Tuesday, December 15th, 2020
I sat at a table in the Wright County Jail three years ago, with Jeremy sitting on the other side. This was his third incarceration for 5th degree drug possession. He’d been an addict since he was seventeen.
“What is love, Jeremy?” I asked to start off this session with him.
He stumbled and bumbled through several definitions that had more to do with the effects of love and examples rather than what it actually is. Finally, he shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, “I guess I don’t know.”
“What if I told you that love is doing what’s best for the other person?”
He nodded his head. “That sounds like a good definition.”
“Do you love your girlfriend, Jeremy?”
“I do. I really do.”
“What’s the best thing you could do for her then?”
He thought for not too long. “Get off Drugs?”
I smiled. “Absolutely. And do you love God, Jeremy?”
“I do, ever since I was born-again two years ago.”
“What’s the best thing you could do for Him?” I asked.
This time there was no hesitation. “Same answer. Stop using and doing my own thing and start seriously following Him.”
I never saw Jeremy in jail again.