Different Uniforms, Same Brokenness

​Several months ago, after finishing a presentation about the connection between trauma and substance abuse, a young lady approached me. She told me she worked in a correctional facility filled with men battling addiction.

“They need to hear your story,” she said. “Will you come talk to them?”

I said sure.

It’s easy to say sure when you don’t really believe it’s going to happen. Sometimes “sure” feels like a polite coin you toss into the fountain of good intentions, never expecting to return to it.

But yesterday, I found myself driving down foggy backroads to that facility. The fog felt fitting. Fog and fear make good companions, and fear was riding shotgun with me.

I’d never spoken to prisoners before. “Prison” is a word we toss around so casually, yet inside that word are people. Real humans. And sadly, once humans become prisoners, they put on the prison uniforms of our perceptions: dangerous, mysterious, unrelatable.

My fear wasn’t just about them. It was about me. I usually count on my gift to grab an audience’s attention. But how on earth would I grab theirs? Surely, we had nothing in common.

And then God spoke into my fear. He told me to lead with the one thing we all share: brokenness.

So I did.

I told them I’d never been a prisoner. But besides that, I could relate a lot. Because what we do have in common is this: we are all broken. I told them I’m a broken man, still stumbling forward on a journey toward healing and wholeness, knowing I’ll never fully arrive there this side of heaven.

I admitted something else: I was there as much for my own healing as I was for theirs.

Before I spoke, I whispered a quiet prayer: Your will be done, God.

And then I watched God answer it.

To my amazement, this may have been one of the most attentive groups I’ve ever spoken to. A couple of men had tears in their eyes. Many had questions.

Is it possible to reconcile with the people you’ve hurt?

Is it possible to reconcile with the people who’ve hurt you?

I’ve never been good at connecting with people, is it too late for me?

One young man pulled me aside afterward. He told me the story of what landed him in prison. In his words, I heard the panic of a mere kid who has spent countless hours trying to figure out why he did what he did - desperately afraid that if he couldn’t find that answer, he might never figure out how not to do it again.

Another man asked me if we could connect when he gets out. “I’ve never had a male role model in my life,” he said. “I think you’d be a good one for me.”

I did my best to answer their questions with love and compassion. But honestly, my answers didn’t mean nearly as much to me as their questions did.

We too easily write prisoners off, maybe unaware of how many of them are sitting in their pods and their cells trying desperately to rewrite their stories. We've too often written the end on the stories they don't want to be over.

I was reminded again that there is no stronger connection than our shared brokenness. The moment I started talking about my own shattered dreams, my mistakes, my destroyed relationships, they were all ears.

The broken don’t need our advice as much as they need our understanding. And understanding often starts with this confession: I am broken too.

When my “talk” was over, I stayed an extra half hour just listening. I didn’t ask what crimes they committed. Instead, I listened to the lives they had lived, the traumas they carried, the stories that brought them here.

Nobody wakes up in prison. Nobody wakes up wanting to go to prison. There are stories that lead us there.

And while I’ve never been behind the walls of a state prison, I told them the truth: I have certainly made a prisoner of my own life.

Walking back outside, the fog had lifted. The fear was gone.

The walls and the razor wire fences may have been built to keep men inside, but for a few hours that day, they couldn’t keep out connection, compassion, or hope.

I went in wondering how I could possible relate to these men. I left realizing we shared the most important thing: our humanity, fragile and broken, but still reaching for healing.

Oh Lord that we would all come to know we are best when we reach together, no matter what uniform we are wearing.