And how would they describe you?

This past week was Court Reporter and Captioner Week, so I had drug up some of my favorite court stories into my mind to make little videos and put on the website.  Well, I got them refreshed mentally, but my body didn’t get time to video them.  For several years, we have taken depositions of inmates who have accused guards in the prisons of sexually abusing them.  One of the very first cases we had was of an inmate who had gone to a facility as a kitchen worker, transferred from another facility.  This woman had accused one of the administrators of long-term sexual abuse.  She described the man coming in late at night and sending for her to come to the kitchen to cook him something, and then something else would get cooked, you might say.
 
There were letters written back and forth between them, and some of it did sound like a love affair.  The attractive female attorney who represented the prisons began asking her about this “affair,” and intimating that this sexual relationship was consensual and that she encouraged it and wanted it.  The inmate answers a few questions, then she gets real direct and says to the female attorney, “Have you MET YOUR CLIENT?  Have you met him?”  She gets no answer, so she proceeds on.  She says, “If you have, then you KNOW!  You can smell this man coming 50 feet away, and his teeth are all rotten and his breath would knock you over.  And he has a mole the size of a quarter right at his privates.  The ONLY way this man could get a woman is to get one that’s locked up and has no way to say no.” 
 
Wow.  That was one of those moments you don’t forget.  I felt really sorry for this girl.  She was a woman by then, of course, but just like most of them, had been abused as a child, started doing drugs, then stealing, and before you know it, she’s locked up in prison and is the play toy of a monster.  I hate like anything that I missed the administrator’s deposition, but the story that came out of it was that it was videotaped, and they begin asking this man about whether he has this mole or not, and he denies it.  The inmate’s attorney says, “All right.  I’d like you and the videographer to go into this side room, and he is going to film you proving that you have no mole there.”  The videographer goes pale.  He didn’t realize this was in his job description.  But amazingly, the truth begins to get told.  “Well, I might have a mole, but I’m not sure it’s the size of a quarter…..”  You’ve got to laugh.
 
As I thought about telling that story, it reminded me that our sins will always find us out.  Anytime I have EVER tried to hide something in my life, either God reveals it or my guilt forces me to reveal it.  It’s just not worth it…
 
I read an article in the Charleston paper this week that has stuck with me as well, on the same vein.  A man in Texas died, and his daughter wrote things in his obituary such as “he lived 29 years longer than expected and much longer than he deserved.”  The obituary noted that he left behind two “relieved” children, a son and daughter, along with “countless other victims,” including an ex-wife, family members, friends, neighbors, and “doctors, nurses and random strangers.” 
 
“Leslie was surprisingly intelligent; however, he lacked ambition and motivation to do anything more than being reckless, wasteful, squandering the family savings and fantasizing about get-rich-quick schemes,” it stated.  “Leslie’s hobbies included being abusive to his family, expediting trips to heaven for the beloved family pets and fishing, which he was less skilled at than the previously mentioned.” 
 
It continued, “Leslie’s life served no other obvious purpose.  He did not contribute to society or serve his community and he possessed no redeeming qualities besides quick-witted sarcasm which was amusing during his sober days.”  The Houston Chronicle reported that this man had pleaded guilty to an assault charge in 1979.  He also pleaded guilty in 2008 to assaulting a family member by pouring hot liquid on his then-wife of 40 years.  The next year, he pleaded guilty to violating the resulting restraining order by calling another family member and threating to kill her.” 
 
As we watch ugliness and vitriol poured out on this forum called Facebook, I pray it does not get on us, get in us, so that we turn into people who spew forth hate and rantings and ravings about this or that.  Let’s use our lives so that when we leave this world, our children and those around us “rise up to call her blessed” like the Proverbs 31 woman.  Life is too short, and as proven just this week by a dear friend of mine not awakening at 53 years of age and a terrible murder occurring to another man who just committed the crime of simply opening his front door.  Let us all be about our Father’s business, trying to save those whom the devil seeks to devour……