I was a believer in my younger days. And I have seen miracles. Seriously, I have seen miracles. The most recent one happened when I was working part-time at a private probation company as a probation officer. I worked directly for the man who owned this company. And it was shady to say the least.
We kept all records on paper. We published a monthly report to the criminal courts but I had to draw up the report on word processing software because the head of the tiny agency knew absolutely nothing about computers. I actually lived across the street from the agency and would bring my own laptop to work in order to compile and process reports correctly.
I had a black lady who had been reporting to us weekly on Friday afternoons for years and paying her little bit of probation money along with her court costs. Oh, yeah, did I mention that keeping someone on probation cost the clients money? There was a monthly fee for keeping up with them and processing their court payments. This poor lady had been arrested in Tunica, Mississippi, for DUI (an entire industry unto itself) and had been under our administration for fines, court costs, probation fees, etc. because she lived in Memphis.
She had given up driving after her DUI conviction and relied on the city bus system to get to her job as well as the other places she needed to go. She was viewed as “just another client” to us (or worse, another source of income). I really liked her. And my heart went out to her.
God spoke to me and told me to pay her fees and let her go. I was living on the income from two part-time jobs (my probation job paid 12 dollars an hour and my cashier job at Walgreens downtown paid 7.50 an hour – and I had to pay to park every day that I worked downtown). I had no health insurance. I was crazy careful with my finances.
And I said “yes” to God. Because I had faith that it was the right thing to do. Turns out, it was.
The next time I went to work, I told my boss that God had told me to pay my client out and let her go. He was a regular church attender and supposed Christian, so it would have been really difficult for him to tell me to my face that I was making this up. So he agreed reluctantly to let me do what I requested.
I knew from her reporting to me every Friday that she owed the court at Tunica about $250 dollars plus our probation fees. She paid about $15 a week, $5 of which went to her court costs and $10 to our probation fees. (We literally filled out a slip of paper and put the paper and the cash in an envelope and mailed it to Tunica Court so they did bookkeeping on their end, also.) Her total after so long a time told me that she wouldn’t ever be done with this crap in her lifetime.
Remember, all these “professional” records were kept on a tally sheet in each client’s file. Absolutely nothing was kept on the computer in any form. I called the Tunica Court to see what, exactly, she still owed to them (our procedure being to pray that the number from the tally sheet and the one from the actual court agreed).
Lo and behold, the court clerk in Tunica informed me that my client had finished her fines and court costs and owed them exactly zero. (My client hadn’t overpaid because that overage would have been returned to us). My reply to her was, “Oh, that can’t be right.” But she assured me that it was and that my dear client was free and clear.
I absolutely couldn’t believe it. When she came in to report, I tried to keep my composure until she sat in my office and I had a chance to shut the door and share the news with her. I told her the miraculous story and said to her, “You’re done with us, sister. Go home and forget about this entire thing.” She got up and we hugged each other and jumped around. Seriously.
When we got ourselves under control, I let her out of the office and gladly told her goodbye. It was one of the best days of my life. My boss couldn’t believe that she was done.
He asked me, “Did she pay her probation fee for today?” I so wanted to just bitch slap him if for no other reason that we were about to take money from her that she didn’t even owe. For God’s sake! I told him sternly, “No, Tom, but I’ll be more than happy to pay her fee for today.” He reluctantly told me not to.
Tears and Catharsis 