MY WIFE AND HER OX...How God's Law Would Have Handled September 18th, 2008

On September 18th, 2008, eight days after Leanora Elise Shockey was born, Lauren experienced Postpartum Psychosis and severely injured Nora. The doctors told me Nora probably would not make it, and the courts proceeded to charge Lauren with a felony and several misdemeanors.

There were plenty of anonymous comments in the articles surrounding the incident which called for Lauren's head. However, almost everyone who knows Lauren at all understands that Nora's injuries were entirely a result of Lauren's psychotic state, over which she had absolutely no control.

The problem is, secular courts do not handle these cases very well. After all, there is public outrage and future elections to consider. District Attorneys run their campaigns based on how many convictions they have gotten, not on whether or not justice was actually served. Judges are elected by that same public who, on the whole, knows nothing of Postpartum Psychosis.

Furthermore, Bucks County has had exactly one (1) case in its history where the defendant was granted a verdict of "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity", that is to say, the only verdict that would have averted a felony record for my wife. Due to the extremely long odds, we had little choice but to plead "Guilty but Mentally Ill" in order to hopefully - and, as it turned out, successfully - avoid jail time. Therefore, Lauren is a felon, which has serious and lasting ramifications, especially as a result of the Patriot Act.

In spite of all this, I do find peace in God's sovereignty as laid out in Romans 8 and elsewhere. I am also deeply grateful to God that our situation did not turn out even worse than it did.

So what does God's Word have to say about what happened on September 18th? Exodus 21:28-29 (ESV) reads thus:

When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.

I posit that Lauren's psychotic state is the ox, and Lauren and I are the owners of the ox.

Not everything about this application of the passage fits perfectly. First, Lauren's ox cannot be stoned, nor should it be, as Nora survived (and is a wonderful daughter!). Second, if Lauren were to have another psychotic episode in which she injured or killed someone, a secular government should not have the authority to carry out capital punishment. However, the rest fits very well...

Prior to this incident, Lauren and I had zero knowledge of Postpartum Psychosis - somewhat amazing, given Lauren's zeal for research and desire to learn EVERYTHING! We also had zero knowledge of anything in Lauren that could possibly lead to any sort of psychotic state. That is to say, the "ox" - her psychotic state - had not been accustomed to "gore" in the past, and we, as its owners, had never been warned to "keep it in".

Now that Lauren and I have been made aware of this ox, and that it is accustomed to violence, we would be fully liable were she to injure someone during Postpartum Psychosis a second time.

We must, then, consider the treatment of Lauren in the first incident as compared with what God's Law commands. God's Law demands justice. Man's laws seek vengeance, and have little to do with justice at all.. If God's Law had been applied, Lauren would have been fully exonerated, while she and I would have been put on notice.

'Notice', in this case, does not mean surveillance, supervision, nor any other Nanny conditions the government loves to employ. Instead, it simply means that Lauren and I would have had to pay in full with our own bodies should any incident like this ever happen again. This solution is simple and just, and completely hands-off should a second incident never occur. GOD'S LAW DEALS WITH WHAT HAPPENS, NOT WITH WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN.

Unfortunately, our society - and its government - is not interested in justice. In the first place, government jobs are maintained PRECISELY BY mishandling cases like this, and they therefore have a vested interest in mishandling them - District Attorneys, social workers, counselors, psychiatrists, and probation officers, all of whom have made tons of money from us and the taxpayers thanks to the "Guilty but Mentally Ill" plea (alongside countless others' pleas).

Unfortunately, most US citizens, even most fellow Christians, believe in trusting our government, in spite of passages like the Apostle Paul's warning to Christians in I Corinthians 6 to avoid the courts of unbelievers in disputes between believers.

God's Law has made provision for us in every way. If we would be willing to search out His Word for answers instead of turning to the fallen logic and special interests of man-made laws, we would finally be pursuing justice here on earth as it is in heaven. I am not suggesting I see God's Law as becoming the law of the land any time soon, nor do I know exactly what that would look like. However, I am making an earnest plea to my fellow Christians to turn to God's Word for truth and justice before bowing to these United States of America and their extremely fallible Constitution as canon.

Were Lauren's case handled properly, as God laid out in Exodus, justice would have been done.