Many of you have written to ask if a fund has been set up for the children of Jessica Johnson, whose daughter Lindsay witnessed her mom's murder, and survived her own attempted murder, caring for her baby sister through the night spent in the woods. I've just spoken to Elaine Johnson, Jessica's mother, who said that a fund had been established to pay for the education of Lindsay, Baby Robbyn and a third daughter Jessica left behind. She directed me to the bank, which I phoned just now. If you'd like to donate, here's the address:
Jessica Johnson Palmer and Juan Palmer, Jr., Donation Account
c/o Chase Bank
4431 Hwy 19
Zachary, LA 70791
Jessica and Juan were murdered on May 4 in Zachary. The banker to whom I spoke says that you can go to any Chase Bank nationwide and donate to this account if you prefer.
I don't know if I'd mentioned earlier what kind of Christian Mrs. Johnson is. Here's an account from the Baton Rouge Advocate of her daughter and grandson's funeral, at which she spoke:
Clutching her Bible, Elaine Johnson strode up to the pulpit at the end of her daughter and grandson’s joint funeral services Saturday and declared that she forgives the pair accused of killing them.“I love them. I cannot hate them,” Johnson said of the accused, her cousin, Trendall Lashel Matthews, 22, and Dominique Dantoni Smith, 28. “God says to love.”
I told Mrs. Johnson this afternoon that lots of people have written me to say they're praying for the children and her family through this tragedy. She said she is grateful for this.
"The devil meant it for bad, but God can turn it to good," she said, of the murders. "God says we've got to love ye one another. You never know what good you're doing for people when you pray for them, and reach out to them." Amen.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, read my column via this link, or in the extended entry. It's an amazing story of the power of a brave little girl's heroic love for her sister.
Rod Dreher: From horror, a child's loving gift
01:44 PM CDT on Sunday, May 18, 2008
Every day we pick up the newspaper and read stories of suffering and inhumanity that make you want to draw the curtains and sit quietly in the dark.
Though it easily could have been, this tale is not one of them.
On the afternoon of May 4, Jessica Johnson Palmer took her three children to a park to meet her former boyfriend. According to the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office, the boyfriend and his current girlfriend lured the family into the woods, beat Mrs. Palmer to death with a baseball bat, slit the throats of 4-year-old Lindsay and 3-year-old Juan. They left Robbyn, a 7-month-old, to die alone.
But the baby didn't die. And she didn't die because Lindsay didn't die.
In their haste, the killers' blade missed Lindsay's jugular. After the murderers left, the wounded girl huddled with her baby sister under a bush through the Louisiana night.
The next morning, park groundskeepers saw Lindsay stumbling out of the woods holding the baby. She collapsed. The children were bitten so badly by insects that sheriff's deputies thought they had been burned. In the hospital that night, a sheriff's spokeswoman told me, Lindsay refused to sleep until nurses brought her baby sister to cradle in her arms.
The information Lindsay gave police led to the arrest of two people, one of them allegedly her biological father. "God, you left the prophetess alive to tell the story," the family's pastor said at the funeral.
The Baton Rouge Advocate reported that Lindsay came to the funeral with a white scarf hiding her neck wound. Erin Manning, a Fort Worth writer, observed on my blog that the scarf conceals a profound mystery: "We can't bear to look at the sacrificial cost of love – a wound so bravely borne because at some level, this child's love for her tiny sister outweighed her terror and her pain."
This is why the lives of the saints are so much more important than moral exhortation. We need to see and to feel what goodness, especially heroic goodness, is like. Evil, even great evil, usually can be explained, but true goodness? That's more of a mystery. Mysteries, by definition, can never be fully explained, only revealed.
This is a revelation.
How must that child have felt that night, so tiny and abandoned, facing the crushing enormity of what she had seen and the blackness of the night in the swampy woods? I come from the next town over. I have been in those woods. They're infested with poisonous snakes, wildcats and other killers that prowl at night. All children growing up in south Louisiana know that.
