holy heights of all the thrones above the Pleiades, 

and in the dawn kiss the feet of the sacred as you take wine to your heart and bread to your flesh.

Make love to the dream virgin, bedded in faithful matrimony, 

and rape the unloved having the nightmare.

Be born into the house of the Divine by undeserving love and grace,

and burn it all down in blind accusations till only your ignorance is left to fellowship within the empty room.

You were brought up from the pristine red clay of Eden, 

but you’ll perpetually live East of the gate of the flaming sword.

You are gods…that will exist eternal, 

but forever be cast in the choices of time."

*Jesus in John 10:34

Pastor Eric, Jacob's Well, Spokane Wa. 

As I read through this I was reminded of - "For I do not do the good I want to do, 

but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing" from Romans 7:19