Forgiveness—Set Yourself Free

by Jim Greer

LW contributor

The confusion and anxiety we have been experiencing in 2020 will take years to fully understand. Once the pandemic subsides, scientists will strive to understand severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. Historians will be deciphering the contentious 2020 election’s societal nuances for decades before any of us will fully grasp the truth of what happened.

While the pandemic itself cannot be considered a good experience, the scientific and medical truths yet to be discovered will surely benefit mankind for centuries. The election results will not please everyone, but the increase in voter participation and awareness will positively impact the country for years to come.

“The Road to Character” author David Brooks observed, “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.”

At a party in 1993, Oshea Israel, then just 16, got into a fight with Laramiun Byrd, 20, and shot and killed him. Racked with grief and carrying anger for her son’s killer, Byrd’s mother, Mary Johnson, repeatedly visited Israel in Stillwater Prison. Recalling their first visit, Mary admitted to Israel, “I wanted to know if you were in the same mindset of what I remembered from court, where I wanted to go over and hurt you.”

Those meetings allowed Johnson to share with Israel her memories of her son. “And he became human to me,” Israel recalled. In time the two bonded, and having been forgiven by Johnson, Israel admitted to her that he needed to “just hug you like I would my own mother. You still believe in me. And the fact that you can do it, despite how much pain I caused you—it’s amazing.”

After discovering the power of forgiveness, Johnson founded “From Death to Life: Two Mothers Coming Together for Healing,” a support group for those who have lost children to violence. Christian author and theologian Lewis B. Smedes stated, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

Over the past eight months, we have unknowingly become prisoners of our own ignorance and partisanship. Imprisonment drives men and women to hate, mistrust and seek revenge. We have locked up our feelings, seeing only the negative in our fellow beings. Projecting our emotional pain onto others, we expected to lessen our own suffering.

But relief for our suffering only comes through asking for and granting forgiveness.

Ask forgiveness of those we viewed as enemies and forgive those who unwittingly spread anger and illness. Our faith in one another’s goodness can supplant the divisive rhetoric that has shattered our society. Let forgiveness rekindle our faith in one other. Otherwise, nothing true, beautiful or good will come from our collective suffering.

Just as Mary Johnson freed herself from her prison of anger and animosity, we can free ourselves from ours by exhibiting compassion for our neighbors.

We may wish to forget 2020, but we should always remember how to forgive one another.