.
I found myself sitting yet again in another court room waiting room. On the defendants' side, of course, where faces are plagued with hopeful pleading. An anguished begging inside shows in their every demeanor. A silent plea exuberates from their very presence. They want their loved one set free. They're praying for favor and for their release.
I wonder though what sits in the opposing waiting area? Where the victims' families are waiting. What do their faces show? What do their bodies exude?
If what I've seen in the hearings that I've attended in the past are any evidence of indication of what might sit there... I can only imagine and envision the steam of their wrath rising from the heat that still seethes and simmers and burns within them.
Being "for" is perhaps free-er in some ways than being "against." And yet, I know that that's not always as it is. Even "for"s sometimes seethe. They, too, in their still stale anger, can burn their own blame and their own hatred toward the thing that's happened and the people involved in it. In other words, there's lots of feeling felt in both holding rooms. There's lots of hurt hurting again (or still)! There's lots of blame and shame and pain on both sides of the fence. It's stressful, it's hard, it's tormenting, it's treacherous for everybody... the offender and the offended. The families of both, the friends, and those awaiting the verdict too with them in the prison camp, the teachers, and counselors, and volunteers that have come in to help them.... One person and their actions ripple and reverberate and affect a whole mass of people.
I've been to several hearings hoping for parole in the last couple of weeks. Who knew, but God, that I'd one day find myself here? And in all those cases just recently, everyone has been devastated with saddening news and all their requests have been denied. Already this morning one of our girls, one of my favorites, was put off 3 years. Well, yea, only three, compared to some of the others being put off for five.... but I had so hoped she'd get to go home!
And yet, after her hearing I circled and came back to sit again for another girl. One who isn't in our class. One I don't know well, but Lord God, please hear my cry, please let them today grant her a "Yes!" This girl, at least, Lord! After so many "No"s... please help this one to get "Yes"ed today and get to go home. Please, Lord! Oh please!
I wonder at all the pleas of "please" that are being begged right this very minute as I write and are bombarding in unison the ears right now of my Father in Heaven? So many "please"s, Lord, but only You know! You know what's best. You know who needs to go home and you doesn't need to leave yet. I trust Your "know," Lord, You know what we don't. You hear and see and know our will.... but not our will, Lord God, but Your will alone.
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Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
A hodge-podge of quick catch-up
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Well... it's been a minute since I've been on here. No? It's been almost a month since I've voiced something on this reserved space on the Internet of mine. I'd like to write an excuse to tell why I've been absent. Why I've been gone. Why I've been silent. But I don't really have one. I haven't died. Nothing sadly seriously horrible has happened. I've not been sick. No deaths in the family. I've not slept through the last 29 days. I've still gotten up every morning. I've been busy, but I've not been more busy than normal. I've still gone about the normalcy of my everyday stuff. Honestly? I don't know why I've not written.
I've often had lots to say. Too much to say perhaps. But as I find often, sometimes somethings and feelings and events and findings are too big for words. I've simply failed at knowing how to verbalize them. It's been too hard to capsule my thinking and stuff them into a few black words typed upon the stage of a white canvased page on a computer screen.
I've been studying a lot. I can't tell you how often in Scripture the words that I've read have jumped into the very depths of my soul and stirred my mind's thinking. How they've moved me to wonder. How they've pierced me to ponder. How they've caused me to plead in prayer the things that they've said and have been saying to me. I wonder at why I've heard them? I wonder at why my Father has said them?
The words that woe (whoa!) me are more times than not the same words that woed / whoaed me the last time that I passed by their stayed place on the pages of Holy Writ and read them. I suppose that God wanted me to see them again. He not only wanted me to remember, He wanted to remind me. He wanted to emphasize the seriousness again. He simply needed to tell me again in case I'd forgotten them. And I have no doubt, I know that with that again telling, that God has reason and purpose in His plan to tell me. It makes me want to get-it deeper this time! It makes me wonder what He's got ahead for me and what He's equipping and preparing me for through His saying in what lies ahead of me on His Divinely Kingdom Prepared Calendar.
I love His voice! I love His Word! I love to hear Him! I love when what He's said hits hard and pierces deep and provokes to thinking to then hopefully move me enough to do and obey them.
Along with basking at the feet of our Great Teacher in the past month, I've sat in a boat load of parole hearings. I've been in and out in the prisons talking more extensively with those people in them. I've picked recently released prisoners up and spent the day with them in their first few breaths of new again felt freedom. I've labored over their hard and have continued to bring so many of them to the Throne of Grace for all the variety of ways that they need Him. I've had the faired share of family crises with my mom and my siblings. And I've both pageant-ed and prom-ed and shared so many fun times with my husband and children. We've had Ups and Downs and All-Arounds... and God is always faithful and GOoD! So GOoD, in fact, that I feel I dare never have reason to complain because even through the trials He's blessed us so greatly!
I make no promises, but I'll do my best to try and go back and catch up on some of the things that have happened in the last month so as to document and not lose memory of those failed-to-be-voiced days that I've been given. I now regret that my fingers have been on lock-down from their typing, I feel too behind now to catch up. The pondering processes in my mind were obviously too slow with too much of a cycling to be able to release my mind's activity to blogged memory. Oh, that I would take time to write every day to record them! If only for me alone, I LOVE to go back and see the trail of where I've walked on this pilgrimage that I've been assigned to.
"All the days ordained for me have been written in Your book before one of them came to be".... Oh, to see the written ordained days of mine that my God has written! Oh, to know that He not only knows, but that He takes the time to write them!
