Forgiveness News

Seeing Forgiveness Through the Eyes of a Child

WECT television, Wilmington, NC – A father relates a story of his 7-year-old son, who had a not-so-usual take on the young man who did the shooting in Connecticut in December. While offering his bedtime prayers, the young boy prayed for the salvation of the one who killed the children. The father realized that forgiveness can be extended even to those who commit the most horrendous of crimes.

Read the full story – “Your Turn: Learning forgiveness from our children.”

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Inspired by Forgiveness

Belfast Telegraph, Belfast, Northern Ireland – The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, delivered his final Christmas Day sermon from Canterbury Cathedral (Canterbury, Kent, UK) and spoke of how he has been inspired by meeting people who have experienced great suffering yet are able to forgive. “The parents who have lost a child to gang violence, the wife who has seen her husband killed in front of her by an anti-Christian mob in India, the woman who has struggled for years to comprehend and accept the rape and murder of her sister, the Israeli and Palestinian friends who have been brought together by the fact that they have lost family members in the conflict and injustice that still racks the Holy Land – all these are specific people I have had the privilege of meeting as Archbishop over these ten years,” Dr. Williams said, “and in their willingness to explore the new humanity of forgiveness and rebuilding relations, without for a moment making light of their own or other people’s nightmare suffering, or trying to explain it away, these are the ones who make us see, who oblige us to turn aside and look, as if at a bush burning but not consumed.”

Dr. Williams steps down at the end of the month after a decade as head of the Church of England to become Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, UK, and chairman of the board of trustees of Christian Aid, an international development charity.

Read the full story: Williams inspired by forgiveness.”

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Forgiveness Story Triggers Flood of Gift-Giving

CBC News, Novia Scotia, Canada – Free groceries and Christmas gifts are piling up for a Nova Scotia man who forgave the thief who ran off with his turkey dinner and presents.

Frank (Mike) Foley went shopping on Wednesday but a thief broke into his car and stole the groceries and gifts he had just bought.

Instead of calling the police, Foley posted a message on his Facebook page offering the thief a chance to return everything:

“I want you to know that I forgive you for this as it seems that you needed these things more than I do. The turkey and groceries will not ruin our Christmas dinner for we will still have something for dinner that day and the gifts you stole were material things that we can do without.

“But I want you to understand that there is no way for me to replace these things because I used the last of the money we had to purchase these things.

“If you can’t find it in your heart to return them then I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and may God bless you and your family. I do forgive you and wish no bad things on you.”

Foley said he has not heard from the thief, but he has received more than 1,000 emails, phone calls and visits from generous people bearing groceries and gift cards. Foley closed his small business two years ago to look after his wife, who has multiple sclerosis and is terminally ill. He has a nine-year-old son with autism and a 16-year-old daughter.

Read the full story: “Tale of forgiveness for theft triggers flood of gift-giving.”

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The Forgiveness Story That Went Around the World

York Daily Record, York, PA – What do you do when your lives are shattered and you don’t want to see tomorrow?

That’s the question Terri and Chuck Roberts faced on Oct. 2, 2006–the day their son shot 10 girls, killing five, before taking his own life at the West Nickel Mines School, a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, PA. They found the answer, Terri says, in the Amish faith and forgiveness.

Roberts said she and her husband thought they could never face their Amish neighbors again. The day of the shooting, however, their Amish neighbor Henry came to their house and stood behind Chuck, rubbing his shoulders and consoling him, she recalled. When she and her family buried her son, the first parents to greet them at the graveside were Amish parents who had lost not one but two daughters in the shooting.

In that action, she saw the depth of the Amish community’s faith and the breadth of their forgiveness. The speed in which the Amish community forgave both the shooter and his family was “the forgiveness story that went around the world. People were able to forgive because the Amish could,” Roberts said.

Roberts started inviting the five surviving school girls and their mothers to picnics and tea parties at her house just three months after the shootings. At one get-together, she learned that Mary Liz King had a harder road than the rest of the mothers: Her daughter, Rosanna, never fully recovered and remains paralyzed. From that day on, Roberts started visiting Rosanna, now 11, weekly. She bathes her and brushes her hair, cleans her bedclothes, talks to her, sings to her, and reads Bible stories. Though at first she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to continue, Roberts now finds peace in those visits. “As we reach out in ways that bring a touch, we can find great healing,” she says.

Read more: “5 Years Later, Mother Cares for Son’s Amish Victim” (www.newser.com). The role forgiveness can play in alleviating anger and grief and the physical, mental and spiritual benefits that come with it are vividly outlined in “The Power of Forgiveness,” a documentary film by Martin Doblmeier that features a segment on the Amish.

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Father Begs for Mercy for Son’s Killer

The Morning Call, Allentown, PA – The father shook uncontrollably in court Friday, distraught over his son’s death in a car accident a year ago. That happens often.

Then the father begged a judge for mercy for his son’s killer. That’s rare.

“Some people deserve to be caged up and some people deserve a second chance,” Greg Hamell told a Lehigh County Judge. “Allow a little bit of forgiveness for this young man here. Give the family a second chance, I ask your honor.”

Authorities say Alexander Buskirk was driving 63 mph in a 35 mph zone on Nov. 23, 2011, when he lost control and crashed into trees, killing Greg Hamell’s 18-year-old son, Ryan. Buskirk and Hamell had graduated together months earlier from Northwestern Lehigh High School.

Ryan Hamell’s mother, Jeanette Hamell, asked the judge to sentence Buskirk to house arrest, and not jail.

“I want Alex to know I forgive him,” the mother said, as people throughout the courtroom cried. “I want him to forgive himself. I want him to live a full life.”

At the end of the hearing, Buskirk walked up to Greg Hamell and the two hugged for several moments, exchanging words. Buskirk then hugged Jeanette Hamell. Both cried before separating and leaving the courthouse. One soon headed to jail. Both hoping to heal.

Read the full story: Father begs for mercy for son’s killer.”

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