Johannesburg- In her book, Do Yourself a Favour … Forgive, world-renowned American pastor and author Joyce Meyer tells the story of a young couple in their mid-30s with two children, a boy and girl in their early teens and their beloved dog.
What was a normal family day – the father, a pastor preparing for his upcoming sermon and a mother making supper for her family and two children, the 12-year-old breathtaking beauty who has already won the town’s prestigious beauty pageant – turned into a nightmare.
It all started when the dog barked and when the girl went to check on the commotion, she was greeted by a man who claimed to have been lost and asked to use the telephone. Being good people, they let him in, but within moments a second man barged into the house wielding a gun.
The two men tied up the family, took the girl to the other room and took turns raping her. The men then proceeded to eat the dinner the mother had prepared for her family. When they were done, they shot dead the parents.
As you can imagine, the children’s lives were turned upside down in an instance. Needless to say, the boy tried all he could do to finish school and go to university but he struggled to focus. He turned to alcohol, which exacerbated his depression.
He managed to finish his degree, got married, which did not last. Despite his best efforts, he could not seem to get a grip on his life. He eventually decided to study law. He completed his degree and ran for a seat in state office in his area.
It was on a tour of a local prison that he came face-to-face with one of the men who had raped his sister and killed his parents. He asked for a moment to talk to the man.
He had one question for him: “Why did you do it?” The man, who was on death row, cried throughout the conversation and talked about how sorry he was. When they had finished talking, he said to him: “I forgive you.”
The man, named Brooke Douglas, who wrote a book about his family’s ordeal, which he later adapted into the film Heaven’s Rain, said when he uttered those words he felt like “someone took a clamp off” his chest. He said he felt like he could “breathe again for the first time in 15 years”.
As American actress, Suzanne Somers once said: “Forgiveness is the gift we give ourselves.”
All that anger, bitterness, pain and resentment do is make us sick and weigh us down. It is self-imposed punishment for the wrongs of others.
So, this week, when former president FW De Klerk spoke from beyond the grave, asking for “black, brown, and Indian” people to forgive him, the best thing for those who still harbor anger, bitterness, pain, and resentment towards the Afrikaner Broederbond member and one of the chief lieutenants of the apartheid regime; was to say: “I forgive you.”
See, you forgive for your sake. As the Buddha once said: “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.”
So, please, do yourself a favour … forgive.
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