Tender Mercies

Some days when I am reading autobiographies written by incarcerated women, my heart hurts. Like more than just a little. A lot. So many of these women have endured so much, and the injustices, the traumas, the pain, and the sadness of their stories could easily overwhelm me.

Last night it occurred to me that if I feel this way simply reading about their lives, how much more desperate they must feel having lived through their lives. The realization that they spend so much of their time in jail thinking about, talking about, and writing about the most negative parts of their lives becomes apparent.

Then something else occurred to me that when I have had my most difficult and darkest times, someone has touched my life for good and in a way that inspired me to try – even if it was just for one more day. Even now as I think about these people tears fill my eyes, gratitude fills my heart, and I feel blessed. I realize my thank yous will never be sufficient to express how much these people mean to me. I think how much their kindness, honesty, firmness, tenderness, and love continues to touch my life. All I have to do is think of these people and I experience the feelings again and know that they saw something in me worth noticing, even when I had given up on myself. I am truly blessed.

So today, the women and I did something different.

I explained we were going to think about something different this afternoon. I asked them to think of a person, past or current, alive or deceased, who inspired them at a time in their lives when they were most down, the most lost, the most devastated the most hopeless. I explained that this person could have been someone they knew for a long time or someone who only paused briefly in their life. The heads began to nod and the tears began to flow.

One woman said she could think of no one. I asked her to think harder. One said she needed longer to think and that the assignment was far too hard. I asked her to take a deep breath and think harder. One woman left the group in tears, but returned later to participate after composing herself.

After taking time to write about the person that influenced them, several women shared their experiences. These women were reminded that even with all of the ugly, there was good in their lives. By the time we finished, the women’s reactions and comments inspired me to include this exercise as an assignment for each woman to complete in the program.

Tender mercies appear every day.

Interestingly, after finishing this post, I came across my horoscope for the day. “There's a wealth of knowledge and experience you can tap into for your benefit, but you have to be willing to go deep into your own psyche. You're both the teacher and the student, the guide and the guided. Now would be a great time to go somewhere quiet and peaceful where you can access all the wisdom you have to offer.”

Again, I am made aware of a larger plan and the importance of these women in jail.