No place to go

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I love my girls! I totally do! And I'm thoroughly convinced that they love me too. They may think that I'm the weirdest thing this side of Heaven (their looks tell me they wonder **smile**... I'm a lot to behold!); but we have such a great time, a sweet time, an encouraging one. We only get a mere two hours a week together. I wish it were four! But if it were four, I'm sure I'd wish it were more. It goes by too quickly. We're not ready to end it. I'm always soaring when I leave. I'm filled to full! And then I get in my car for my drive home and I wonder about them. I pray so hard. I pray that God will consume their thoughts as they go to lay on their bunks. I pray that they'll meditate on all that was said, but that they'll especially ponder some individual specific point that God spoke to them while we were together. I pray that all through the night He'll whirl in their minds! I pray that they're strengthened! That they're mightily convicted! That the flames of their fires blaze brighter, stronger! That their faces will glow from spending time with God's glory! That they're a testimony to His wonder!

And even after all that, reality tells me.... no matter what, prison's a hard place to live!

Right before leaving last night one girl asked us to pray for her. She comes up for a parole hearing in 2012. Already she's concerned that she has no "home plan". Without a home plan, without a pre-planned and accepted place to go, the parole is usually denied, the parole board almost always says no. At the moment, she has no "home" to go to. No halfway house. No transitional home. No place that will accept her. And her daddy told her that no matter what she would never ever, ever, ever be welcomed back there.

I can't imagine! Is there anything that my daddy wouldn't forgive me of? I should hope not! Why are some sins, some crimes, more unforgivable, less "grace-able", less mercy-i-ble, less understandable, than others?

She said that there are no transitional homes at all in Alabama for the crime she committed. I asked if she minded telling me what that crime was? She didn't. She told me she's a sex-offender. I came home telling my husband that it's better in Alabama to have murdered than to have sex-offended. Sadly, it's so. But Jesus came and allowed man to put Him on a cross and hang Him for every sin! No matter how heinous. Even that one too! Where do you go when you have no place to go to? No place that will take you? Nobody that will give you a second chance?

You know, earth and its people may never accept you, but God will always welcome you to His Home! And wildly, even  more wild than that, after you've sinned (even the heinous ones), He'll come in and live in your skin as His Home while you still walk this earth. God who is without sin dwells in us!!! God who is without sin dwells in us!!! God... who... is... without... sin... dwells... IN... US!!! He doesn't just have a Home for us, but He makes His home IN us! Even after all that we've done! Whoever heard of such a thing?! And He does it to show His Glory! To be a Display of His Splendor! Oh, the glory of the Lord that uses the "foolish" things of this world! What a Savior we serve!
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