Monday, July 14, 2008

Fin

The last time I wrote about this, it was a week ago today. So many different thoughts were running through my mind, all I think are pretty normal. Well, normal for me anyways. This past Friday, I waited until after 5 to call the hotline to see if my number had been chosen. And sure enough, it was online as well as on the jury clerk's voice mail. I thought, no biggee, I can do this.
My kids will be at my parents, I'll have my mom's car for the trip, and my hubby and I will test drive down there so I know where I need to go. No problemo. Uh huh. Tell my mind that this morning. I was so not in that mind frame when my alarm went off at 6:15am. But I got out of bed, did what I needed to do to get ready, said good-bye to the hubby and headed downtown.

Before I could really feel at peace about everything, I just began to pray. I have a favorite verse ~ Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." I truly believe in those words, and apply them to my life whenever I can. So after telling God what was on my mind and heart, I turned on the radio and I heard this song:

"Where there is faith, There is a voice calling, keep walking You’re not alone in this world. Where there is faith There is a peace like a child sleeping Hope everlasting in He..."

I knew that was for me and I began to feel better. Be more at peace. And I thanked God for that blessing.

So once I was downtown, I parked in the parking lot and then began looking for the bus that would take me to the courthouse. I found it, but not until after he had started driving away from the pick up/drop off spot. So I waved a little to get his attention, and he stopped for me. So once I was on my way, then the nerves started kicking in again. So I simply asked the woman I was sitting next to if she knew where the courthouse was, and her and another guy showed me where, and that was it. Once I was inside the building and found the jury assembly room, I found a seat to sit in and waited. I knew God was watching over me that day because the woman I sat next to was so nice and easy to talk with. We ended up having a lot in common.
At 8:15am sharp, the jury clerk began her introduction and gave us her speech about what jury duty was and everything we were expected to do if/when we were picked. The first couple hours went by pretty quickly because of all the speeches, forms, role calling that went on. So when 9:50 rolled around, she came back into the room and told us that there were already two cases about to start and that she had two groups prepared to go upstairs, that knocked me for six. In other words, I was so surprised that I could already be on a jury and this was only my first day! Thankfully my new friend and I were in the same pool and we headed upstairs.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about that first moment in my first courtroom was, how cold it was! And also how small the room was. Watching courtroom dramas, or even real life court shows, the rooms seemed so much bigger. So we all piled in the room, sat and waited for the judge to come in. About 5 mins later he finally did, so we stood. He explained what was going to happen while we were there, and talked just a bit about what the case was about, and then the clerk named 8 people (me not being one of them) and the lawyers proceeded to ask them questions. There were 4 people who were excused from the panel, and thankfully I wasn't called to take either one of their places. By the time both clients and lawyers were satisfied with the people that were there, the rest of us were excused. You should've seen my fingers when we left that courtroom, I kid you not, they were purple!

The rest of us headed back down to the jury assembly room when the jury clerk proceeded to tell us that we were done. For the rest of the week! What a relief. So she scanned us out, and we headed home. What a good first experience for jury duty.

There are things that God will put in your life to help you grow, help you learn, help you spread your arms out a little more to understand things other than what you normally have in life. And I firmly believe that is why I was chosen to do this. Sometimes you don't think you can do something, but God will not put you in a position where you cannot handle it. If you have a good attitude and just do your best, in the end it will be a good learning experience. Just trust that He will be with you and you'll be all right.

Of course that doesn't mean I'd like to be called to do jury duty any time soon.


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