My hot date with The Man Saturday night had quite an unexpected ending. Before leaving for dinner at Bonefish Grille, we checked movie listings and times. I believe we narrowed our choices down to three but I can’t be certain because my memory just ain’t what it used to be. We couldn’t even remember the name of our first choice—The Next Three Days with Russel Crowe—when we left dinner or the conflicting times for the three (or was it four?) choices. I quickly checked them on my Droid but when we arrived I managed to have the titles all mixed up. So there we were. Early. Fourty-five-ish minutes early.

The good thing about being early was that we had plenty of time to figure out if we picked the right movie and if not, find out just what the movie we were seeing was all about. Nice. Didn’t make us feel old or senile at all. We totally could’ve just snuck in a different movie instead of waiting. But we got our million dollar Diet Coke and waited. I talked about how delicious the Diet Coke was at Bonefish Grille and how much I wish I would’ve gotten a to-go cup and snuck it in for free. Our awesome waitress didn’t even charge us for our Diet Cokes. If you haven’t tried Bonefish Grille, you should. The Bang Bang Shrimp are delicious.

Anyway. So there we were. With our million dollar Diet Coke wishing we had our free Diet Cokes from earlier and contemplating the fact that the movie was over two hours and just how late we might get home. Are we 41 and 42 or 91 and 92?

We were the first couple to enter the theater for our movie. We ate our over priced chocolate from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (I’m done with your sugar-free candy, people. Done. Yuk.) and I tried to force Joe to continue the game I made him play throughout the night where we took turns quoting movie lines. We tallied points to see who won and Joe insists he did but I think he’s banking on my memory loss. If he won, he would have to write a blog post on my blog. But that will never happen so I told him I would settle for a one line post on facebook. That’s not gonna’ happen either.

I totally digress. Or maybe it’s the memory loss and I couldn’t remember the point of this post. Oh yea. The movie.

It starts. I remembered the previews. Russel Crowe’s character’s wife is arrested for a crime in which she appears to be innocent. You don’t know for sure if she is until later in the movie. Suspenseful. I love suspense but I watch with tensed muscles, white knuckles and sometimes between fingers covering my eyes. Early in the movie the couple, John and Lara, and their then three-year-old son Luke are in the kitchen. They’re talking and carrying on with their daily routine. Lara picks up her coat from the night before and notices blood on the collar. As she’s attempting to rinse the blood out, a swarm of law enforcers descend upon her home to arrest her. She’s puzzled, her husband is shocked. And her son is crying inconsolably.

A knot formed in my throat. Every muscle in my body tensed up. I could barely breathe for the tightness in my chest. It hit home. Suddenly the little boy, Luke, was my nephew. The mom, my sister. Though the circumstances in the movie, the crime, the arrest, were all different—this hit home.

Tomorrow morning my parents and I will pick up my sister (niece, by blood), Jamie, from a substance abuse treatment facility where she has been court ordered to attend for the past four weeks. Prior to that she was incarcerated since June 17 of this year. The details of her last arrest include bench warrants as well as a recalled bond. This past year has been a nightmare.

Jamie has given me permission to share her story as I’ve prayed and sought wisdom on just how much to share, what to say. The original crime(s)? Well, possession of illegal substances namely. I won’t go into the specifics on that right now. But I will say that addiction gripped her for quite a while and then sunk its ugly claws in deeply around this time last year. As it lay hold on her, she surrendered to it and succumbed to the lifestyle it encompasses.

Her ten-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son were left to us. Her family. One with the father, soon-to-be ex-husband. The other in the care of my parents. Struggling with divorce and an absent parent. Affected by addiction, jail and even far worse circumstances that they knew nothing about.

It’s been a very long year. At times we had no idea where she was or if she was alive. That season of uncertainty was the absolute worse for me. Worse than her incarceration the last and I believe third time this year. Worse than the awful circumstances of assault just prior to her last arrest. The heartache is almost unbearable for a loved one in the clutches of the enemy.

But no matter how great the enemy’s attack, no matter how strong the addiction, no matter how dark the sin—His love and grace, mercy and forgiveness, is greater still. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. ~Romans 5:20

This year we have prayed, we have fasted and He is faithful. Behind prison bars He was at work. Freedom can be found within a locked cell. We’ve watched from afar as He’s worked in Jamie’s life. And He’s still working. While in the confines of a prison, she sought Him. At times alone with the Word. Other times while in the prison’s church services. Just prior to her release from jail to leave for treatment, she was baptized in the Holy Spirit. On sharing this specific part of her testimony, I prayed earnestly. And I truly believe it’s all too important to just leave out. Differences of opinion or doctrine cannot refute what He has done. We overcome the enemy by the blood of the lamb and the Word of our testimony (Revelation 12:11).

After a week of uncertainty on which state funded rehabilitation facility she would be ordered to, God has moved. We will bring Jamie to a faith based facility locally as opposed to a state funded facility over an hour away or another one locally in a bad part of town. Jamie found favor with two women from this local church after one recent visit. They offered to take her in at no charge. God is faithful.

Saturday I managed through the movie with a chest so tight I thought the E.R. was our next visit. (It didn’t help that the Bang Bang shrimp gave me indigestion.) I’m sure Joe thought my reaction throughout the movie was the usual jumping out of my skin from the suspense. But it wasn’t. No matter how hard I tried to disconnect the movie from reality, Luke was my nephew, Lara, my sister. Lara’s brave attempts to mask her pain from Luke’s silence and rejection broke my heart. I saw my sister. No matter the reason she was behind jail, no matter her guilt, my heart broke for my sister. It broke for her son. It broke for her daughter.

On the way home I managed to explain my difficulty making it through the two plus hours of the movie. I told Joe that I thought about how my parents just recently brought my nephew and niece to see my sister. And I wondered how long before then was it that he saw her. Her daughter had a recent visit. But after how long? I tried to think back. Before June? No. Before January? It had been almost a year. This time last year, Jamie saw her kids. Almost a year.

Uncontrollable sobs forced out of me like a river over a broken dam. For the rest of the way home I cried. Pinned up emotion that I was sure I had cautiously released on a frequent enough basis broke through. It won’t be the last time I cry over this. But that’s okay. We’ll keep praying and fasting and we’ll keep believing. It won’t be easy. In fact, I’m sure my heart will want to protect itself and build a prison of its own. But it’s His Word I’ll be standing on. The circumstances may change. The emotions most assuredly will. His Word will not.

Unlike The Next Three Days, this story doesn’t include an attempt at a prison break. It’s a story about freedom found behind prison bars. A story of God’s redemptive power. A story of grace and forgiveness. I hope you’ll stay tuned for more of the story of God’s restoration. And most of all, I hope you’ll pray for Jamie and her children.


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