Hello World!!!

On Saturday mornings, after I’ve completed my workout, I enjoy piddling around the house…picking up papers in my office, making myself something to eat, planning the rest of my day. As I’m multi-tasking, I often have one of my favorite shows, “Snapped,” playing in the background. Usually on Saturday morning, several reruns of the show air back to back on Oxygen. It’s my guilty pleasure you could say…From the country preacher’s wife who murdered her husband to the deaf lesbian that killed her ex-girlfriend’s friend, I find it all fascinating. Sometimes I am so mesmerized, I stop what I’m doing and plop my behind down on my living room floor to watch…

I guess part of my fascination is the show’s premise. According to the “Snapped” Web site, each year approximately16,000 murders take place around the country. Only 7 percent of the killers, however, are female.  According to what I have seen on the show, women kill for different reasons than men. Women kill their husbands who have abused them. Women kill their boyfriends, husbands or partners in the heat of a fight. (Shout out to Adrienne Emily Hickson, the promising law student! I found this one particularly disturbing as she could have been a friend of mine…but maybe not.) Women kill because they want out of a boring marriage and the insurance money. A woman may kill her ex-husband if the two are embroiled in a bitter custody battle. It seems that in each case, the woman knew her victim, and the murder had to do with some sort of romantic relationship. That is one of the reasons why the story of Melissa Huckaby, the California Sunday School teacher who was recently accused of killing her daughter’s friend, is sooo disturbing. This story caught my attention for two reasons: the fact that this woman is a Sunday School teacher and the granddaughter of a pastor in other words she is supposed to be a Christian and the gruesomeness of the crime.

Huckaby apparently kidnapped the eight-year-old girl, raped her, stuffed the body in her suitcase and threw it in a pond just miles away from their homes. The child lived a few doors away from Huckaby. What made that woman commit that terrible crime – particularly when it would be safe to assume this woman knew Jesus Christ?  My guess is that she is mentally ill and possibly under the influence of demonic forces….what do you think?

According to Scripture, demons can inhabit human bodies.

²⁴When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.  ²⁵And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.  ²⁶Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Luke 11:24-26

Demons can masquerade as various ailments according to Scripture.

¹⁴ When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. ¹⁵ “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. ¹⁶ I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”  ¹⁷ “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” ¹⁸ Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.  Matthew 17: 14-18

¹¹ and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. ¹² When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, ^[a] you are set free from your infirmity.” ¹³ Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.  Luke 13:11-13

I think demons often attempt to make Christians look like fools to the rest of the world. I think that is one of the reasons why so many relish joking about pastors and other Christian leaders who have fallen from grace. This story is no joking matter to me – a former Sunday School teacher. I’ve never been a regular classroom teacher, but I think I understand some of the joy and frustration that regular classroom teachers experience. When I first graduated from college, I began teaching Sunday School at my church for fifth and sixth graders. One of my first students was this young boy named Alex…Goodness gracious, this boy could talk. Any time I opened my mouth to say something, he was already talking – sometimes he made sense and sometimes he didn’t…He was in my class for a while, and I grew to love his incessant chattering…I haven’t seen Alex in a few years now, but his grandmother still attends my church…He recently said to me through her, “Tell Miss Jackie I said, ‘Hello’ and that I am graduating from high school.”  In fact, many of the children I taught are now in high school and college, and I have been blessed to get to know them and watch them grow up.

How could this woman kill a precious child especially when she has a daughter of her own? I’m inclined to believe the adversary and his agents had a hand in this horrific crime…

Any thoughts?

P.S. I don’t plan to post on this, but have y’all heard of Mel Gibson’s divorce from his wife of 28 years. She could get half of his billion. Wowee!!! I imagine that he made lot of money from Christians who saw, “The Passion Of  The Christ,” an excellent film that was co-written, co-produced and directed by Gibson. Any thoughts on that?