Criminals + Grief = A Story of Redemption

My day ended with knowledge of understanding that a man who has served me for the last 8 months is nothing like he seems.

Let me back up a bit to tell you everything. I am going to change names + places, to protect my dear friend. I am a very odd person. To name one odd thing about me, is that I am an introvert operating as an extrovert. Not a lot of people guess this about me, but it’s true that I value my alone time.

People are a hobby of mine though. I always need to be around them because I think they are absolutely fascinating creatures. Their character, traditions, fashion, pains, family, relationships, hobbies, and everything else that sums up their story. I want to know everything that makes up a person that makes them that way.

Today I knew that I was supposed to hear someone’s story. Specifically, I heard God telling me to listen to the story of a criminal. My first thought was that this is absolutely perfect! I used to be one, plus law enforcement is a passion of mine. But my second thought was that this is terrifying. Because even though I love people, I come from a place where you don’t just walk up to a person and ask them for their story – that’s how you get beat up.

But I sucked it up and said, yes God, I’m ready to be uncomfortable. BUT THEN, God had to go on ahead and tell me to go to one of my favorite places in this city. Being in one of my favorite places wasn’t an uncomfortable place for me. But I still went on with it, just thinking that this was the flesh side wanting to go where I wanted. 

So I went and I felt prompted to just sit and wait. Immediately after I sat down, the gentleman that always serves me got off his shift early. I never talked to him more than was necessary. But today, I thought I should chat with him more. I invited him to sit with me and talk if he had some time.

He told me that he had time – because he was waiting for his parole officer to give him a ride home.

I got absolutely jazzed when he said that! I was able to hear his story of complete brokenness. How his grief of his child has made him lose everything from his wife to his simple acts of freedom. And I was able to just share a simple tale of the man who created that child of his. It was short but by the end of it, we were both in tears. That doesn’t happen a lot. 

Now here I am reflecting on this journey. Realizing that Papa brought me to my favorite place to serve me where I’m at. He was showing me how easy and simple it is to just talk to someone. We never even talked about why he was on parole – that was just supposed to catch my eye.

This story is now going to affect me forever in how I love all of the random humans because they all matter.