Forgiveness News

Forgiveness as Freedom

Black Hills Pioneer newspaper, Spearfish, South Dakota – Holocaust survivor, Eva Mozes Kor, addressed a beyond-capacity crowd at Black Hills State University this week. Her message was forgiveness of the Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele, who experimented on her twin sister and her at Auschwitz. She told the audience that she thought, as a young child, everyone lived as she did—without parents, in horrid conditions. Despite the atrocity, she has found it in her heart to forgive him. A central message to the audience was this: Everything we do in daily life touches other people, she said. Do not forget that.

Kor was 10 years old when she and her family were brought to Auschwitz by train in a cattle car in 1944. She and her twin sister Miriam were separated from the rest of their family by a Nazi guard searching for twins for the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele to experiment on. Mengele performed many horrific experiments on inmates at Auschwitz, but he was particularly interested in twins. Kor feels that being selected for Mengele’s twin experimentations contributed greatly to her and Miriam’s survival.

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Mother Forgives Her Daughter’s Attacker

Manawatu Standard, New Zealand. A partner of the Cheryl Thompson’s daughter attacked the daughter with a knife last September. She survived the attack. He was sentenced yesterday to five years and five months in jail. ??At the hearing, Mrs. Thompson said, “I’m not too sure how people feel about forgiveness, but for myself, I know it heals the heart and soothes the soul. I chose today to let [the attacker] know face to face that we forgive him.” The judge described the forgiveness as “remarkable compassion.”

A man who repeatedly stabbed his girlfriend while on a paranoid religious rampage has been forgiven by her family, which a judge described as “remarkable compassion”.

In the High Court at Palmerston North yesterday, Elim Tekotahi Emery, 21, was jailed for five years and five months on two charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

On September 3, at a Feilding house, he stabbed his 18-year-old partner and his uncle with a boning knife.

His girlfriend was rushed to hospital for life-saving surgery and originally Emery faced an attempted murder charge, but this was later downgraded.

Yesterday his partner’s mother, Cheryl Thompson, told the court about her feelings of forgiveness toward Emery.

“I’m sad it had to end this way for two young people who were supposed to start their lives together,” Ms Thompson said.

“I’m not too sure how people feel about forgiveness, but for myself, I know it heals the heart and soothes the soul.

“I chose today to let Elim know face to face that we forgive him …”??Read the full story.

 

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I Forgive My Son’s Killer

NYDailyNews.com. “I forgive my son’s killer,” says Phyllis Ferguson after her son, Demetrius Hewlin, was killed in an Ohio high school. “Until you’ve walked in another person’s shoes, you don’t know what made him come to this point.”

The parents of a teen killed in a shooting at an Ohio high school cafeteria on Monday have forgiven their son’s suspected killer, saying it was “God’s will” that their boy was taken from them in the morning rampage.

Phyllis Ferguson, the mother of Chardon High School shooting victim Demetrius Hewlin, told ABC News that if she had the chance to talk to suspected gunman T.J. Lane, “I would tell him I forgive him because, a lot of times, they don’t know what they’re doing. That’s all I’d say.”

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A Healthy and Prosperous Heart: The Power of Forgiveness and Letting Go

Nelson Mandela’s words reveal a powerful truth, “Harboring resentment is like drinking poison, expecting if will kill your enemies.” Ongoing studies show that lack of forgiveness has a negative impact on our bodies, resulting in chronic health problems and diminished quality of life.

Rehashing old hurts, past wrongs, regrets can have a negative and toxic effect on all systems in the body, but particularly the heart. We wear down our cardiovascular system by replaying the toxic tapes and stories from our past, wreaking havoc on ourselves, our bodies, in innumerable ways, increasing our heart rate, blood pressure, while flooding our bodies with stress hormones that linger, creating an unhealthy inner environment of discomfort and disease.

Do yourself a favor. Focus your time and energy on cultivating a practice of forgiveness. Read the full story.

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