His Arresting Love

Last weekend I helped out at a reunion for women who had been part of a discipleship program during their time in prison.

Some of these ladies have been out now for 5 months. Some for 5 years. All of them were eager to be together. To celebrate new jobs and restored family relationships. To pray about hard journeys. And to sing of the “Reckless Love” of God that left the ninety-nine and fought for them until they were found. (You haven’t sung that song until you’ve sung it with a roomful of former inmates.)

Many had worked hard just to make it to the event. Jenny and her fiancé had set aside a little money for several months and sacrificed other things to have gas money for their 4-hour trip. But their car overheated, and they didn’t arrive until half an hour after the official meeting ended.

So those of us who could, relocated to a nearby McDonalds where we could visit longer.

The church that had hosted us excelled in generosity. As I was packing up the registration table, one of the members slipped some cash in my hand and said, “This is for any of the ladies who might need money to buy a drink at McDonalds.”

That was how I came to be standing alone at a cash register in an inner-city McDonalds.

Two Cokes, 1 sweet tea, 1 coffee, 3… I was still rehearsing the order for the dozen women at the tables, when Dinay suddenly stood beside me.

I had met Dinay a year before when she was still in prison. That had made connecting today even more special. Dinay had shared some of her journey earlier at the event. [I’m using pseudonyms to protect privacy, by the way. But if her name was spelled D-i-n-a, the accent was on the last syllable.]

She told everyone about her release from a drug addiction and a transformation that began after she got arrested. “No,” she had corrected herself behind the podium, “after I got rescued.”

Isn’t that just like God? He meets us in the place where justice and mercy come together. Neither is negated. Both are necessary for our salvation. The path to freedom starts with the reality that our choices have consequences. And that we have made a mess. Then, and only then, do we find that His compassion never tasted so sweet as now.

Dinay is living and breathing both the sweetness and the power of that overwhelming love. God loves her. She knows what it feels like to encounter the One who is unintimidated by our brokenness and capable of putting pieces back together.

“I’d really like to pay for everyone’s drinks,” she said to me now at the cash register.

“Oh, thank you, but someone from the church already gave some money to cover it. You use that for something else.”

But she insisted. And something told me to go with it.

The next customer ordered fries and a Coke.

Dinay inserted her debit card a second time, saying to the employee, “And I’d like to pay for hers, too.”

The heavy young woman beside us just looked down at the counter and started to cry.

Dinay, not a touchy-feely type, quickly said, “No, no, don’t cry. Listen, my name’s Dina. I’m doing this because I want you to know that God really loves you.”

“But you have no idea how much I needed that. These were the last couple dollars I had. I don’t have a place to stay right now. I went to the women’s shelter, but they run that place like a jail.”

And at that phrase, I couldn’t wait to hear what Dinay would respond.

My friend ordered the girl a sandwich to go with her fries. Then she spoke a sentence to her that carried the earned authority of one who had lived it:

“You know, jail’s not such a bad place if you meet God there.”

“Oh, I’ve been in jail. I know what that’s like, too,” the girl retorted and listed a few other ways life had been unfair in her opinion.

Dinay was undeterred. “Do you see all those women at that table over there? We were all in prison at one time or another. But we all found a God who loved us. And answered us when we called out to Him. He’s not far away from you. He’s always here, and He wants you to reach out to Him.”

The drink order was ready, so I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation as I left the two of them to deliver my teas and Cokes.

My seat already happened to be next to Dinay’s. So when she rejoined us, I turned to her, apart from the laughter and conversations bubbling around us.

“That was beautiful. No one else could have tuned into her and spoken to her in quite the same way you did. I loved watching that. But I noticed that you introduced yourself to her as Dina instead of Dinay. Do you prefer one over the other?”

“Well, when I got out, I had to have all my documents redone. When my birth certificate came back, it didn’t have the accent mark over the a anymore. Plus, about the same time, my boss gave me this necklace with my initial and said, ‘Because you got your identity back.’”

“So which name is your real identity? Which one does God call you?”

She smiled. “It’s Dina.”

Oh, the reckless love of God indeed. It does whatever it takes, without regard to cost. It is arresting. And rescuing. It frequents the hell holes and despair pits and local fast-food places of our world. It sets us free from our prisons and gives us back our identity. In living color it glows on the faces of transformed lives who pass its hope along to the next one God is trying to apprehend.

Freed, loved, and free to love are we.