Series - Losing Our Moral Compass (Lululemon Killer Looks for Mercy)

When I heard the pleas for mercy this morning on the TV from the family of Brittany Norwood, the woman convicted of murdering her co-worker at the Bethesda Lululemon clothing store last year, I told myself I had to blog about it.

Yes, I am an Elder in the Presbyterian Church but mercy and forgiveness do not mean the purpertrator gets to slide on the consequences of his or her actions. What Brittany did to Jayna Murray was not only brutal but vicious and wild.

Dear parents of Brittany, your daughter stabbed her 332 times. Hello? Are you just as nuts as she is?

Brittany Norwood (Credit: CBS/WJZ)

I also have a psychology degree and I support the conclusion that Brittany “is beyond rehabilitation.”[1] She needs to be put away forever so she can’t “lose it” again and mutilate someone else. When someone does something so heinous, he or she puts themselves “outside” of society and does not have the right to benefit from the safety of the society he or she just violated!

May Jayna rest in peace.

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  [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57367154-504083/sentencing-looms-in-lululemon-store-murder-killer-brittany-norwoods-family-begs-for-mercy/

Series - Losing Our Moral Compass (Abandoned Baby Girl Dies)

Last week was not a good week for me. It did not compare to the tragedy reported on TV and in newspapers about an infant girl left on a doorstep in Northeast Washington in freezing temperatures whose short life was over even before it started. The reports varied on the infant’s age, some saying newborn, others saying a week, and a few saying a month old.

It takes a lot to make me cry. And this was the straw that broke the infamous camel’s back. My family life was always a challenge, and there were and are still times when I feel I wasn’t wanted. Yet, I can’t say they ever abandoned me or tried to give me away.

Maybe the mother thought someone would open the door quickly and find the child. If so, she thought wrong. Maybe someone else interfered and hoped to find a better home. It strikes me as odd that the baby was left at someone’s home instead of a hospital or police station.  This may be one time we can’t walk in someone else’s shoes.

My heart aches for the panic felt by the man who found her and whose father tried to revive her. They are still heroes in my book for trying.

The only comfort I take from this is that the child is with God. May He bless her and keep her in His loving embrace.

Getting Over Our Wrongs

Devotional writer Randy Kilgore asks “How should we handle moments of faith-failure,…?”¹ This question hits home with me because I can’t count the number of times that I am not even out of bed in the morning when sinful thoughts pop into my head. As an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, I know I dishonor God by these thoughts and actions. Likewise I am trained to believe God forgives my confessed sins and remembers them no more (Isaiah 43:35). But…

“But” is a three-letter word that carries more punch than its sparse number of letters. If I am trained to believe this then why can’t I forget my forgiven wrongs and move on? Kilgore supplies the much needed answer by simply saying “Satan not only delights in the moment of our failure but also in the spiritual inactivity that sometimes snares us in our remorse.”¹ He warns us not to get stuck. I still need to take personal responsibility for the “consequences” of my sins. But, I don’t have to let Satan “multiply the damage by retreating into silence and obscurity as ambassadors of Christ.”¹

Kilgore sends us to two Bible verses for comfort and support: Proverbs 24:16² and
1 John 1:9. ²

Proverbs 24:16

^{16 l}For a righteous man may fall seven times

And rise again,

^mBut the wicked shall fall by calamity.

1 John 1:9

⁹ If we ^qconfess our sins, He is ^rfaithful and just to forgive us our sins and to ^scleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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¹ Our Daily Bread. April 21, 2011. (Vol. 55, No. 12; Vol. 56, Nos. 1&2). RBC Ministries. USA. [http://odb.org/2011/04/21/moving-past-sinful-failure/]

² http://biblia.com/bible/nkjv