Last week we had a graduation for our Montgomery group. They have labored and toiled and stuck it out and homeworked and tested and finished a rigorous two-year program. I was so stupendously proud of them at their graduation that I didn't know what to do! We had the best party eva! (inside prison bars, that is!) with pizza and parents and certificates! The officers finally had to run those of us that didn't belong "in" out, because we went overtime and evidently overstayed our welcome. We weren't ready to leave! And then, because of the sweetness of the whole thing, I cried the whole way on my way home! In case I haven't said it before, I love those girls and feel it my honor to serve them!!!!
I told them when I got there that I was tempted to wear my jammies in and ask the warden if we could have a spend-the-night party? The girls laughed at my ridiculousness... but somehow I didn't figure the warden would find the humor in it. Sometimes it's better to keep-thou-mouth-zipped and not share everything that you're thinking. But seriously, honestly, I would have done it if I could have. And upon saying so, I suppose I should also say that it'd be easier and funner to spend a night knowing that I didn't have an endless amount of days and months and years in there, and knowing I'd be able to leave in the morning at my will and when I wanted! Oh well, I would have brought them all home with me and had a spend-over here if I could have... my kids would have loved it and had a blast... my husband would have thought I was crazy and laughed. Can you even imagine the moment???
Toward the end of the party the girls were thoroughly enjoying all of the pictures that our own Mr. Brothers was taking. They posed this way and that, giggling all the way through. At one point I told them, "Hey, let's do Charlie's Angels....".... But OOPS! When I went to strike the pose with hands glasped into a pistol like motion, I rethought the thought quickly. I laughed and told them, "Nevermind! You can strike that! I doubt that's a very good idea in here." You should have seen them laughing! It was a priceless non-Kodak moment!!! Perhaps we shouldn't have laughed? But sometimes... it's just good to!
Being that we're finished with our program and soon to restart a new one with a whole new bunch of inmates, I was horrified in the middle of the night one night realizing that we're about to lose our group, the one I've come to love so, the one I'm so very much attached to, the ones I can't imagine not being there when I go. Thankfully, we're extending their studies if they're interested. Though they're proud themselves for their accomplishment, they seem reluctant for it to end too. You've gotta love 'em! Who could help to?
God, use those girls for the Light of Your Glory! Both inside while they're still there... and when they get out!
If I love their smiles, and if I love their hearts and their faces, just think of what our Savior feels as He loves them way more than I ever could!
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