Maria

Thirty years ago, Jim McGuiggan offered an illustration that has stuck with me. It may be based upon a true story, or it may be a parable; I’m not sure.

There was a young girl in Italy named Maria Soransino. She fell in love with a thug named Azul Barberry, and he was a barbarian.

He was well established in the mafia, especially the drug business. He was also responsible for murder.

In the early fifties, Maria was 17. Barberry was arrested and put on trial. She saw his clippings and photos in the newspaper and, for some strange reason, she fell in love with him.

He was sentenced to 99 years in prison, and she began writing him 2 or 3 times every week without fail.  She would began her letter-"Dear Mr. Barberry, I love you…" and she would fill her letters with current events and things she thought would be interesting.

Maria wrote Azul for ten years and never heard a word.  She didn't date any other guy, she just wrote him.

Now in this criminal's first few years in prison, he was just as big a hoodlum as when he was out.  But as time passed, he began to change.  He started taking the pictures of pornograqhy off his jail cell wall and put pictures up of this beautiful young woman. They started to correspond with each other and she would visit every now and then.

In the early 70's, when Maria was 38, 21 years after she first fell in love with this character, she got a letter from him asking her to marry him.  Would she? You bet.  So Maria traveled to the prison and married him.

As Jim noted, here was a girl with all her sinfulness and humanity and selfishness. And she knew what it was to get a hold of somebody, love him, and change his life.

She did not do so flawlessly, but somebody did. In a sense, all of us who are Christians were all criminals at one time. God took hold of us and wouldn't let go.

God runs to sinners and villains.  God's a people person. Just look at Jesus.