When you are facing long-term medical treatment there are certain qualities that you have to learn to develop: patience, resilience, contentment. But chief among these qualities is trust. I’ve heard myself say to people throughout my time under treatment that you have to come to the place where you are content to let people do things to you in the faith that this is the best way forward for you. Demanding scans, needles, cannulas, drugs that take the feet away from you. But all prescribed and given in the confidence that this is for the good. And we are called upon to accept the judgement of the medics. The responsibility they carry is monumental. They may be prescribing treatment that will initially make us feel worse, but the intention is that ultimately it will at least improve our quality of life or, indeed, cure. And we trust them.
It's with this mind, that I am most disturbed by the Lucy Letby case. Surely it is the biggest challenge in the whole area of trust to place the life of your baby in the hands of another. If it’s difficult enough to place your own life in the hands of another, how much more when it is your baby? And Lucy Letby continually reassured parents with the words: ‘Trust me I am a nurse.’ When something good is twisted and made to become an opportunity for evil then spiritually this is one of the worst things.
Jesus was once accused of driving out demons by the power of Beelzebul. He responded by saying that anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit is beyond forgiveness. (Matthew 12: 32) Once you say God is bad the pathway to Him is blocked off. What Lucy Letby did was to distort something that is good, trust, and make it the gateway for abuse and death.
And what of Lucy Letby? She has received the most severe custodial sentence since the abolition of capital punishment. She will spend the rest of her life in jail. Added to her crimes has been her refusal to attend court to hear the Judge’s remarks and the experiences of the parents whose lives she has affected irrevocably. A last demonstration of control which seems to be part of her mindset.
But what of her now? I caught sight of a tabloid headline yesterday which topped a photograph of Lucy Letby with the words: ‘Proof That The Devil Is Amongst Us.’
She is deemed to be beyond normal human society and few would argue with that. But in her lifetime as it stretches out before her is there no hope that there could be repentance? Is it the case that the road to God is eternally blocked off to her? I recent sang in Church Frances Crosby’s hymn with the verse:
O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
To every believer the promise of God;
The vilest offender who truly believes.
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.’
In the latest revision of the Church of Scotland hymnbook that third line has been changed to ‘for every offender who truly believes/ that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.’ An updating of language? Or a call to recognise that that there is no category of sinners - and we are all sinners - which is uniquely beyond the mercy of God?
We need to pray for great humility when it comes to speculating on the eternal souls of others. My overriding thought at this moment is that in prison Lucy Letby will come into touch with some Christian influence, a Chaplain, another prisoner, who will be used to bring about that radical change Paul spoke of when he said that those who are in Christ are a ‘new creation.’
Final word. Confronted with the worst in human conduct it is never inappropriate to look to ourselves for those times when we have hurt others or burned against them inwardly and stood in need of the mercy of God.
