Article November 15, 1999 Issue

Your right to forgive

Don't pass up the opportunity to be at peace.

Tony Lobl

Incidents Of Crime can create victims beyond the crime itself. Those whose loved ones have been lost or harmed often need to nurse a wounded faith and devastated emotions. Consequently, when crimes come to trial, we often hear about the right of victims or their families to have vengeance for the crime.

Whatever the legal right of victims, everyone who suffers from another's criminal impulse has another important right, one no court can grant or withhold—the right to forgive.

I recently read a moving account of someone who exercised this right. His son was shot and killed by a man whose plea bargain limited the sentence to only five years. Rather than livewith bitterness and anger, the father chose to forgive. He wrote to the murderer in jail and told him he had forgiven him, eventually began visiting him, and testified on his behalf at his parole hearing. Now the two tour colleges and churches together to speak about the journey of redemption and reconciliation that they have taken since the crime.

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