Note: These blog posts will provide you an inside look into the makings of my next devotional/Bible study. I look forward to walking this journey with you and hearing your thoughts! Please comment (and often)! 

Her name was Hannah Clifton. Her husband was sentenced to death, being found guilty of deserting the Union army in 1862. She, with many others, wrote to President Abraham Lincoln asking for him to pardon this good man. He was close to 40 years of age, and he struggled with horrible sickness, being sent to the Union hospital. But he never went back to the army. Instead, after he was released, he headed home. His wife was caring for five children, and he hadn’t seen them in years. It was there, at his home, he was found and arrested and sent back to the army. When he deserted the second time, the judgement was determined: he was sentenced to the firing squad.*

Hannah Clifton reached out to the only person who could pardon her husband: then President Lincoln. She pleaded with him in a letter that her husband’s death would throw her and their five children into abject poverty.

This hadn’t been the first time President Lincoln had received a letter imploring him to pardon the army deserter. About 1 in 7 men would desert the army, requiring punishment.* Abraham Lincoln reminded her and others that if he pardons one man for deserting, how would that be justice? But Hannah Clifton wasn’t seeking justice; she was begging for mercy.

Mercy seeks forgiveness and pardon for a perceived or intentional wrongdoing. Hannah Clifton’s husband was guilty of deserting the Union army. There’s no question. Yet, the reasons behind the desertion made sense to many people (Lincoln received numerous letters, even from Congressmen, requesting him to pardon Clifton). In this case, justice and mercy seem at odds. Lincoln was correct that justice demanded punishment for deserting the army when services were required. Mercy, however, looks at the situation with the eyes of compassion. Mercy forgives even if the punishment demands death.

Abraham Lincoln signed for the release of Clifton the day before Lincoln was shot. Clifton lived a long life with his family.

Lamentations 3:22-23 states that: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, Because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: Great is thy faithfulness.”

God isn’t interested in giving us “what we deserve.” His mercies continue daily. All we have to do is seek him and ask. And he, being ever faithful, is ready to bless and pardon us.

**This is an excerpt from the draft of my book: His Mercy in My Mess.**

 

*Source: Jonathan W. White, 2012, “The ‘Good and Kind Heart’ of Lincoln,” New Jersey Monthly. *