Mother cares for her son’s Amish victims

By Daniel Burke

September 29, 2011

LANCASTER, Pa. (RNS) Terri Roberts was eating outside with a co-worker on a bright October day when an ambulance wailed nearby and a helicopter swooped overhead.

As she often did at a sirens’ sound, Roberts said a quick prayer.

“Little did I know what I was praying for,” she said.

Walking back to her office, Roberts heard the phone ring. It was her husband, Chuck.

“I need you to come to Charlie’s house right away,” he said, referring to their 32-year-old son.

Terri jumped into her car. The radio broadcast said there had been a shooting at an Amish schoolhouse in nearby Nickel Mines, Pa., where Charlie sometimes parked his milk truck.

Living forgiveness: Lessons on the fifth anniversary of the Amish schoolhouse shootings

Five years after a massacre devastated Lancaster County's Amish, the way they have coped with the tragedy holds lessons for all

By L. Gregory Jones

October 2, 2011
Five years ago today, Charles Carl Roberts IV entered an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pa., and shot 10 girls — mortally wounding five — before killing himself. This quiet, rural community in Lancaster County suddenly became a place of unprecedented contrasts: violence amid peaceful people, hordes of satellite trucks in a place that favors simplicity.

Most striking, in a world of deep division and blame-offering, was the nearly immediate forgiveness the Amish community expressed to the Roberts family. This was not forgiveness offered in a prepared statement, delivered by lawyers or news crews, but forgiveness offered in person, from one human being to another.

Forgiving the man who has deformed her face

Another beautiful story of forgiveness. Her name is Ameneh Bahrami. She has no form or comeliness; and when we see her, there is no beauty that we should desire her. Nevertheless, the outstanding beauty lies unquestionably in her heart.

Blinded Iranian rejects eye-for-eye punishment of attacker

TEHRAN—An Iranian woman blinded and disfigured by a man who threw acid into her face stood above her attacker Sunday in a hospital operating room as a doctor was about to put several drops of acid in one of his eyes in court-ordered retribution.

The man waited on his knees and wept.

How to forgive monsters

One is the story of Sunny Jacobs who had been jailed for 17 years wrongfully accused; the other is Debbie Morris who at 16 were kidnapped and raped multiple times by a man named Robert Willie who was played by Sean Penn in "Dead Man Walking."



Nota bene:
Sean Penn was a dead ringer for Robert Lee Willey in the movie "Dead Man Walking." Just when Debbie thought she had put the past behind her, it was now haunting her from bookstore windows and theater marquis. Now, Debbie had someone else to forgive, the real life nun, Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote the book on which the movie was based -- the nun who was Robert Willey's spiritual advisor and friend -- the nun who never consulted Debbie when she wrote her book.

Debbie made a call to ask her why. That was the beginning of an unusual friendship.

"We do have differences of opinion about things. But we share the things that are most important -- a love for Jesus Christ, a will to be obedient to God, and a value for human life. Whether it's the life of the victims of the life of the perpetrator or offender."

And that's why Debbie wrote a book to tell her own story. (CBN)

A 9/11 Friendship of Forgiveness

Two mothers—one whose son was killed on 9/11, one whose son is jailed for conspiracy to commit the attacks—explain their unlikely friendship.

On September 11, 2001, Phyllis Rodriguez' son, Greg, was killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Two months later, Aicha el-Wafi's son, Zacarias Moussaou, was indicted on charges of conspiring to plan the attack that killed him.

In 2002, the two mothers met. Over the years they have built an unlikely friendship based on forgiveness, peace, and hope for the future.

The Night I Forgave My Daughter's Killer

by Marietta Jaeger-Lane, as told to Lynsi Burton
May 27, 2011

We hoped this would be a once-in-a-lifetime family vacation—camping for a whole month in Montana. One night, at our first stop, our 7-year-old daughter Susie was kidnapped out of our tent. The tent was cut next to where her head had lain; she was pulled out and carried away.

My husband and dad drove to the next town and returned with the sheriff. A massive investigation ensued, while all we could do was to sit at the picnic table and watch, wait, and worry.

C. S. Lewis on forgiveness

 The problem of forgiveness:

. . . you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart—every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out. The difference between this situation and the one in such you are asking God’s forgiveness is this. In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people’s we do not accept them easily enough.

As regards my own sin it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are not really so good as I think; as regards other men’s sins against me it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are better than I think. One must therefore begin by attending to everything which may show that the other man was not so much to blame as we thought.

A time to love and a time to hate

A new forgiveness film has been released. A film by Helen Whitney. The title is Forgiveness: A time to love and a time to hate. Divided into two 90-minute acts, the film will air on Sundays, April 17 and 24, 2011 at 10pm ET on PBS stations nationwide (please check your local listings).

Please visit Fetzer Institute!

The dance of forgiveness

Forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel, but learning how to embody it is not easy. In their new book, "Forgiving As We've Been Forgiven," L. Gregory Jones and Célestin Musekura provide a guide for the practice of forgiveness.

February 1, 2011 | Célestin Musekura’s mother had been presumed dead in the 1992 Rwandan genocide. Many months later, though nearly their entire village had been destroyed, she was found alive.