Here I Am

 Here I Am

“Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking: Who should I send: Who will go for us? I said: Here I am. Send me.” Isaiah 6:8

I recently was able to go to the prison and do prison ministry. It took over a year to get the background check and even after it cleared we showed up and were told our names weren’t on the list. That is always discouraging when we are sent out to go back home. What we thought the Lord was doing to be sent back. That would happen when I did jail ministry occasionally. It is always a matter of their timing and their paperwork that has to be all aligned and nothing we could do. So when we were sent back it really wasn’t a surprise. Disappointment but not surprise. This time we went and got in. Our names were at the desk and this time we got to go.

It was a long walk back to the chapel. At the chapel at the end of the gated area we were met by men from all different backgrounds. My instructions were just to shake hands with the residents. I had never done prison ministry with men before but as I entered the area that service was held it was the same thing I used to see doing jail ministry with women. The community that they create as they come together as you can clearly see the love they have for one another. The gathering together to come and hear from the Lord. I will admit being the newby always comes with insecurities and shaking those hands with men is different than being with the women. But once we started the introductions it became easier because we were there for the purpose to extend the love of God. And even as we all came to be that extension of the hands and feet of Jesus it was once again an opportunity for them to show us how they were the hands and feet of Jesus. My husband was allowed “bro hugs” and if you aren’t familiar with this term it is something that allows men to go all in with a hug. I did this on a recent mission trip. Not the bro but the “all in” hug I was able to give those women in that recovery center. Complete strangers and seeing all those women and going in just hugging them like I had known them forever. The love of God moving in to love His chosen ones.

It wasn’t a surprise when my husband started getting those hugs. Knowing his personality, he doesn’t meet strangers. Just ask anyone who knows him. Or ask our girls. When they were little no one was a stranger. It didn’t matter where we went Walmart, anywhere someone was going to be talked to. The greeter or the person in line. He has always had the gift to meet people where they are and just start talking. The prison wasn’t any different for either of us. Because that is what you learn when you go and go where God sends you. We aren’t all sent inside prisons but we are sent all around. We all can’t give those full embrace hugs but we can be that extension of the hands and feet of Jesus. In our words. In our actions. In everything that God calls us to do. Listening and meeting people where they are. Stopping to have that conversation. Inviting the Holy Spirit to do within us what God wants to do in this world.

Those men blessed me. I got to sit in a circle with another male leader and discuss what they had just heard. The sermon was about going out and being sent by God to be a witness wherever He has placed us. Even in prison those men had a heart to be the extension of Jesus. Their circumstances didn’t define them. Sitting with them and seeing the different faces and ages was once again the reminder to my heart no matter what you are working  Lord! And our circumstances can’t hold back what God wants to do. It takes the heart posture of saying to Him daily, “Here I am, send me.”

What would that look like? In our workplaces? In our neighborhoods? In our everyday interactions we have with those around us? 

It would look so different. It would look like us sharing the greatest news we ever could to a world that is dying to know that kind of peace and comfort.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking: Who should I send? Who will go for us? 

I said: Here I am. Send me.