The Day the Music Died

 Justice, Mercy and the Christian Woman’s Response

This comes from my heart as someone who has no direct connection to Lindsay Clancy, her family, her trial or its non-verdict.

I keep coming back to this:

As Christians, and particularly as Christian women, we do not have to choose between justice and compassion. Both should be our path.

We have reached a toxic empathy state.

Three precious children lost their lives.

That truth should never get swallowed up by arguments, theories, social-media sleuths and too much speculation.

Those children matter.

Justice for their deaths matters.

I also don’t think we should casually pronounce judgment on the mind and soul of a woman who was clearly broken and struggling with serious mental-health issues before this tragedy ever happened.

If Lindsay Clancy knowingly and deliberately murdered her children while understanding exactly what she was doing, then she deserves punishment.

Personally, I have a difficult time getting past the evidence of premeditated planning.

The timing, the errands and the circumstances surrounding the deaths make me believe there should be legal accountability for what happened to those children.

Mental illness may explain much. It may affect the degree of responsibility the law assigns.

But explanation and accountability are not necessarily opposites.

Compassion is not the same thing as excusing evil.

And justice does not require us to abandon mercy.

God knows.

Those may be the two most important words in this entire case.

God knows what happened in that house.

God knows Lindsay’s mind.

He knows what was illness, what was choice, what was understood and what wasn’t.

He knows every fact. And, she will have to face His judgement.

We, the public looking in as spectators, do not know. We guess...we push our agendas...we take our life experiences and try to compare them...but we do not know.

No matter how many TikToks we watch, podcasts we listen to or Facebook threads we read, we cannot become judge, jury and forensic psychiatrist from our recliners.

Yet the anger surrounding this case is palpable.

And some of the responses that have disappointed me the most have come from Christian women.

Disagree with someone’s assessment of the case and apparently some have decided that cruelty is a spiritual gift.

And that comes from both sides.

“She was completely innocent. It was the drugs.”

“The father did it.”

“She is evil.”

Everybody is certain.

Everybody knows.

Except we don’t.

Angry Facebook comments do not give us divine insight.

Here is what I do believe: this woman was profoundly broken.

That does not erase three dead children.

It does not eliminate accountability.

And it does not mean mental illness should become a magic phrase that makes consequences disappear.

Our history in the justice system has not excused a multitude of deadly cases due to PTSD, drugs, psychosis, and more hormonal postpartum women.

My neighbor’s son heard voices too, and took a ten pound mallet to his step father, mother and sister on Thanksgiving. No one thought much about him being put on death row. And this happened in 1982, he is still alive. He unlike them, has lived decades.

I can believe Lindsay Clancy should be held accountable and still refuse to hate her. What can drive a woman to do such a thing?

AND, why punish the father through insinuations and shadowy assumptions because he is a man and must have done something wrong, or because every news story has to be conspiracy.

I don’t have to call her a monster.

I don’t have to celebrate her suffering.

And I certainly don’t know enough to pronounce judgment on her soul.

But whatever happened was a definite influence from evil, demonic and unholy.

As a Christian, I also have to remember something uncomfortable.

I am a sinner who lives every day because of mercy.

If God gave me only the justice I deserved, with no grace, I would be in serious trouble myself.

That is the Gospel.

Jesus never asked us to call evil good. He never told us that our actions should have no consequences.

 But He also never gave His followers permission to enjoy condemning broken people.

We can mourn those precious children.

We can demand that their lives matter.

We can disagree about Lindsay Clancy’s legal responsibility.

We can disagree to disagree in love.

And we can still have compassion for a terribly broken human being.

Those things can exist in the same Christian heart.

Because if our response to this tragedy leaves no room for compassion, humility or mercy, perhaps the heart that needs examining isn’t only the one sitting in the courtroom.

“Mercy triumphs over judgment.” — James 2:13