Wherever You Are
By Deborah P. Brunt
The setting looked quite ordinary. Rows of folding chairs filled a large activity room. The chairs faced a small stage. Those of us with purple t-shirts and khaki pants were preparing to present a program. As the women arrived, I shook hands with a number of them, exchanging names and brief pleasantries. On many faces, I met broad smiles. In many eyes, I found an unmistakable light.
Three were very pregnant. One of them announced that her baby was overdue. We invited her to sit where she could exit quickly. Another young lady entered the room showing pictures of her newborn.
While we visited, a purple-shirted man set up equipment, checked mikes, then began playing lively CD music over the sound system. The ladies responded immediately to the music, standing, clapping, swaying. Someone spontaneously led out and, soon, a growing line of women clapped, swayed and danced its way around the perimeter of the room.
At time to start the program, the women gave a standing ovation to the man who welcomed them. He introduced a comedian who barreled into the room from the rear, hurling down the center aisle decked in pompadour wig and outlandish clothing. Uproarious laughter erupted – and didn’t stop till he left the stage. Either he was the funniest man I’ve heard in a long time, or we were all just set for a loud, long laugh.
“My face muscles hurt, I laughed so much,” one lady said afterward.
After the comedian came a singer—an Oklahoma man who had sung for many years with the gospel group, the Imperials. Then, a woman spoke and, finally, a cowboy from Texas serenaded us with country-western tunes.
Every one of those artists was four-star. And yet, I’m telling you, they were not the main attraction. The audience was. The energy in that crowd was electric—but never out-of-hand. Every time a song started, women stood to move to the music. We clapped in time until my hands hurt. Laughter flowed freely, and so did appreciative comments called out at appropriate times to those on stage.
When the singers talked between songs, the women listened. But when the lady speaker had her say, the hush in the room was palpable. The energy didn’t dissipate. It just held its breath. The lady was telling her story. The women strained to hear it.
You see, her story was their story—at least in part. She had been where they are. Everything in them identified with the hopelessness she’d felt. Everything in them cried for the hope she offered.
Yes, the room looked quite ordinary. But outside, floodlights shone down on a tall fence topped by rolling barbed wire. The shirts each woman wore said “INMATE” in large block letters across the back. We were meeting in a maximum security prison.
The lady who spoke had been in and out of prisons and mental institutions, eaten up with liver disease from drug and alcohol use, rejected and abandoned by birth parents, adoptive parents, and anyone else with whom she’d tried to live. Now she’s married, rearing her children, active in church.
She assured the women that Psalm 146:7 is true: “The Lord sets prisoners free.” She explained how God’s “one and only Son” Jesus does that. She insisted, with John 8:36, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Many nodded vigorously as she spoke.
After the program, the women filed back to their cells. Walking out past guards and gates and barbed-wire fence, I knew: Wherever you are, you can be imprisoned. Wherever you are, you can be free.
Scripture quotations are from New International Version.
© 2002, 2005 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.
“Wherever You Are” also appears as Snapshot 14 in Deborah’s book, Focused Living in a Frazzled World: 105 Snapshots of Life.
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