Forgiveness
A recent Fox News Article detailed how Darlene VanderGiesen’s mother forgave the woman who brutally murdered her daughter.
This story is amazing, both because of the brutality of the murder (Daphne Wright, the killer, dismembered Darlene’s body with a chainsaw) and because of the level of forgiveness. Dee VanderGeisen says that God helped the family forgive Wright, and that they pray for her every day. She’s also extended the ultimate in sympathy to Wright’s mother.
Selfless acts of following Christ like this leave me in awe. Could I do the same thing, if it were my son, my daughters? It’s terrible to even think about - but I know that if put in those circumstances, it’s God’s grace that would enable me… not anything within myself.
It all makes me wonder at the petty things we hold to and squabble over, like we’ve got “rights”. How many hurts does the average person nurse within? Junk that happens that we just never move beyond because we are “right”. They are “wrong”. Yet in seeing VanderGeisen’s forgiveness of her daughter’s killer, just about everything else pales in contrast.