I'll close with this. I found myself singing these words today before I had time to think of what my mouth was singing. It was only as I sang them that I thought of the words I was saying. "This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior, all the day long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior, all the day... Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of Glory Divine! Heir of salvation, purchased of God, Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior, all the day long............"
Well, I have a story! And I have a song1 And you have a story and a song, as well. Oh, to be able to tell of it while praising your Savior! For if not for Him, my story would be so horribly different!
I read once that during a particular war in the Transvaal in the late 1800s that when the soldiers going to the front were passing other soldiers of theirs in whom they recognized that their greetings used to be, 'Four-nine-four, boys; four-nine-four'.... and their salute would quickly be answered with, 'Six-further-on, boys; six further on.' The significance of this was that in a song book sent to the front, number 494 was "God Be With You Til We Meet Again;".... and six songs past that one ('six further on', on page 500) was "Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine"... this song of which just now that I quoted from above.
Four-nine-four, reader, four-nine-four!
And too, Six-further-one, reader... six-further-on!
We're in such a battle on this earthly sod! May God be with you till we meet again! And may you have that blessed assurance that Jesus is yours as you let Him write your story and you sing His song!
.
Well... it's been a minute since I've been on here. No? It's been almost a month since I've voiced something on this reserved space on the Internet of mine. I'd like to write an excuse to tell why I've been absent. Why I've been gone. Why I've been silent. But I don't really have one. I haven't died. Nothing sadly seriously horrible has happened. I've not been sick. No deaths in the family. I've not slept through the last 29 days. I've still gotten up every morning. I've been busy, but I've not been more busy than normal. I've still gone about the normalcy of my everyday stuff. Honestly? I don't know why I've not written.
I've often had lots to say. Too much to say perhaps. But as I find often, sometimes somethings and feelings and events and findings are too big for words. I've simply failed at knowing how to verbalize them. It's been too hard to capsule my thinking and stuff them into a few black words typed upon the stage of a white canvased page on a computer screen.
I've been studying a lot. I can't tell you how often in Scripture the words that I've read have jumped into the very depths of my soul and stirred my mind's thinking. How they've moved me to wonder. How they've pierced me to ponder. How they've caused me to plead in prayer the things that they've said and have been saying to me. I wonder at why I've heard them? I wonder at why my Father has said them?
The words that woe (whoa!) me are more times than not the same words that woed / whoaed me the last time that I passed by their stayed place on the pages of Holy Writ and read them. I suppose that God wanted me to see them again. He not only wanted me to remember, He wanted to remind me. He wanted to emphasize the seriousness again. He simply needed to tell me again in case I'd forgotten them. And I have no doubt, I know that with that again telling, that God has reason and purpose in His plan to tell me. It makes me want to get-it deeper this time! It makes me wonder what He's got ahead for me and what He's equipping and preparing me for through His saying in what lies ahead of me on His Divinely Kingdom Prepared Calendar.
I love His voice! I love His Word! I love to hear Him! I love when what He's said hits hard and pierces deep and provokes to thinking to then hopefully move me enough to do and obey them.
Along with basking at the feet of our Great Teacher in the past month, I've sat in a boat load of parole hearings. I've been in and out in the prisons talking more extensively with those people in them. I've picked recently released prisoners up and spent the day with them in their first few breaths of new again felt freedom. I've labored over their hard and have continued to bring so many of them to the Throne of Grace for all the variety of ways that they need Him. I've had the faired share of family crises with my mom and my siblings. And I've both pageant-ed and prom-ed and shared so many fun times with my husband and children. We've had Ups and Downs and All-Arounds... and God is always faithful and GOoD! So GOoD, in fact, that I feel I dare never have reason to complain because even through the trials He's blessed us so greatly!
I make no promises, but I'll do my best to try and go back and catch up on some of the things that have happened in the last month so as to document and not lose memory of those failed-to-be-voiced days that I've been given. I now regret that my fingers have been on lock-down from their typing, I feel too behind now to catch up. The pondering processes in my mind were obviously too slow with too much of a cycling to be able to release my mind's activity to blogged memory. Oh, that I would take time to write every day to record them! If only for me alone, I LOVE to go back and see the trail of where I've walked on this pilgrimage that I've been assigned to.
"All the days ordained for me have been written in Your book before one of them came to be".... Oh, to see the written ordained days of mine that my God has written! Oh, to know that He not only knows, but that He takes the time to write them!
I'll close with this. I found myself singing these words today before I had time to think of what my mouth was singing. It was only as I sang them that I thought of the words I was saying. "This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior, all the day long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior, all the day... Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of Glory Divine! Heir of salvation, purchased of God, Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior, all the day long............"
Well, I have a story! And I have a song1 And you have a story and a song, as well. Oh, to be able to tell of it while praising your Savior! For if not for Him, my story would be so horribly different!
I read once that during a particular war in the Transvaal in the late 1800s that when the soldiers going to the front were passing other soldiers of theirs in whom they recognized that their greetings used to be, 'Four-nine-four, boys; four-nine-four'.... and their salute would quickly be answered with, 'Six-further-on, boys; six further on.' The significance of this was that in a song book sent to the front, number 494 was "God Be With You Til We Meet Again;".... and six songs past that one ('six further on', on page 500) was "Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine"... this song of which just now that I quoted from above.
Four-nine-four, reader, four-nine-four!
And too, Six-further-one, reader... six-further-on!
We're in such a battle on this earthly sod! May God be with you till we meet again! And may you have that blessed assurance that Jesus is yours as you let Him write your story and you sing His song!
.
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