Gospel In The Lobby
Today: Court Papers, Expungement, and Gospel in the Lobby
Today started with a manila folder and ended with prayer.
This morning I met my attorney. We spread my affairs across the table like pieces of a life I’m still rebuilding — motions, dates, dismissed charges, the paper trail of rock bottom. We worked line by line, signing what needed signing, planning the next steps. Expungement isn’t just legal work. It’s spiritual work too. You’re asking the system to forget what you’ve already paid for, and you’re asking yourself to believe you’re more than the worst thing you did.
From there I went to the expungement clinic. Fluorescent lights, folding chairs, volunteers with clipboards. I expected forms. I didn’t expect church.
A couple sat next to me. We started talking while we waited — the way you do when you’re all carrying something heavy. They shared the gospel, not like a script, but like a story they’d lived. They gave their testimony: addiction, jail, loss, then grace that showed up anyway. And they listened when I talked. Really listened. About Phoenix Center, the ashes stage, t/l he PhD program, the housing work.
No one flinched. No one looked away.
In that clinic, with the hum of the copier and people checking boxes on forms to clear their names, we were just brothers and sisters. Doing the work of speaking and sharing. Our testimony wasn’t polished. It was real. We talked about faith and God the way people talk about water when they’ve been thirsty — with relief, with gratitude. We came together right there between “Case Number” and “Date of Disposition.”
I walked in to erase a record. I walked out reminded that God doesn’t erase people. He redeems them.
I know God has given me a gift to speak. Not because I’m eloquent, but because I’ve been places others haven’t. I can talk to the woman still in the ashes because I remember the smell of them. I can talk to the guy at the clinic who thinks no one understands his file, because I’ve carried one too. I can talk to the people others might not get to see — the ones behind court dates and case numbers — because I was them.
Today was attorney offices and expungement lines and gospel in a waiting room. It was paperwork and prayer in the same breath. It was proof that the work of justice and the work of faith aren’t separate. Clearing your name and sharing your name in Christ’s name can happen at the same table.
I came to handle my affairs. I left knowing the main affair God is handling is me — and using me to reach others.
We came as strangers with records. We left as family with testimonies. That’s how God works. He meets you at the courthouse, at the clinic, in the middle of your mess, and says, “Speak. They need to hear this from you.”
So I will.
*Cathrynmharris
