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.