This is the 15th of 25 special reflections based on lessons I learned from my mother. These will run from my birthday on October 27 until her birthday on November 20.

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Matthew 25:31-45

This might seem a little odd to some of you, but when I was a teenager (and when my little sister, Cheryl, was still little), my parents got involved in prison ministry. They would frequently make the two-hour trip from our home in Sarasota, Fla., to Avon Park Correctional Institution. I talked with Cheryl about this recently and she said it was definitely a different time because she couldn’t imagine people taking their 6-year-old children into a prison.

To be fair, Mom and Dad felt completely safe in the situation. Maybe that was an artificial feeling, but I remember being inside the prison and not feeling worried about the men who were around us. Of course, those men had been vetted by the prison chaplain, and the ones most involved in what we were doing were professed Christians who had demonstrated responsibility in other areas.

One of them was named Glenn Consagra. He had been convicted of a double murder, though there was some question about whether or not he had actually committed that crime. However, Glenn was the first to say that he’d gotten away with a lot of crimes for which he hadn’t been caught and that the Lord was using prison to get his attention. (Glenn’s story ended up being the subject of an “Unsolved Mysteries” segment. If you can find it, it’s definitely worth watching.)

There was also James “Pete” Christian. (We just called him “Pete.”) He was also a convicted murderer, and he was absolutely guilty of his crimes. He had killed a couple of women and had been labeled by the media as the “Slasher in Black Satin” because there were satin sheets on the bed where one of them was found. He had since given his life to the Lord and was a model prisoner, but he had little chance of ever being paroled. (That turned out to be true; Pete never made it out of the system and died in Orlando in 2018. Glenn was paroled in 1992 and died of a heart attack four years later.)

Years later, we met a man who would later become famous for a very unusual crime and trial. His name was Bernie Tiede, and he was the funeral director for both of my grandparents’ funerals in Carthage, Texas. Bernie befriended a woman named Marjorie Nugent and left the funeral business to manage her affairs full-time. Somewhere along the line their relationship soured and Bernie, in an act that seems completely out of keeping with his character, shot Marjorie in the back four times. His trial became something of a spectacle and he ended up getting national attention because of it. In fact, the whole story caught the attention of Hollywood and was turned into the movie, “Bernie,” starring Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey. I still remember sitting across from Bernie as he consoled my mother after the passing of my grandmother. He didn’t seem menacing, but instead was genuinely kind and compassionate. After she learned of the story, Mom was saddened by his crime, but always had kind things to say about the inherent goodness she saw in him years before.

I learned from mom that just because someone ran afoul of the law, it didn’t mean that they were separated from our compassion or from the love of Christ. That didn’t excuse the crimes for which they were imprisoned, but it also didn’t excuse us from showing them our Savior’s love. Everyone deserves at least that much, no matter what they’ve done. As you look at the news and see stories of unbelievable depravity, remember that even those criminals were created by the Lord and that He desires to know each of them personally. In whatever way you feel led, hold enough compassion and goodness in your heart to show His grace and mercy to the “least of these.”

Reflection copyright © 2021 Doug DeBolt.