“For a demon like her, hell would be easy.” – the sister of murdered Reagan Hancock, at the end of the Maternal Instinct documentary, explaining why a part of her actually hopes her sister’s murderer repents and asks forgiveness of God

I was fully prepared to be disturbed by this documentary, as I’d read all about the story already – but what I was certainly not expecting was any drops of brilliant, eye-opening theological wisdom. So this last line took me by surprise.

Especially yesterday. Yesterday, I was already, to put it lightly, “out of sorts” after reading the news story about little Preston from the UK. No, let’s be real, not just out of sorts: that story has me fucked up. I can’t stop thinking about it. Might be the single most horrific and disturbing news story I’ve ever read. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t look it up, unless for some reason you want irreparable psychological and emotional damage.

Yesterday, I wrote the prayer below and was considering whether to post it on here or not, and was still undecided at the end of the day when my husband and I were getting ready for our nightly TV time. Number one right now on Netflix is this documentary Maternal Instinct. Why not watch it, I figured. Why not tonight, since I’m already fucked up in the head and wallowing in misery over the awfulness of humanity and can’t feel any worse. May as well switch the focus, for ninety minutes, to a different tragedy.

Like I said, I already knew the story of Taylor Parker. I’d read all about it. So the documentary, although horrifying, didn’t surprise me. Not until this line at the end.

How humbling, to have my TradCath mind blown by a simple young country girl from small-town, low-church-Protestant Texas!

At first, when the sister spoke about how she’d prayed for Taylor Parker to suffer, I was sitting there like: yes, girl, preach, because that was a whole mood – I’d spent the preceding twenty-four hours praying, as you can see below, for Preston’s murderers to suffer horribly.

But then, she changed her tune. Actually, she said, maybe she did hope Taylor repents, because “for a demon like her, hell would be easy.”

Wait. Damn. Isn’t that something to think about!

Because what is hell but separation from God – and how far they are from Him already. And wouldn’t the real punishment be for them to truly feel the awfulness of their deeds, and have to carry that with them – which it’s plain that they currently do not?

Speaking of Netflix, do you remember at the end of season one of The Sandman [SPOILERS 🛑!] how the “collectors” all receive as their punishment, not torture, not death, but – far more terrible – an awareness of what they had done? That was a great scene – we can see the horror settling onto their faces, dawning on them one by one, as they suddenly gain a conscience. See for yourself, the scene is only a minute or so long:

Such a satisfying moment, right? Don’t you wish this for every evildoer (including us poor sinners ourselves)? Right now, neither Preston’s killers nor Taylor Parker are contrite in the least; they feel no sorrow. It’s like they’re asleep. I can’t imagine anything that would hurt more than waking up and realizing what you’d done while sleeping.

That pain, the pain of knowing your sins and truly weeping for them – that’s the pain I wish on these three. Because it makes you realize: what is the point of torturing them, of them suffering (of any suffering, for that matter), if it brings about no change? What is even the point? Nothing will bring back Preston, or Reagan, or baby Braxlynn, or undo the suffering they went through. The only possible good thing we can hope for is for the wicked to repent.

Which, conveniently, is also the most painful punishment imaginable.

Because hey. Epiphanies aside, I still hope they suffer. I’m no saint. Maybe Reagan’s sister is, but not me. My weak little human heart still stands by the following prayer:

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“Woe to the wicked unto evil: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.” Isaiah 3:11

“Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee from before his face.” Psalm 67:2

Lord, Heavenly Father, Thou Who art merciful as well as just: I beseech Thee, deal with them not according to Thy mercy, but Thy divine Justice. Pease, from those two, do Thou withhold Thy mercy, and upon them rain down the relentless fire of Thy divine Justice, and let it be swift, and let it burn. Send Thy avenging angels to fill their every moment with anguish and torment; and may the cup of their suffering runneth over, amen. And let their remaining time on earth be a foretaste of what awaits them in eternity, which, in Thy omnipotence, Thy supreme order, Thou Who dost create all things and set all things right, do Thou fashion for them a special place in the deepest, blackest, hottest, most terrible pit of Hell, a place where, for ever and unto ages of ages, do Thou grant that they will suffer exactly what that sweet child suffered, all his pain and terror – let them feel everything that they made him feel, but magnified, and endlessly, and let them cry for relief but receive none, forever. Please, I beseech Thee, withhold Thy mercy. Please, show forth now the strong arm of Thy perfect justice, and let their torture be everlasting. Above all, grant them the horror of understanding what they have done. But in Thy love and mercy do Thou send forth a legion of angels, beautiful angels, to carry the sweet child’s soul straight to the arms of Thy Holy Mother Mary, where he may finally know the comfort and safety of a mother’s love, forever, and in the light of Thy Face rest eternal. And if I have sinned by willing the suffering of another, have mercy and forgive me, Father, for I’m just a mom, with an eleven-month-old son, as You know. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.