3G: Juvenile Probation and God's Justice

...It was the August that I returned from Washington State. I was now a jobless college grad that had joined a band that practiced in what was an old garage at Colin and Andre'a's new house. The months passed by as did the job applications stamped: rejected. Thankfully Paul Ann Baptist Church brought me on staff and made me a part-time secretary until I could find a full time job.

This was a rough season for me spiritually. I was still processing what all I had learned that summer and was trying to discern what would be the best direction to take ahead of me. While focusing on my temporal circumstances, I had neglected focusing on eternal things and my worries and anxiety proved my distrust and unbelief in my good, sovereign, providing God. I praise Him that He is faithful even when we aren't and strong when we are ever so weak. Perhaps it is during the times that He seems so distant that He is growing our faith in Him. Again, He was preparing me for a great task ahead.

In March 2004 I found a full-time job and was hired as a Tom Green County Juvenile Probation Officer. It's true...I had the badge, cuff keys and caged cars. I took kids to court and had office, school, detention center and home visits with the juveniles on probation. The thing I learned most about God while working in the court system was God's justice.

Like the juveniles I worked with, I too had charges against me. My sin nature was an offense to God's law and "the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23)." Someone would have to die to pay my penalty. Now obviously the sentences that were brought before the Tom Green County Courthouse were not as harsh. Most would get off on probation, some were placed in correctional facilities, and some were put on deferred adjudication, but there would have to be retribution that fit the crime. There were times that I felt little grace toward these kids that acted so foolishly and yet I was constantly reminded that "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)." I tried to picture myself raising my right hand on the stand before the judge at the TGC Courthouse and then proclaim that I would take on all the charges and consequences of the charges of the defendant. This is exactly what Christ did on our behalf. Scripture says, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died--more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us (Rom 8:31-34)." Romans 3 explains how no human can be justified by the law. The law shows us our sin nature before a Holy and Perfect God. We are all law breakers, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and [yet] are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." God's wrath towards us was poured out on His Perfect Son that we might be free from the sentence of death. GRACE...it always seems magnificent in light of His justice.

It was around my third month that I received news that one of my church youth group students had taken his life. This brought about a time of great questioning and mourning. My on-call week at the Juvenile Probation Center soon followed. To be "on-call" meant that the police called me if they picked up a kid at any hour and I had to decide on the phone whether or not they should release the kid or detain him/her. If detained I was responsible for contacting the judge within 24 hours. It was an unusual week of extreme cases: aggravated sexual assault, assault with a deadly weapon, and there was one evening that I became the first Probation Officer to ride in an ambulance. In the back of our building was the detention center and one of the girls had tried to hang herself. She gasped for air through the oxygen mask as we rushed off to the hospital. After being in the ER for a few hours the nurses and doctors began to run frantically about the hospital, grabbing supplies from other rooms. I could tell that the girl I was with was frightened. I started singing a hymn to her in hopes to bring peace to the chaos around us. Half way through the song the heart beat of the one everyone had scurried about trying to save had flat lined. She looked at me with tears in her eyes as she heard the sound of death. There was a part of me that had been angry that she too had attempted to take her life as my student did, yet I could do nothing at that point than speak words of hope to this girl who saw hopelessness.

A great amount of my caseload had kids who were physically, emotionally and sexually abused and were also neglected. My eyes had been opened to an angry and wicked world. I was told that I couldn't take work home with me if I wanted to survive in this line of work, yet my heart had too much compassion and I ended up with much grief and tears most nights. I wanted to share the hope there is in Jesus Christ, yet was confined by the "separtion of church and state." Not long after my on-call week I was confronted by Lee Floyd, Director of the Baptist Student Ministries, to consider taking the Campus Missionary position at the BSM. It was a hard decision to leave the mission field of Juvenile Probation, but now I would be able to proclaim the truth of the gospel with no limitations...To Be Continued...