Jury Duty

Hello all! Well, yesterday I had Jury Duty downtown at the County Judicial Center. For those of you who are Memphians, you know exactly what I mean when I say I spent my day at 201 Poplar. And what a day it was! After getting lost twelve times trying to find the Jury Hall, I made it with just minutes to spare, only to sit in a very hard auditorium style chair for three very hot hours while the Jury Commissioner explained each and every detail of the process. With a full bladder and an active baby using that bladder as a trampoline, you can imagine how uncomfortable I got. As they started calling names for juries, I actually got called! I was so excited to be able to stand up and go to the bathroom. Sadly, the wait to get to that bathroom was about another hour. Word to the wise, pregnant women should never go four plus hours without having a potty break. Ouch.

After going through security at 201 Poplar, the infamous courthouse in Memphis, we made it upstairs to the potty and then to the Criminal Court District 9 courtroom. You should know that this wasn't my first time at 201 Poplar. Shortly after I met Red Head in college, I got my first speeding ticket and went down to the courthouse to get it expunged from my record. That was terrifying, but I did have a good idea of what I was getting myself into going down there again for Jury Duty. Well, I thought I was prepared for it...

As the selected jurors all stood in line outside the courthouse, a woman came up to a maintenance worker standing close to us and asked him for directions. Her son was being released from jail and she was there to pick him up. You could see the excitement in her face. I wondered how long he had been locked up, how long had it been since she was able to see him, hug him. I wondered what it must be like to see your own child commit a crime, go through the court system, and then be placed in jail. Did she feel regret? Failure? Loneliness? Fear? Or was it just expected in their family? Did this happen often? And more importantly, would he ever commit another crime that would one day bring his mother back to that same place, picking him up all over again?

Once we were inside the building, it just went downhill. Person after person walking with police officers, lawyers, their families. Some getting to go home. Others facing trial and jail time. Each and every one broke my heart. It was terrible. It was mind boggling to think that on such a pretty spring day, instead of being at home or at work, these people were in a courthouse, searching for freedom and yet many finding only punishment. I completely admit that I was a little afraid of several of the people that I saw. My imagination would get the best of me and I wondered if the security at the front door was good enough to find every weapon that someone to could bring in. I didn't fear for my life but I was a little tense and uncomfortable at times.

On our lunch break, I went to the Court House Deli on Main Street with two friends that I had made in the jury pool. As we walked passed one of the small parks off of Main, there was a homeless woman sitting under a tree with two cops standing above her, telling her that she had to get up and leave. You could smell this woman from a block away. And as heavy as she was, she couldn't get up off the ground. No one tried to help her up. No one dared to touch her. She is our generation's unclean leper. There are signs posted everywhere downtown that say "Say no to panhandling. Giving money to the homeless does not help them. Give money to charities that help the poor." We might as well make the homeless yell out "Unclean! Unclean!" as they walk down the street. I'm not saying anything about giving money to the poor vs charities, that is not my issue. It is that our culture treats the homeless as an outcast group that we would prefer to get rid of or just pretend that they aren't there. Jesus didn't ignore the outcasts. In fact, He came for them. He spent his time with them, ate meals with them. He touched the leper and healed him. He touched the blind, the sick, the broken. He TOUCHED them. Personal skin-on-skin contact. With God Himself. Can you imagine?

I wanted more than anything to be able to touch and heal that woman in the park. I wanted to free her from all the bondage that her life was entangled in. I wanted to cast the demons away from her who kept her in that constant bondage. And I wanted her to open her eyes and see the Savior who came to die for her. Who came to love her. Who came to make her whole. I don't know her name, her story, her sin struggles, her past. This woman who was being humiliated and laughed at by the many around the park tugged at my heart in such a big way. If you think about it, will you pray for her today?

As we walked back to the courtroom, I got a quick second to call Red Head and I pretty much unloaded all of this new emotional baggage onto the poor man during his lunch break. I just didn't understand. I couldn't conceive how the Lord has given us so many blessings while so many go without even a roof over their heads or food to eat. Why us? Two young kids getting ready to buy a house and have a baby? We didn't do anything to deserve these blessings. In fact, we do a lot of things that make us completely undeserving of these blessings. Why us? Why are we so blessed when it could just have easily been us at the park homeless and friendless? I cannot understand the mind of the Lord and how He orders our lives. But I think that day forever changed me. How can I possibly be ungrateful for these blessings after such an eye-opening experience? How could I ever again think that I deserve something?

Back in the courtroom, twenty people were called from the forty of us. As the questions were asked and the final fourteen jurors were selected, I sat back in my seat and listened as they judges and lawyers spoke about the case. It was an attempted second-degree murder case. And in the room with us was the defendant, a young man who looked no more than twenty years old. Although I really wanted to be on the jury, I think the Lord knew that my heart couldn't take hearing all the details of the crime and then having to pass judgement on this man's life. Who am I to put this man behind bars or to let him walk out of that building free? How can I judge him? It was too much for this emotional pregnant woman to handle.

Think about this boy's family. His friends. His life. Did he ever have a chance to succeed or was this all that life had afforded him? Did anyone ever sit him down and teach him or guide him? Was he taught to respect authority and follow laws? Or did he only see broken lives and the lust of greed? I was released from jury duty this week after only one day. But that boy is still sitting in jail right now, waiting for his trial to start in a little over an hour. There are fourteen jurors waiting to sit in the box, hear the witnesses, and make a judgement on this boy's life. What will happen in that courtroom this week will undoubtedly change his life forever, for the good or the bad.

Just like that young man, I have a court date set in my future. No, I haven't broken a law of our state and been charged with that crime. But I have broken every single law that the Lord gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. I have broken every law of the Lord's. And because of that, I will face the Judge one day. I will have to stand before the Judge as the Accuser names every single sin and law that I have broken. But this is the best part- my Defender, Jesus Christ, will then stand up and I can imagine what He will say. "Yes, Jessica did all those things. She did break your law, Father, and the punishment for that is the death penalty. But I paid that penalty for her. She is clean now. Innocent. Not guilty. She is free to go." What will your court date look like? Will it look like mine? Or will the ending be much different? I should be punished for what I've done. But because the Lord is so merciful and gracious and loves me so much even though I have done nothing to merit it or earn it, He took my punishment for me.


"But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." Isaiah 53:5