Forgiveness

As a Christian, I know that God requires me to be forgiving; when I was young, this seemed more easily achieved than it seems today. At that time, I felt I could forgive any imaginable offense against me. Now, aided by several decades of news reports demonstrating the horrific things people are capable of inflicting on others, I can imagine offenses that would be very difficult to forgive.

In particular, having children has change my focus on this topic (as it has in most other areas of life) from myself to the ones I love. It's one thing to forgive an offense against oneself; forgiving an offense against your child would be another matter.

There have been several tragic acts of violence in both the national and local news recently that have claimed the lives of innocent children. Obviously any act of violence is sad, but when one or more victims is a child I can't help but wonder what I would do if that had happened to one of my children. I struggle with sadness and anger, and I know many others do as well.

And I wonder if I could ever honestly forgive.

I know I would be required to. I know I would be required to. I don't know if I could.

I recently read "Left to Tell" by Immaculée Ilibagiza (with Steve Erwin). In the 1994 Rwandan genocide that claimed the lives of over one million Tutsis, she hid in a Hutu pastor's bathroom with seven other Tutsi women and girls for 91 days.  When she emerged, her parents and two of her three brothers had been brutally murdered.

In her three months in hiding she spent a lot of time in prayer, and she speaks of the difficulty she had with the Lord's Prayer. When she would say "as we forgive those who trespass against us", she admitted she was initially withholding that forgiveness from the Hutus who were butchering her people. I am confident I would have felt the same way.

I am less confident that I would have grown spiritually the way she did in her confinement and in the danger and difficulties she faced afterward. Her story details the brutality and unimaginable horrors she experienced and witnessed. But it also recounts her inspiring journey of faith.

In the end, through God's grace, she does find the capacity to forgive. By that, I don't mean she simply mentioned it in a quiet prayer to God alone. Forgiveness can provide healing for both the offended and the offender; part of the power of forgiveness requires that it be communicated to the one in need of it.

So she traveled to the prison that held the man who had led the machete-wielding group of Hutus who killed her mother and one of her brothers. Could you forgive? I'm not sure I could. But she visited him. Upon seeing him, she sincerely felt pity for him. She touched his hands, those murderous hands, and she said, "I forgive you."

Immaculée's story shows me that, although I really have nothing to forgive anyone, I have work to do there. You can know you have a weakness before you've ever been challenged. I thank her for sharing her story. Wherever you are in your journey of faith, it can be inspiring to find stories of those who have faced life's difficulties with grace and spiritual growth. How much more rewarding it is than much of the other material we read or watch!