One Woman’s Path to Forgiving the Unforgiveable
Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN – In 1973, Marietta Jaeger Lane’s 7-year-old daughter, Susie, was kidnapped from her tent in the middle of the night on a family camping trip to Montana. It was not until a year later that the kidnapper was caught and confessed, not just to killing Susie, but to the murders of three other children. Lane visited the man in jail, just before he hanged himself. He was 26.
After finally being able to bury Susie on a beautiful October afternoon in 1974, Lane drove to the home of the man’s mother.
“I wanted to tell her I had forgiven David, the David she knew who cut her lawn and took her shopping,” she said. “We just held each other and wept, two mothers who had lost their children.”
Lane has since become a sought-after speaker on forgiveness.
“You have every right to your initial rage and grief,” says Lane, the mother of four adult children. “Forgiveness takes daily, diligent discipline. It’s not for wimps. But hatred isn’t healthy. Forgiveness sets us free.”
Read more about Lane’s forgiveness work in “One Woman’s Path to Forgive Unforgiveable”
