I had this all written today, when I realized I was a day late. However, I think the story has merit. Bonnie and Clyde were famous outlaws in the 1930s. They both died on the same day, May 23, 1934. Their life of crime together left them filled with bullets and lifeless. Souvenirs were collected from the crime scene and the two criminals were immortalized in their death.

It was 1934 – right in the middle of the Great Depression – which ran from 1929-1939. It was a time when folks had seen all kinds of tragedy. The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919 had taken many lives in America. The depression was overcoming the population in yet another way. In a time when crime was running rampant, a young couple from Texas was making their way across small towns, robbing banks and creating havoc with their numerous murders.

Bonnie Parker, born in 1910. Before her 16th birthday, she was married to Roy Thornton who was an absentee husband and often involved in some illegal activity. They never officially divorced, but their paths never crossed after 1929. She met Clyde Barrow and they fell instantly in love. The rest is a short history of the lives of two young people who went down the wrong road together and both died on the same day.

Clyde was born in 1909. He was only 17 when he was first arrested for auto theft. He would spend the rest of his short life in and out of prison. He was sexually abused while imprisoned and committed his first murder there. A fellow inmate claimed responsibility for the deed. Barrow changed drastically during his time in jail. His sister Marie said, “Something awful sure must have happened to him in prison because he wasn’t the same person when he got out.”

Bonnie and Clyde lived during the “Public Enemy Era.” The movie, “Bonnie & Clyde,” would be produced many years later, but Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway did a good job of turning their bloody story into a tale of two young lovers gone wrong. Some might say they were victims of their time. Undoubtedly, we can all use that as an excuse. They paid for their evil ways by losing their lives at a very early age. Their time on this earth was short. On May 23, 1924, they were killed by police in an ambush and an exchange of huge amounts of gunfire.

Are any of us any different than these two? Not one of us can claim to have a life without sin. When Jesus confronted the Pharisees, telling them that he who was without sin, should throw the first stone. None of us could make such a claim. We are all sinners – a term that isn’t used much today in our world. It might even seem that the world has run amok in favor of it rather than condemning it. When we realize the fact that we need a Savior, admission of our sin leads to our repentance. If we continue in those sinful acts, we are turning our backs on the only One who can save us.

Our lives here on earth will never be free from the grasp of Satan and his minions, but we do have the promise that God has given us through His Only Son, Jesus. Believe that promise and the chains of death will not overtake you.