Courage to Change

The fridge died.  The warm contents of the freezer were not the result of a son having left the door ajar as my husband first thought.  No, the appliance had failed and did not warrant repair. The stove was the same vintage as the fridge so we decided on a pre-emptive strike stove wise and replaced them both.  Problem - the new stove doesn’t have an outlet to plug the coffee pot into like our old one, so coffee needs to happen on a different part of the counter.  The next logical place for it has meant I had to move the basket that contains the deluge of paper that I will deal with later.  Now I don’t have a place for the basket, or the deluge of paper that I don’t want to deal with.  The change grates me.  Petty, I know. 

My name is Debbie, and I’ve been working as a reintegration chaplain at The Mustard Seed Edmonton for about a year and a half I work with women before and mostly after their release from federal prison. Most days I can’t believe someone is paying me to go to interesting places and meet amazing people.  The stories of their lives and how they came to be involved in the correctional system as employees or inmates or volunteers are compelling.  Some stories are horrific, some noble, some sad, some funny, some inspirational and rarely are they only one of those things.  They all touch me in some way.

It is the stories that are being written, the stories of moving forward that leave me marvelling at my good fortune to be a witness and, in the mercy of God, perhaps a character as they unfold.  My vocabulary fails me when I try to explain the stories of women who have the courage to change everything and start again.  It shouts of how lousy their life has been if everything known and familiar now must be rejected to create a healthy life. A new locale, a new occupation, new friends, and new ways of dealing with life are all part of the wholesale change.  The stakes are so high, and each element of change is daunting on its own - let alone stacked up with the others like a pile of fragile china.  I can not imagine what it would be like to have your life deconstructed and face rebuilding with tools that are only recently acquired.  Perhaps it is my own irritation with change that makes what they are doing so extraordinary to me, but I’d prefer to think it is witnessing this brave thing called courage that leaves me feeling like I’ve been at Niagara Falls.

Fear and doubt are not absent in the presence of courage, but they do not make the courage any less remarkable.   They make it authentic. 

I’m learning in the work of reintegration that it is important for me to help women
make good connections in the community, to support good decisions, to listen to the fears, to comfort in the sorrow but perhaps one of the most important supports is recognizing courage, naming it, applauding it and admiring the beauty of the one who displays it.

- Debbie