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

 

Jesus said, "Don't think for a moment that I came to grant peace and harmony to everyone. No, my arrival will change everything and create hostility among you. From now on even family members will be divided over Me and will choose sides one against another. Fathers will be divided from sons and sons from fathers; mothers will be divided from daughters and daughters from mothers, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, all because of Me. 

Now consider this; when you see a cloud forming in the west, don't you say, 'A storm is brewing? And then it arrives. And when you feel the south wind blowing, you say, 'A heat waves is on the way.' And so it happens. How foolish! You are such experts at forecasting the weather, but you are totally unwilling to understand the spiritual significance of the times you're living in, you can't even judge for yourselves what is good and right." "Oh foolish ones, who has bewitched you? O how terrible for those who confuse good with evil, right with wrong, light with dark, sweet with bitter. 

Throughout human history the fingerprints of God were upon humanity, yet they refused to honor Him as God or even be thankful for His kindness. Instead, they entertained corrupt and foolish thoughts about what God was like. This left them with nothing but misguided hearts, steeped in moral darkness. Although claiming to be wise, they were in fact shallow fools. 

This is why God lifted off his restraining hand and let them have full expression of their sinful and shameful desires. They were given over to moral depravity, dishonoring and mutilating their bodies by sexual perversion among themselves - all because they traded the truth of God for a lie. They worshiped and served the things God made rather than the God who made the things. For this reason God gave them over to their own disgraceful and vile passions. Enflamed with lust for one another, men and women ignored the natural order and exchanged normal sexual relations for that which is unnatural: and men committed shameful acts with men, receiving in themselves the due penalty of their errors. They trusted in confusion and sabotaged their lives." 

Everything written above comes from the Bible; some are paraphrases some are word for word translations; I believe this world view is truth and evident in our world today.  

 II got permission to share this and I'm eager to do so!

This woman has gone through life's most difficult circumstances, and yes, she was broken and near death until she met Jesus, and OH!!!! What healing he brought her!

"My mother was a paranoid schizophrenic, and my father was a megalomaniac who sexually abused me--incest.

I attached to neither.

Rather, I attached to my brother 7 years older than me,

and he loved me, doted on me, thought I was the best gift to him in the world.

That ‘saved’ me from dying in infancy as my mother never comforted or held her babies.

It’s all very complicated but the survival system in my brain (fight/flight/freeze)

opened and stuck in a locked position causing my adrenals to overwork,

my brain was constantly overdosed with hormones, cortisol, adrenaline constantly flowing and I learned many erroneous defense mechanisms which turned into untoward learned behaviors.

I’ve been in healing ministry with Jesus for 15 years.

Healing begins with forgiveness.

He cleared away the erroneous foundation in me,

wiped it clean and simply began teaching me in the way a child should go.

Right now, we’re dealing with undoing the wrong attachment to my elder brother and attaching to our Father and Jesus only.

Because of the above (which is brief) during the first 14 years of my Christian life walking with Jesus beginning at age 50, I was shunned by pastors, shunned by 2 churches,

twice locked into psychiatric wards for what doctors deemed ‘psychotic’ behaviors (8 fragments in my mind), lost all civil liberties and drugged.

I was diagnosed as being an Alcoholic,

diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder,

Attachment Disorder,

Major Anxiety Disorder,

Dependent Personality Disorder,

Borderline Personality Disorder,

with suicidal ideation, C-PTSD, and other terms I cannot remember.

All believers abandoned me, but 2.

My immediate family were all dead and I was estranged from my 2 daughters.

No one within the secular or Christian realm of psychiatry could or did help me.

Only Jesus. Jesus and me.

On top of all that, I had many wounds,

the embittered root systems of incest/sexual abuse,

fear/terror, lies, abandonment,

rejection, neglect, death ideation,

isolation, hyper-vigilance,

psychotic behaviors (fragmentation),

survival system injuries,

deadened emotions,

deadened conscience,

erratically systemic bodily functions,

myriad erroneously learned behaviors,

alcoholism,

I was a de-humanized creature, with a deeply rooted fear of all people, all the preceding exacerbated through freemasonry within my familial generational lineage.

For all of the above, I was a completely shattered person who ran all over the world from trauma, was homeless, raped and the list goes on.

Because of my experiential knowledge I am quite able to minister to the homeless, alcoholics, street people etc.,

because I understand the journey of pain

and when it’s left on its own the damaging effects it has on everyone.

Jesus walks the streets with me, Jesus ministers to people through my spoken and written words.

It is Jesus Who heals. Only Jesus.

Thank You, Jesus!"