Prisoner Of Love - Mathilda Wrede

1864–1928

“A life placed in the hands of God will be used by Him,” Mathilda Wrede believed. As the daughter of a well-respected governor in Finland, she was officially a baroness. She could have lived in luxury her whole life, but she preferred to place her life in God’s hands.

As a child, Mathilda had seen prisoners coming to the governor’s mansion to do repairs. Even then, her heart went out to them. After having a religious experience at age nineteen, she decided to do what she could to help prisoners. Over the next four decades, Mathilda Wrede became a legend of charitable work. Without concern for her own safety, she visited prisons and befriended hardened criminals.

The inmates came to love and respect her. She wasn’t some rich do-gooder parading her own righteousness. She left her fur coat at home and shivered with the rest of them. Dropping her baroness title, she became known as a “friend of prisoners.” She ate prison rations. She dared to sit down with them and talk. She handed out Bibles and spoke of God’s love, but she never seemed preachy.

Stories circulated about this courageous woman. One murderer warned her that she’d be wasting her time to talk with him: “My heart is as hard as a stone and my sins as big as a mountain.” Mathilda surprised him by sitting beside him and asking about his time in Siberia. She asked if he knew some of her friends who had been shipped off there. She didn’t preach to him that day, or on her next several visits. Eventually he begged Mathilda to tell him about her faith. He ended up asking God for forgiveness.

“I believe that the secret of success in our work . . .” she wrote, “is to love those whom we seek to save without waiting until we find something lovable in them. What would become of us if Christ had not loved us and come to our help?”

Our modern society loves to label people. We divide up generations, social classes, religious groups, and political leanings—ultimately breaking it all down to “us” and “them.” We love our neighbors—those who are like us—and hate our enemies. But that’s not God’s way, as Mathilda would quickly tell us. He doesn’t wait for people to become lovable before he loves them, and neither should we.

I was in prison, and you visited me.

Matthew 25:36