Saturday, March 22, 2014

Forgiveness of the Amish: Scene Three


This one is based on a true event, that brings tears to my eyes.  Am I this good of a Christian?  Probably not.  I'd like to be.
Forgiveness of the Amish

Forgiveness.  Everyone says we must forgive.  But that’s hard for me.  I can say I forgive someone, but in my heart I don’t.  I hold grudges, I know I do.  Does this mean I’m a bad person? 

And even if I forgive, there’s no way I’ll ever forget when someone hurts me or my family.  I hear these Christians saying we are to love others.  We are to forgive them, but are they just speaking the words?  I mean is it really in anyone’s heart to forgive?

I’d say no.  I’d like to think everyone else is just as bad as I am.  That true forgiveness is not possible, unless your Jesus Christ, I mean.  For the rest of us, it just is not reality.  It’s not the world we live in.

But then I hear stories of amazing forgiveness and it blows me away.  Have you ever heard of those Amish people up north.  You know they live plainly, wear clothes from the 19th century, live without electricity, tv, radio, etc.  They drive wagons with horses to town.  Man they would drive me crazy if they lived down here.  Can you imagine driving down 21 and nearly stopping because an Amish Buggy was in the road cruising at fifteen miles per hour?  I’d be laying on the horn.  Crazy right?

Well, a few years back I saw this news story on tv.  A crazy guy with a gun entered a small Amish school house and shot and killed several children, a teacher, and then turned the gun on himself.

These Amish folks, devote people, a fundamental people, and they had every right to be angry at our world that had intruded on theirs.  One of our people had murdered their children.  I can’t even imagine what that would be like.  A parent’s worst nightmare.

But it’s what they did next that brings me back.  The parents of the murdered children, these Amish parents, they gathered food and took it to the home of the parents of the murderer.  They said, “We are not the only ones who have lost loved one’s today.  It is not their fault that their son did this, and we must forgive and move forward.” 

What?  They took food to the killer’s family!  They wanted to show forgiveness.  To show charity.  To show love.

Now, I know it is not in me to be that good of a person.  But isn’t that what true Christians are called to do.  To love and to forgive others. 

It really gets to me, you know.

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