Thumping My Bible: Thoughts on Making a Murderer

Where are my Downton Abbey posts, you ask? Well, two weeks ago I skipped watching Downton on a Sunday night because I was enthralled in Making a Murderer. Now, that I have marathoned through the series, here is what I have to say:

There are not very many things that leave me standing on top of my stack of NIVs thumping my bible, but I find myself there after finishing the Netflix documentary, Making a Murderer. 

Have you seen the story of Steven Avery? 

If not let me tell you that it is a horrible story of brokenness and heartache. Watching it made me angry, made me sad, but never lead me to hopelessness about this situation. Because there is always hope, there is always grace and I am hopeful that redemption will always find its way.

I found myself praying the same prayer that I repeated as I sat in a courtroom in November - Lord, please speak to their hearts. 

After concluding the final episode I went to sleep thinking, “I am going to determine the truth, see how the documentary was possibly edited, if the facts were spun or misdirected.” I woke the next morning thinking, “the truth doesn’t matter.” Now, I know the truth matters to Theresa’s (the young woman murdered) family and the truth matters the Avery family, but for me here in a Houston suburb, the truth of this story doesn’t matter. 

The truth that I need to grasp is that on this side of heaven we are all flawed. We all have failings. We all have sin. Without Jesus sin manifests into a great calamities. Sin takes over our lives and leads us to places we never should be. 

As each interview ended I found myself saying, “he needs a strong dose of Jesus.” Not that the person was wrong or wicked, but I felt a need for hope. They all needed something bigger to hold onto. 

There is someone who is being eaten away by the truth they are carrying about the events that happened almost ten years ago. My prayer is for it to continue to eat at them, for a callous to not form over their pain and that their despair will lead them grasping for help. I pray that in that pain they will feel God’s presence, they were will sense God’s peace and they will embrace the redemption that is given to them. 

I pray for hearts to be softened, that God helps everyone involved to come to a place of forgiveness with themselves and others. I found myself listing out names  (Ken Kratz, Dean Strang, Steven Avery, Brendan Dassey, I could go on and on) and praying for these names, names that after watching the documentary have become faces. 

One of the filmmakers said in an interview that this project started to “start a dialogue,” my hope after watching this that it starts a dialogue of prayer. I do suggest, if you have netflix, to watch this documentary. You may want to read this article first written by Jonathon M. Seidl for I am Second: http://www.iamsecond.com/2016/01/three-reasons-you-should-watch-netflixs-making-a-murderer/. 

One last thing, can someone please give me a gold star for not obsessing and getting lost in research about this case. I am known as the private investigator in my family and with my friends. I love to put the puzzle pieces together, but in this case I feel that it’s not worth it for me. Reading through every detail of this case will not change my feelings because I stand here today thinking that the truth will never fix this story, it will never heal the pain for these people. That the Sunday School answer is the only way to fix this, the only answer is Jesus.