A new normal!

Ah... I've barely had time for breathing lately... much less any extra time for blogging. I'm swamped in a wild world! Today, leaving one of the women's prisons, being escorted by a guard, hearing the clanks of the bars of the doors as they are clanked opened, then shut... I thought, I am feeling way too comfortable now in this world. This isn't normal!!! And yet more and more and more I'm feeling that I'm in my element. Who would have figured,....... but this is my zone!

We had four lockdowns the other day in the time I was there. Nobody batted an eye. I didn't care, didn't ask, didn't wonder, didn't worry. We were studying about God. Doing our thing in the midst of a sideroom of a dormitory where a slew of girls slept at night. The world could have fallen down around us. We weren't distracted. We weren't weirded-out. We felt safe. God's in His world, He's still in control, and though none would prefer the place they now stay, they all know that He has a hand in it. He has a plan. He has a purpose. They have a hope for their future!

It's amazing the things that I learn. I am more fascinated each time I leave. I learn a lot of the horror, but good things too. Today our study was rerouted to God's creation and the wonder of God that is found in it. One girl commented about the comfort of animals. Not just dogs or cats, she said, but a lot of the ones that most don't notice, that most are irritated with, that most would swat away or stomp to kill.

Ants are so exciting to watch, they said. Another oohed and ahhed over the fascination of a bee. Another.... (get this!), a praying mantis. She said that she's learned that they love to be petted! That they will arch their backs like a cat does... and would surely purr if they had a cat's motor.

Awww.... don't you know that God smiles as He watches His girls! Even the ones that are incarcerated! Maybe even especially those! Who else do you know that stops to pet a praying mantis... and appreciates the wonder that God made in them when He created such a creature?

"From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us." (Acts 17:26-27