Murder Trial Begins Tomorrow, 05 November 2012

Tomorrow is known as Voting Day for 99.99999999% of our country's population, but to my family, tomorrow has been named Trial Day.

It has been one year and a week since Jay's mom was killed in her home.  The only suspect there has ever been is Jay's youngest brother, who has been incarcerated for this whole time.  I have only seen the defendant once since the incident: he was shackled and dressed in orange, and I saw him across the courtroom during a preliminary hearing.  Tomorrow, he will be dressed in a suit, but he will still be sitting across the courtroom from me, next to his lawyer, whose job is to convince twelve total strangers that he is 1) innocent of the crime and 2) if he's not innocent of the crime, he was insane and shouldn't be held responsible.

I've never seen a trial before.  I've never sat on a jury; and to be honest, most of what I know about these things comes from Hollywood (a real reliable source right there).  But tomorrow, I will watch as Jay's other brother and sister are questioned and cross-examined on the stand about the last words they had with their mom and what they did and saw, and the next day I will hear Jay asked about the same.  There will be police officers, EMTs, and DNA specialists interviewed.  Through testimonies, the district attorney will be piecing together a picture for the jury of what happened, and the public defender will be doing her best to rip it apart.

My mother-in-law's last hours, minutes, and seconds will be discussed in agonizing detail.  And twelve people who are stuck on this case (witting or unwitting though they may be) for the next 6-8 weeks have to listen to it all.

Fortunately for me, I can listen to as much or as little of it as I want.  I've decided to make plans to attend every day this week, accompanied by a relay of dear friends, while other friends and family stay at home with my boys.  But if I want to, I can leave after the first 10 minutes of the first day and never go back.

So how do I feel about all of this?  Nervous.  The kind of sad that's a physical, dull ache behind the frontal lobe.  Braced.  A little queasy.  Preoccupied.  And so very, very, very sad.

I find myself still asking the question, “Why did this happen????  What good can possibly come out of this??  How does this tragedy fulfill God's greater purpose for the world?”  Honestly, I hope I find out someday.  But I guess for now I just have to keep taking it one day at a time, leaning on the things I do know, that:

• God dearly loves every person, but He lets us make our own choices—which sometimes hurt each other in awful ways.
• God is with me every second, and He weeps when I weep.
• There is a bigger picture, and although I feel like I'm in a little boat in the middle of the ocean, not even able to see over the waves, God can see the whole globe and cares for every person in it.
• My mother-in-law and my mom and countless others who love Him are with the person of Jesus this very second, safe and sound and in total peace and joy...and someday I'll be there with them.

But not today, and most-likely not tomorrow.  Tomorrow I'm going to be on a wooden seat in a small room, clutching a tissue and feeling sick to my stomach.  But I will not be alone.  No, I will not be alone.  And while the district attorney paints a picture of Jay's mom dying alone at the hands of her attacker, I know she wasn't really alone either.  Jesus was there, holding her soul in His loving, scarred hands, and He was weeping.