Here's an example of what a prison chaplain deals with. See if you can follow this:
There is a fella who is a part of the current Father Accountability class I facilitate at the prison. I really want to help him get his life on course. He has begun coming to church on a regular basis and is beginning to show a great interest in the things of the Lord. He has three children. By three different women. Here's where it gets confusing.
He is married to the mother of one of those children. However, they are not together. She has a live-in boyfriend and works as a stripper in a local men's club. He has a girlfriend with whom he has the youngest of his children. But she's married to another man who is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence somewhere. He's currently having problems with girlfriend/mom of third child because she has another boyfriend living with her and his son while he is incarcerated.We haven't even gotten to the third child and her mother yet.
I'm not making this up. I'm not that creative.
Besides beginning to come to church and to show some interest in the things of God, he has begun to come around and seek counsel from me. He's looking to me for answers on how to get all of this straightened out.
It's enough to make my head spin. Most days I just look at him as he sits and shares with me, and with a wrinkled brow, I say, "Huh?"
Thursday, September 18, 2008
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1 comment:
Funnily enough I've just listened to an even more complicated story from a (now Christian) prisoner today. There are five or six children in the story all with different mothers.
God, you'll have to sort it out for them and for us. Amen.
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