Forgiveness News

Parents Forgive Hit-and-Run Driver for Killing Their Girls

examiner.com, Denver, CO – Susan Dieter and her husband Tom Robinson are suffering from a heartbreak that is difficult to comprehend. The couple lost both their 6-year-old daughter, Anna Dieter-Eckerdt, and her 11-year-old stepsister, Abigail Robinson, to a hit and run driver on October 20, 2013.

Less than two weeks later, the couple told a television reporter that they forgave the teenage girl who ran over their two young daughters.

Authorities said the girls were playing in a pile of leaves near the street outside their home in Forest Grove, OR, when an     18-year-old female driver “intentionally” drove through the large pile and “felt a bump” but failed to stop.

Mother of Amish Schoolhouse Shooter: “We are Called to Forgive”

The Huffington Post – Religion, Lancaster, PA – The mother of the gunman who killed five girls at an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania says she learned from the Amish how to forgive her son after the 2006 massacre.

Just over seven years ago, Charles Carl Roberts IV barricaded himself inside an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, PA, tied up 10 girls and opened fire, killing five and injuring five others before committing suicide as police closed in.

The Amish responded by offering immediate forgiveness to the killer — even attending his funeral — and embracing his family.

Roberts’ mother, Terri Roberts, could have gone into hiding to nurse her pain, like many parents of mass murderers have in the past. Instead, she broke with convention. She forgave, too, and now she is sharing her experience with others, saying the world needs more stories about the power of forgiveness and the importance of seeking joy through adversity.

“I realized if I didn’t forgive him, I would have the same hole in my heart that he had. And a root of bitterness never brings peace to anyone,” Roberts said. “We are called to forgive.”

Roberts has delivered that message to scores of audiences, from church groups to colleges, and is writing a memoir. At the same time, she stays close to her Amish neighbors.

Once a week, Terri Roberts spends time with a 13-year-old Amish girl named Rosanna who sits in a wheelchair and eats through a tube. Roberts bathes her, sings to her, reads stories. She can only guess what’s going on inside Rosanna King’s mind because the girl can’t talk. Roberts’ son did this to her. She is one of the five schoolhouse shooting survivors.

Terri Roberts’ weekly visits with Rosanna force her to confront the damage her son caused. But Roberts says she also finds peace as she spends time with Rosanna and provides some relief to the teen’s family, if only for a few hours.

While the Amish were celebrated for how they responded to the massacre, they also acknowledge that forgiveness doesn’t always come easily or automatically. Rosanna ‘s father, Christ King, said the Amish are like anyone else, with the same frailties and emotions.

“We hope that we have forgiven, but there actually are times that we struggle with that, and I have to ask myself, ‘Have I really forgiven?'” King said. “We have a lot of work to do to live up to what we are bragged up to be.”

Yet Terri Roberts says she learned from the Amish that “none of us needs to live in the saddest part of our lives 24/7.”

Read the full story: “Terri Roberts, Mother Of Amish Shooting Perpetrator Cares For Her Son’s Victims.”

Rape Victim Meets Attacker to Forgive Him

BBC News UK, London – A rape victim who met her attacker in prison in order to tell him she has forgiven him called the visit a “great” experience to seek “peace and forgiveness together.”

London resident Katja Rosenberg, 40, was cycling home after work when she was attacked by a 16-year-old stranger. He was eventually captured and jailed for 14 years after admitting to that attack and another rape of a 51-year-old woman shortly afterwards.

Rosenberg said she felt she could forgive soon after the 2006 rape, believing things must have gone wrong in her attacker’s life. “You wouldn’t ever do that if you felt happy,” she told BBC Radio 5 live.

Rosenberg said she had always felt in the years since that she should meet her attacker. She finally visited him in prison last September–a meeting arranged through a restorative justice program.  Rosenberg said she was partly motivated by a wish to assure her attacker that “life’s not hopeless, that he knows he’s got a future”, she said.

“I just felt I could give that. I also thought the exchange would be good for me to somehow get some kind of closure – I mean, I didn’t really need a ‘Sorry’, but it was somehow just good to see that you walk into the same direction of peace and forgiveness together.”

Read the full story: “Rape victim meets attacker to forgive him.”

“I Have Forgiven You for Murdering My Mother. . .”

Amarillo Globe News, Amarillo, Texas – Before a District Judge sentenced a 22-year-old man to life in prison without parole for killing an 84-year-old woman and assaulting her developmentally disabled daughter, the woman’s adult children addressed the court to talk of forgiveness and faith.

Imogene Wilmoth Harris, who died of blunt force trauma on Aug. 14, 2011, was described by her family as a giving woman who taught Bible study and worked with stroke victims to help them regain their speech. The man who killed her, Esequiel Gomez Jr.,  was eventually captured and pled guilty to capital murder in a plea agreement that spared him from Death Row.

Family members, who supported the decision to grant Gomez a life sentence instead of lethal injection, spoke at his sentencing last week in a tiny, hushed courtroom.

“The bottom line is this, Mr. Gomez: I have forgiven you,” said Harris’ daughter Shelley Fields. “I have forgiven you for murdering my mother and raping my little sister, but I will never forget what you took from us that night.”

Another daughter, Holly Chester, also told Gomez she forgave him while the victim’s eldest daughter, Peggy Guthrie, said, “God won’t forgive us if we don’t forgive others.”

Read the full story: “Tulia family speaks of forgiveness, punishment during killer’s sentencing.”

A Mother’s Journey of Hope and Forgiveness

NBC Bay Area – KNTV, San Francisco, CA – Scarlett Lewis lost her six-year-old son Jesse during the Sandy Hook school shooting. In the face of that tragedy, Lewis said she learned to forgive the shooter, in part due to the final message Jesse wrote on their kitchen chalkboard: the words “nurturing,” “healing” and “love.”

Lewis is sharing the story of her son’s final act of bravery as  well as how she learned forgiveness in a book, “Nurturing    Healing Love: A Mother’s Journey of Hope & Forgiveness.” Jesse Lewis had urged his classmates to flee the school after seeing his teacher shot, investigators learned after gathering accounts from survivors. Six children escaped before 20-year-old Adam Lanza reloaded and shot Jesse.

“I knew that forgiveness was possible… It’s taking your power back. Not forgiving doesn’t feel good,” Lewis said.

Lewis’ book isn’t a story about a massacre. It’s a story about love and survival. It’s about how to face the impossible, how to find courage when you think you have none, and how to choose love instead of anger, fear, or hatred.

“I believe that Jesse was put on this earth to do what he  did… I’m proud of him. I believe he left a message for me: nurturing,  healing, love.” Lewis added. “We understand these final words as a calling from Jesse that says, ‘I have something for you to do for us. That’s to consciously change an angry thought into a loving one’ because it is a choice.”

In addition to the book, Scarlett recently began the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation, which promotes ways for communities  to “choose love over anger, gratitude over entitlement, and forgiveness  and compassion over bitterness.”

Read the full story: “Newtown Mom Describes Struggle for Forgiveness, Peace After Son’s Death.”