If you or someone you know is experiencing maternal mental health issues, please seek help via the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline.
“Have you been following the Lindsay Clancy trial?” Multiple friends have asked me this recently. My response was that I couldn’t, as I didn’t feel it would be guarding my heart (Proverbs 4:23). Learning about the trial via social media led me to briefly research it. Reading a few details of it reminded me of a painful experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone — postpartum depression. Learning about Lindsay’s struggles with mental health that culminated in her killing her children reminded me of a moment not long after I had my firstborn. I remember driving on the freeway, hoping that a car would hit me and kill me, so my suffering would end. I wanted the accident to result only in my death, not my daughter’s.
As a newlywed who delivered a baby the day after my first anniversary and experienced many major life changes within my first year of marriage, I felt like I was drowning. At the time, desiring death by car accident seemed like a logical, justifiable thought. A decade removed, I now recognize that thought was neither logical nor healthy. I probably should’ve sought help. Having been taught that depression is sin, I didn’t know how. I was so ashamed of my struggles that the stigma around Christians and mental health resulted in my silence and even led me to doubt my salvation.
While I don’t claim that postpartum depression is equivalent to postpartum psychosis, I can sympathize with some of Lindsay’s experience. What I experienced was not normal or healthy. What she endured was far worse. It’s hard to see cruel responses toward her, especially from Christians. I can’t change any Christian’s heart or mind about the realities and complexities of mental health issues, especially in the postpartum season, but maybe in reading about my experience and thoughts, one mother will know she’s not alone. Maybe one person will be compelled to extend compassion. Maybe by reading this, one person will come to know God, who brings life from death.
Maybe one person will be encouraged to be quick to listen and slow to speak (James 1:19). Maybe one person will be reminded that it’s okay and good and right to just grieve (Romans 12:15) and recognize there’s no need or requirement to form opinions hastily or otherwise (Proverbs 18:2). We should grieve life in a broken world where mothers sometimes kill their children. We should also grieve when bodily brokenness leads to that. It is possible to grieve multiple things at the same time, and grief over sin and death is appropriate because it reminds us that we inhabit the world not as it was created to be. It’s okay to have mixed feelings in response to sin and death. They don’t make sense. They shouldn’t. They were never meant to.
Wisdom entreats us to be slow in forming firm thoughts about what we are so far removed from (Proverbs 18:13). It is very easy to say how we’d respond in a situation we’ve never experienced. It’s not as easy to navigate tragedies and trials you never anticipated when they actually occur. It is wise to be slow about what we don’t know. We can and should desire justice for the Clancy children and for their mother who suffered postpartum psychosis. We can desire this and not have perfect answers for how justice should be meted out. Often in the midst of tragedy, we want someone to blame, yet life in a broken world rarely lends itself to simplistic solutions. It may be that there are parties to blame, and identifying who they are will never undo what’s been done. This is one of many tensions we experience in a world that finds us “sorrowful yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).
We do well to recall that Paul, who coined that term, authored most of the New Testament and self-identified as the worst of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). He once murdered Christians, and he wasn’t beyond God’s grace. David, through whom Jesus descended, arranged to have Uriah killed. He was referred to as a man after God’s own heart before (1 Samuel 13:14), and surprisingly, after (Acts 13:22). Lindsay took her children’s lives, and there’s still hope for her in Jesus. We don’t know how He might use her deeply painful circumstances to draw her to Himself. It is easy to look at those who have killed children as the worst kinds of sinners, yet the ground is level at the cross. I’ve never killed someone, and you likely havn’t either, yet our sin isn’t better because it’s different. While ours has different consequences, it still put Jesus on the cross, making us all equally and desperately in need of a Savior (Romans 3:23). If we find ourselves increasingly angry over Lindsay’s actions, it is worth considering whether we’ve felt the same about our own when they have fallen short. It’s also worth noting that Jesus equates anger with murder (Matthew 5:21-22).
I don’t know where Lindsay is spiritually, but because God saved me, I’m confident He’s abundantly capable of saving her too if He hasn’t already. Deeming people incapable of receiving salvation from sin gives sin way too much power. This results in a small, and therefore wrong, view of God. I haven’t followed the Lindsay Clancy trial because I can’t. I am unsure of the specifics, but I am sure of this: I know who Christ has called me to be, and I know how His word calls me to respond. I have an idea of how I would want to be treated at my worst, and I’m so grateful that when I was at my worst, God made me alive in Christ by the power of His Spirit.
“. . . he stood up and said to them, ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.'” John 8:7-11
* Some early manuscripts of Scripture did not include this account, however, I’ve included this portion of it here as it’s consistent with the heart of Christ throughout Scripture.
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