She could have run deeper into the woods to flee the gruesome scene never to be seen again. She could have sat quietly, paralyzed by fear and trauma, until she and the baby perished from exposure or worse. Either would have been tragic, God knows, but unsurprising.
After all, she was only 4.
That's not what Lindsay did. After keeping vigil with the baby in the savage ruins of their family's life, that little girl picked up her sister and walked straight out of hell.
Witness the power of love. It was love, surely, that gave that child the courage and presence of mind to face down unimaginable terror. All the darkness in the hearts of the diabolical killers, and the darkness of a thousand million evil nights like that one, cannot overcome the light that young child kindled in her heart, hiding under the bush near the body of her dead mother and brother.
Long after the despicable deeds of the killers are forgotten, people will tell stories about what she did. How many of us face long odds and struggle with hardship, sickness and despair? Who hasn't been tempted to surrender to the thought that the hate and pain and sorrow of this life are too great to endure?
Let them think of Lindsay, who refused despair. For the rest of her life, the scar on her neck will be a luminous sign to the world: Love conquers all.
When Lindsay Paige Johnson, age 4, staggered bloody out of the darkness and into the light, she carried her baby sister. Baby Robbyn's life is Lindsay's gift to her.
But she also carried hope. This is her gift to us.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Is it tax deductible? If not, I'd donate my time & labor, but in no way will I let my charitable giving be taxed
I don't know. I can't vouch for it, and don't want to be read as recommending to people that they donate. I'm just answering private queries from a number of readers asking if there was any way they could give something to help the family out.
Odd, though, that the one thing keeping you from giving money is fear that the contribution might not be tax deductible. I'm afraid I don't understand that.
Odd, though, that the one thing keeping you from giving money is fear that the contribution might not be tax deductible.
It's not odd at all. There are many charitable organizations and causes out there to which one may contribute. The fact that this one is high profile momentarily in the media tells us nothing in terms of its quality. Making sure a contribution can be tax-deductible means you have more money to give to other charities. It's good stewardship and it's simple math.
Thank you for posting about the courage and love of this young lady and her family. Unfortunately, in a fallen world, Christians must know how they will respond to such horrors. I address this kind of situation at length in my forthcoming book. But, for now, I would point to the column I wrote after Virginia Tech. While, forgiveness does need to be offered, we need to read Romans 12:17-21 carefully when processing evil like this.
HELLO HOW ARE YOU GUYS MY NAME IS EBONE' JACKSON AND I NO THAT THIS HAPPENED A WHILE BACK BUT I GOT A BETTER VIEW OF THE WHOLE SITUATION EARLIER TODAY AND I JUST HAD TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT IT ABOUT THIS CHILD AND HER LOVING AND CARIND WILL TO PROTECT HER BABY SISTER IM ONLY 14 SO I DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY TO DONATE AND GOD KNOWS IF I DID I WOULD BUT THIS STORY HAS TRULY TOUCHED ME DEEPLY AND IT REALLY HURTS ME TO THINK OF THIS FAMILY GOING THROUGH THIS HURT AND PAIN BUT I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO POINT OUT THE GOOD BECAUSE THIS COMMENT WASNT MEANT FOR BAD BUT I TRULY FEEL THAT,THA 4 YEAR OLD CHILD LINDSAY PAIGE JOHNSON IS GOD'S LITTLE ANGEL SHE IS A GIFT OF HIS GRACE AND MERCY AND SHE WILL BE A VERY SPECIAL YOUNG CHILD THAT WILL FOREVER RECEIVE MY LOVE AND RESPECT AND MY DEEP AND SINCEREST SYMPATHY GOES OUT TO THIS FAMILY IM AM TRULY SORRY FOR YOUR LOST BUT I WANT TO LET YOU BY THE LOVE OF LITTLE LINDSAY THERE IS A GOD AND YOUR LOST WILL FOREVER LIVE AND SHINE IN GODS GRACE
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.