Locked In and Locked Out

Yesterday I went to prison to give my testimony.

Sixteen doors, locking behind me. Quiet footsteps echoing down the landings – and then – suddenly, a burst of noise. Voices spilling into the corridor. A roomful of women – like me, but not like me.

I take my seat in the circle. I push back into the brickwork.  I listen.  And then – gradually,  I speak.

I talk about growing up in Northern Ireland.  In a nice middle-class home, with a loving middle-class family.

They are silent.

I talk about being a good girl, who always kept the rules.

They are silent.

I talk about going to church and bible college and marrying a vicar.

They are silent.

…

I listen to the silence.  I feel my privilege, my softness, my gentle, insulated life.

I wonder why I’m here.  I pray. And I speak again.

…

I talk about a hunger that can’t be filled.

I talk about letting down the people I love most.

I talk about shame and guilt and anger and a past that won’t stay buried.

I talk about paying for it by myself.

I talk about wanting something so much I want to kill it and I want to kill myself.

I talk about a God who’s just about the rules.

And then

I talk about Jesus.

Who fills our hunger.

Who carries our pain.

Who pays for our mistakes.

Who dies so we don’t have to.

…

Gradually, they speak. 

We talk about a God who comes for prisoners – on the inside and on the outside too.  The good girls and the bad.  The weak – and the strong. We talk about the prodigal son – the bad boy who ends up at the feast, the good boy who’s shut out.   We talk about the God who shocks; and the God who shelters.

I walk out in silence with the woman who invited me.  She too gave her testimony: and spoke of a world I can barely imagine.

‘Life’, I say, ‘is very serious’.

She unlocks the gate. Looks at me.  And nods. ‘Without Jesus’ she says, ‘there is nothing’.

We’re very different.  But I know exactly what she means.