I met Constance Carter the first month of working as a manicurist at Radiance advanced skin and body care in the Woodlands. She was my client. It didn’t take long for me to realize God had set me up. About 5 min into the appointment she abruptly waylaid me with the question, “So do you believe in God? Do you know who Jesus is?” I laughed to myself “Lady you have no idea who you are talking to.” I politely responded to her “Yes, I was actually raised in a Christian home and we all love God.” From that point on for the remainder of our time together we talked about God, people, our experiences with church and ministry and mainly our love for Jesus and the gospel. She quickly detected that I was a bit jaded toward church and she probed me with questions about it. I made it evident to her that I loved God with all my heart and my desire was toward ministry and loving God and others but experience had put a bad taste in my mouth toward “church people”. She encouraged me to follow my passion and to not let the fire God had put in me to burn out but to get active with it and allow it to heal my heart. I definitely felt a special presence of God with us in that room as we visited and I knew God was up to something.
Constance shared with me about her calling namely prison ministry and near the end of our time together she invited me to come with her on her next visit to the women’s prison in Texas City. I knew when presented with such an opportunity to love God by loving others I could not say no. We exchanged numbers and I told her to count me in. When she left I prayed, “God, I don’t know what you’re doing but I can’t deny this is you. If you have something for me with this lady and prison ministry make it plain and give me the courage to follow through.”
The day before the appointed date for us to go she texted me to profusely apologize that the chaplain at the prison had made a mistake and did not put my name on the list for visitors the following day. I wasn’t going to be able to come this time. I told her it was all right and to just count me in the next time. I sighed and thought to myself, “it just wasn’t meant to be.” The next morning Constance calls me and says, “I don’t know what happened but I called the prison and when they read the list of visitors to me you are actually on it!” She was excited and so was I. We both agreed it was spiritual warfare and we were back on track. On the drive over to the prison we had great fellowship getting to know each other and singing worship to God. Upon arrival we all checked ourselves for contraband and prepared ourselves mentally and spiritually for what God would have for us this trip. I had never been to a prison so it was all mind blowing from going through the gate and security about three or four times to passing the “pill line” and arriving at the chapel. Constance amazed me. Every person we talked to she would greet with a big smile and an enthusiastic “how are you?” and when the exchange was over she would joyfully tell them “Jesus loves you!” As we walked through the prison heading toward the chapel every inmate we passed, Constance would greet them with her usual pleasantry and then invite them to “church”. Once we were in the chapel and ready to go the six of us in the group wandered around greeting and hugging the ladies that showed up to church. There were about 30 or 40 altogether. We began the service by singing, singing, and singing worship to God. The ladies love Constance and joyously joined in the praise. After we had sang 2 or 3 songs their choir came forward and sang Days of Elijah. When it got to the bridge they sang their hearts out to there’s no God like Jehovah, there’s no God like Jehovah, there’s no God like Jehovah! During the song they had three women with a beautiful sash in each hand dancing down the isles with the sashes streaming around them and above them as they skipped up and down the isles. It was breath taking. One of Constance’s dear friends there at this point had a song she had worked on for Constance and she wanted to come and perform it for her and more importantly for her Savior. She was a dancer and had developed choreography to the song. The song was about being in the presence of God and the freedom, love, peace and joy of being in His arms. It was simply beautiful what the girl had done with the song and the entire time she had a big gorgeous smile on. Later I learned she is struggling with Lupus, 50% of her lungs work and she has a pacemaker. But you would never have known for the joy she displayed while dancing for Jesus. After more singing Constance introduced me as a new visitor and explained how we met and left me to share with them what God had on my heart for them For 5 min. I told them that I had not prepared anything because I knew if I was meant to share something God would give it to me when the time came. I explained to them that I was very nervous and felt very humbled to speak to them because coming from a family that loved me and cared for me and raised me in the path of Christ I did not feel I could not even