Two Days

You know how it is, the daily grind, you hate it but somehow you kind of depend on it, you grow comfortable in it, the grind is good. But God’s ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not the same as ours and He has a perfect plan for our life.

Day One

I received a subpoena to appear at juvenile court as a witness in an abuse case on a former client. The juvenile court in Chicago is to me one of the most depressing places I’ve ever been, it’s huge and there are so many children in the system that it boggles the mind and breaks the heart. I dreaded that appearance and wished that somehow it would just go away, knowing all along that my appearance was needed to help that child to have the opportunity to grow up in a safer, happier environment.

It wasn’t as bad as imagined. The assistant district attorney was kind and helpful and my statements though true and factual weren’t too incendiary and the defendant even smiled at me. I’d done the responsible thing, I left the comfort zone and made my way into someone else’s “grind” and made it through.

Day Two

When you’re in your “grind” you don’t even want to leave it for good things. The very next day after my court appearance I was expected to attend a graduation for one of our participants who had completed a computer skills class. She had come a long way and worked hard I was amazed at her self-confidence and the articulate speech she gave at the ceremony, she’d grown so much. ( Had I been so deep into the “grind” that I hadn’t noticed?) The event was so peaceful and fulfilling I can’t understand why I didn’t want to get out of the “you know what” to attend this.

Well, that just goes to show you, God has a better plan for us, He gets us out of that zone that we come to know as comfortable, but is it really? Most of us work in places where there is a lot of tension and stress (how comfortable is that?) but to leave that work place is dread to us. Walking in someone else’s shoes or even through their hallways once in a while is the zone we need to work toward.

CCO Staffer, Marguerite Brown (posted by Jon Trott)