I didnât go to church in jail to find God. I went because it was the only way to interact with guys from other blocks and pass off contraband. On this particular day, I had to get some pills to a guy in B block, and chapel was the safest way to do it. I donât remember the sermon. I donât remember the pastorâs name. What I do remember is the janitor. She was always there, a quiet woman in her late forties, maybe older, maybe youngerâjail ages people in strange ways. She wore a faded uniform and kept her eyes down.
That day, as I passed off the pillsâa small, sleight-of-hand gesture perfected by survivalâthere was a sound. A sudden crack of wood against tile. The mop handle had fallen. It startled everyone. Even the guards looked up. Then she did something no one expected. She stepped forward. With wrinkled hands and a slight tremble in her voice, she asked the pastor if she could say a few words. But reallyâshe didnât ask, She just spoke. She said sheâd been mopping the floors of Linn County Jail for eight years. That every night, as the halls emptied and the noise died down, she filled her mop bucket with warm water, a splash of disinfectant⊠and anointing oil. She said she prayed over each cell as she worked. Every corner. Every door. Every bunk. Every soul. We didnât move. We didnât breathe.
âI know yâall donât see me,â she said, âbut I see you. And more importantly, God sees you.â
I donât know the theology of anointing oil. But I know what it feels like when someone speaks life over you with fire in their eyes and tenderness in their voice. She looked out over the chapel and said, âYou think no oneâs fighting for you? I been fighting for you on my knees for eight years. You think no one cares? I care. God cares. And this mop waterâs got more of heaven in it than youâll ever know.â I felt my heart catch in my throat. I felt something deeper than fear or shame. I felt seen. She said it softly but with so much force it cracked the room open: âGod loves you. Not the future you. Not the cleaned-up you. He loves you now. Right now. Exactly as you are. âIâd heard those words before. But never like that. She wasnât preaching. She was pouring. And we were the ground catching her rain.
And I broke.
Right there, in the middle of the most corrupt thing Iâd done that week, I bawled like a kid. So did the guy next to me. So did the dealer from C block and the lifer from A. It was like time stopped, and the Spirit of God swept through those cinderblock walls with the fragrance of Pine-Sol. Then she picked up her mop and walked out. The pastor never reclaimed the mic. That was fifteen years ago. I donât know her name. I donât know if she remembers that day. But I do. Because that janitor, a woman without a title, without a stage – she delivered a sermon that still gets me choked up. She didnât come to save us. She came to serve. And in doing so, she became the loudest gospel Iâd ever heard.
Credit:Â Kyle Orth