begin to understand all that the women there had gone through and how could I begin to know what to speak into their life or have the audacity to feel the right to do so. I gave them a bit of my testimony and experiences. My focus was if you are not gravitating toward Christ you are gravitating away from Christ. God is the hound of heaven. He is love, joy and peace. He wants each of us but we have to stop running from Him. I told them whatever their experience in life is to not mistake that as God. That is what we so often do. I told them to let God woo them. Then I felt led to sing “Orphan’s of God” to them by Avalon. Many of them began to weep. The other women came up and shared. Our time was up so we took a moment to pray over the pregnant ladies and to speak with and pray with anyone else who wanted to. It was at this point Nancy came up to me. She was one of the inmates. She told me that even though I didn’t feel like I had anything to give these women what I had shared touches these women and reaches them deeper than I realized. She told me to take my experience and all that I had learned from my family and follow my calling. She looked hard at me and said this is your calling. You could save so many women by your obedience to Christ. She then gave me her testimony. She said there was hardly anything out there she hadn’t done and she is now serving her 13 year sentence for it but God had pursued her and she surrendered to Him one stormy night and she will never be the same. She says she knows what it is when the scripture says once I was lost and now I’m found. When it speaks about having an old man. She says she will not and can never go back to her old self. She is a new woman. She began to tear up at this point and we hugged like we were sisters and we’d known each other our whole lives. After we prayed together it was time to go.
Our group decided to stop at Denny’s for something to eat on our way back so we could share our experiences during our visit. We laughed, we cried and thanked God for blessing our trip. During our time there our waitress overheard what we had been doing at the prison and after pouring some coffee she said, “I just want ya’ll to know I think what you’re doing at the prison is awesome and keep it up don’t get discouraged because some of us actually are listening and what you’re doing isn’t in vain. I’ve been out for 6 months and I’m not messing up again.” We all just looked at each other in amazement and said you know I think we’ve just entered the twilight zone. And for all of you reading this anytime God presents an opportunity for you to love Him by loving others, when you chose to follow him into the entire world preaching the gospel it is like entering the twilight zone. You will be on the ride of your life and you will never experience His love so deep or be so fulfilled because you did what you were made to do.
Love Beverly Bullen
In John 4 the disciples return from a food run. They had left their Master hungry and exhausted sitting next to a well but now they return to find Him speaking with a Samaritan woman, which was totally taboo, but they don’t have the nerve to ask Him, “What are you doing Jesus?” and then when she leaves strangely He doesn’t even seem anxious to eat the food they have brought Him. They urge Him to eat and His timeless reply is
I think about this passage all the time. When I look at my own life and ministry I can honestly say that the fuel for pressing harder and harder into the harvest comes from the joy of those tender moments where Jesus shows up, touches someone through me, and changes their life. Having a taste of that “kind of food” becomes a holy addiction that I wouldn’t trade for anything in this world. I woke this morning thinking of and praising God for the almost countless “Jacob’s well” experiences that He has blessed me with in just the last few months and for the immense joy and motivation they bring to my life.
I think of the young woman and her baby that I prayed for at the altar after preaching in a church in Medellin, Colombia who when I laid my hands on her and her baby she collapsed to the floor as I caught the baby and she gave her heart to Jesus. I later learned that she had never been in a church service before and had never heard the gospel before. She had gone to borrow some clothes from a neighbor and they had asked her to come with them to church and hear the American preacher… Only God…
I think of the discouraged pastor in his 30’s who wept out his hunger for God as I laid hands on him and prayed over him as he knelt on the board floor of a little church on stilts in a slum in Belize.
I think of the precious 20 year old pastor’s daughter in Sibate’, Colombia who after a miraculous night of ministry when her father asked her to join him in praying over me and my ministry broke down weeping and held onto me as she choked out her prayer between great sobs asking God to continue anointing me so that souls continue to be healed through my ministry as she had seen that night. How do you compare anything this world offers with that?