COULD YOU FORGIVE?

Some of the biggest challenges in life are not physical, but rather mental ones that cut you to the core and challenge your faith, your morality, your integrity, sense of fairness and your very being. Just about one year ago today, on a bright sunny June morning, one such challenge broadsided me.           

      It came from one of my three brothers, in a telephone call, telling me that our youngest brother, was in a bike accident and things didn’t look good.

     My 59-year-old brother was the picture of health. He ate well, exercised and maintained a healthy lifestyle. He was married, with three grown children and three new grandbabies. Biking with his Christian Bicycle Club was one of his great pleasures in life. In this group of sixty bike enthusiasts, he was known as “Mr. Cautious” because of his strict adherence to safety off and on the bike.

     On this fateful day he was checking out a new ride for the club. He was riding in the bike lane on a country road with rolling hills and gentle curves, when a car rounded the bend, came across into the oncoming lane and hit him head on sending him one hundred and two feet down the road. The car continued onto the shoulder, then ran between two telephone poles, crossed the street twice more and landed in a deep gully in someone’s front yard. There were three witnesses to the accident, homeowners who happened to be working on their lawns at the time.

     The thirty-nine-year-old woman behind the wheel had just been granted early release from prison having been sentenced to ten years for drug possession; had no driver’s license; and was high on Meth, Fentanyl and one other illegal drug. She didn’t even know she’d hit someone.

     It was six months before she came to trial and another five months before she was sentenced. The verdict was guilty on three counts. She was sentenced to 15-years with no chance of parole-to life in prison. Before the sentence was announced, the family was allowed to address the woman.   

     Take a moment and think, what would you say to this woman? If you were writing a story, what would you have your characters say or do? Could you forgive?

     Only one of my two remaining brothers was able to attend the trials. I was unable to attend. My Texas brother sent a statement that was read to the woman at the sentencing hearing.

     The letter talked of my younger brother’s strong faith and how, had he met the woman, he would have loved to talk to her. It spoke of the family and how they were all Christians and how they know she didn’t do this on purpose. To paraphrase the last paragraph, 

          “Please know that I don’t hate you. My prayer for you is that you will come to know                     peace in understanding that your remaining years are nothing in terms of eternity. You still have choices. Please choose to find the faith my brother had and become a light in a dark place.”

     The judge commented that in all her years of serving on the bench, she’d never witnessed such loving forgiveness.

     Could you forgive?

     To read another extraordinary story of forgiveness in the face of tragedy, check out the novel, by Australian author, Dr. Bob Rich, titled, Hit and Run!  Read my review of Hit and Run along with an interview with Dr. Rich, in my February, 2021 blogpost!

 

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