tomorrowsreflection.com
the personal blog of jeremy jernigan

I volunteered my time last night as a chaplain for the Mesa Police Department. Here were some highlights:

• --Investigated two different (but nearly identical) instances of mothers leaving their three children in the car while they went in and shopped at Wal-Mart. Apparently, this is a growing crime problem in Mesa.
• --Made my first trip inside the Mesa jail and got cursed out in Spanish.
• --Ate dinner at a Barcelona/Italy family diner on the SW corner of Lindsay and Main. 5 words: all-you-can-eat-meat
• --Screamed through about half of Mesa doing Code-3 (lights and sirens)
• --And spent at least 30 minutes… Read More

I was on a ride-a-long last Sunday with one of my friends from Third Format who is a Gilbert officer. He introduced me to his closest friend in the force and we got to talking over some food. I asked him about his view of God and he told me that he and God had an agreement. Intrigued, I asked him for the details. He told me that he agreed to not talk bad about God and that God wouldn't talk bad about him. Wow. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry tears of remorse for such a broken image of God. Yet this implied fear/anger toward God is not unique to him. As I've reflected on that conversation since then I've been reminded of how many people… Read More

I recently read through the book of Matthew and something stood out to me that I hadn't noticed before. There are 4 times when Jesus looks at people and feels compassion for them (9:36, 14:14, 15:32, 20:34). I was extremely challenged by this… Read More

One of the ways that I get out of the Christian bubble is by volunteering my time as a police chaplain. It makes for some interesting stories to be sure. I was on a ride-a-long last friday and I got into some great conversations with the officer I rode with. I asked him all sorts of questions. One of them was "Do you ever get afraid?" His anwer kind of startled me. "Never." "Really?" I said. To me, I thought he might have just been trying to be macho or keeping up with the tough cop image. Lucky for me he must have seen my perplexed look and he felt compelled to elaborate. "I trust in my training and the other officers around me. What is there… Read More