God showed up

After leaving the district attorney’s office the first time, I practiced criminal defense law for a number of years before beginning to practice in the area of child welfare law full time. Some of my clients I really liked, as they were people who had made bad choices rather than being bad people, or had been caught in circumstances at least partially beyond their control, that had landed them in an area where they needed an advocate.

There was one particular client I had that fit that latter situation, who I will never forget. He was charged with possession of a controlled substance. While he had a history with addiction, and had even previously been to the penitentiary for that addiction, the case which I represented him on really was an aberration. He had been caught with drugs that belonged to his brother. He was no longer using himself, as was evidenced by his negative drug tests, his longstanding work history, and his positive involvement with his church and volunteer work with the youth, speaking to them of the dangers of the drug lifestyle. But the bottom line was, brothers or not, reformed or not, the drugs were in his possession at the time he was stopped. Despite all the positive things he had going for him, the offer of the prosecutor was for penitentiary time, because of his prior criminal history. I got the prosecutor to come down to the statutory minimum but could not get him to agree to probation. My client decided to enter an open plea to the judge, in hopes to receive probation. It was potentially a risky move as with an open plea, a defendant pleads guilty without a plea bargain, allowing the judge to set punishment anywhere within the allowed range. I advised him of the wisdom of taking the minimum prison offer, as the judge had the ability to sentence him to a much greater length of time. But his faith was strong that the judge would grant him probation. Far stronger than mine was. The date of the sentencing hearing, my client came to court with his wife and with the youth pastor from his church. Prior to the hearing, I spoke with both as they would be testifying on my client’s behalf, along with my client. I prepared all of them for the likelihood of a prison sentence. The youth pastor shared what the church’s senior pastor, his own father, had said as he left for court that morning. He told him that the only way that my client would get probation, based on his criminal history, was if God himself showed up. Before walking into the courtroom, we all held hands and we prayed. For God’s will and God’s grace. I was shocked when, at the end of the hearing, the judge told my client he was going to take a chance on him and place him on probation. We spoke after the hearing, and the youth pastor, who himself was youthful and exuberant, was beside himself. He said that he could not wait to go back to the church so that he could tell his daddy that, in fact, God himself did show up that day. And he was right. I’ve long since forgotten the name of my client, but I’ve never forgotten the sentiment of that pastor that “God himself had shown up” that day.

I thought of that experience just the other day for some reason. And when I did, I started reflecting on all the times in my life and in my career that “God showed up.”

God showed up when my dad died unexpectedly my senior year of college. Despite the fact that I was at a point in my life where I questioned whether all I had heard about God my whole life was true, and whether God even existed, God showed up. God showed up, and God held me up, both through the sense of peace and calm given to me which truly did surpass all understanding, but also through the friends and coworkers that showed up to stand with me when I couldn’t stand on my own. 

God showed up again and again through that first year of law school, when all I wanted to do was give up and go home and be with my grieving mother and grieve myself. God showed up through the roommate he brought me in a way nothing short of miraculous and through the friends sent to me to be a balm to my injured heart.

God has shown up more times than I can count in the cases I have handled and in adults and children that I have represented over the years.

God showed up to give me the words and the wisdom to successfully defend a young man facing 20 years in prison for a car accident that truly was an accident, but which placed him at risk of imprisonment because he was poor and his skin too dark.

God showed up when at the end of a hard fought battle against a heartless child placing agency who had acted recklessly and without proper planning, the judge had to tell my two teenage clients that they could not stay in the home of the foster mom who had come to love and support them. God showed up in the tears of those boys, of that foster mom, of the CASA advocate, of myself, and of the judge. 

God showed up every time I had to go to court on a juvenile client who had been abandoned by his mom and who expressed his justifiable anger and rage and pain in the most inappropriate of ways. God showed up in my tears of frustration that there was nothing I could do to help this young boy who had nobody to love him. God showed up often over the years with that boy until the unexpected happy day that he was finally able to go home to his mama who had at long last become healthy and whole.

God showed up at the end of an exhausting and emotional weeklong CPS termination jury trial in which I represented a mother who was the pitiful victim of domestic violence and because of that violence and because of the culture in which she had been raised, was unable to protect her child. God showed up through the attorney friend who held me as I cried when the jury terminated my client’s rights and through the attorney friend, and attorney for CPS, who held my client because I wasn’t strong enough to do so. 

God showed up in the hospital room as I held the hand of a dying child and wanted so desperately to pray words of comfort and peace over him, but had no words. God showed up for that child. And for me. 

God showed up in the months that Aaron was so sick and we had no answers as to why or solutions to make him well. God showed up on those long drives to work, the one place that I would allow myself to express the fear and the frustration that I felt. God showed up through the doctors who would not give up testing or questioning or caring until they had a diagnosis and a treatment that worked. 

God showed up in a Starbucks when I poured out my heart and my soul to my pastor, after I realized I could no longer carry my guilt, and my pain, and my shame on my own any longer. God showed up in the way that she looked at me, with unconditional love, and without judgment. God showed up each step of the way those hard months that I peeled off layers of skin to expose unhealed wounds so that I could begin to heal.

God showed up in an attorney friend who named a call in me that I had yet to name for myself, and showed up again in my pastor who named that same call less than two weeks later. God has continued to show up in the people placed in my path to affirm that call. God has showed up in every single detail and every single step on the journey to follow and fulfill the call God placed in me.

God showed up as Clayton and I marched in the Ft. Worth Pride parade this past fall. God showed up through the unity of the marchers, the support of the spectators, and the coming together of people of all ages and races and sexual orientations and identities, to show love to and for all God’s children.

God showed up in every meeting I have had with members of our church and outside our church in the planning and creation of an Ally group to support our LGBTQ+ family, friends, and church members. 

God shows up each time I have words to say but I am afraid to say them. 

God shows up each and every time that I feel I have no more to give. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. 

Each time that I am empty, God shows up to refill me.  

Each time that I feel I am not enough, God shows up to prove to me that God is more than enough.

Each time that I feel I have no more to give, God shows up with more than what I could ever do on my own.

God has shown up more times than I will ever be able to recount.

For that, I am so very grateful.

Where has God shown up in your life?

Where have you allowed God to use you to show up for someone else?