Laura
Hillenbrand, in a fine book entitled Unbroken,
writes about forgiveness. Louie
Zamperini and Phil Phillips endured 47 days on a rubber raft in the Pacific
Ocean. They barely survived the crash of their bomber plane, the strafing of
Japanese machine gun fire, and deadly shark attacks. The rubber raft was
disintegrating from the salt water, and their bodies could hardly take another
day in the brutal sun. Then they spotted land, but it turned out to be an
island occupied by the Japanese. Louie and Phil were immediately dragged to a
POW camp. Being in a Japanese prisoner of war camp was the worst place on the
face of the earth in World War II. There was one Japanese soldier called the Bird who took sadistic delight in
beating Louie. He would beat him with a belt almost every day. Surviving in
this place of torment was a daily challenge. The day of liberation finally came,
but unfortunately the Bird escaped
and made his way back to Japan. Louie went back home, but the war continued to
rage inside him. He couldn’t stop hating the Bird, and his desire to
seek revenge grew with each day. He turned to alcohol and became a terrible
husband.
One
day Louie was overcome by a strange, inexplicable feeling that suddenly the war
was all around him and in him. In random moments he felt like lice and flies
were crawling over his skin, even though there was nothing there. It only made
him drink harder. One day he opened a newspaper and saw a story that riveted
his attention. A former Pacific POW had walked into a store and saw one of his
wartime captors. The POW called the police who then arrested the war criminal.
As Louie read the story, all the fury within him converged. He saw himself
finding the Bird, overpowering him,
his fists pounding his face, and then his hands locking about his neck. In his
fantasy he killed the Bird—slowly
savoring the suffering he caused. If he could get back to Japan, he would hunt
him down.
Louie
finally found himself at a Billy Graham crusade where he received Christ as his
savior. That night the sense of shame
and powerlessness that had driven his need to hate the Bird suddenly vanished. The Bird
was no longer his monster, but only a man. Louie felt something he had never
felt before for his captor. With a shiver of amazement, he realized it was
compassion. At that moment something shifted sweetly inside him. It was
forgiveness—beautiful, effortless, and complete. For Louie Zamperini, at long
last the war was over.”[1]
Every
person feels the urge to get even sometime, maybe with the reckless driver on
the highway or with the mean co-worker. No matter what the offense, forgiveness
is always the better choice. The benefits of forgiveness are greater than those
of being an unforgiving person because they have a positive effect on our
lives.
First,
forgiveness heals the heart. Forgiving a person for doing you wrong is like
applying healing salve to your broken heart. When you say you’re sorry to
another person, it heals the wound. However, refusing to forgive is like a
spreading infection that inhibits the healing process.
Secondly,
forgiveness enables a person to turn loose of grudges. The self-pity,
the nagging thoughts that cause you to remember the hurt, leaves you as you
forgive. You are no longer restricted and bound to the same old fiendish
feelings and desires of settling the score. To the contrary, an unforgiving
person declines any opportunity to let go of grudges. When people harbor
resentment, they find themselves controlled by the bitterness as it saps their
physical and emotional energy.
Thirdly,
forgiveness removes the desire to retaliate. Given enough time, a hurt becomes
a wound, a wound becomes a grudge, and inevitably, a grudge calls for
retaliation. But, forgiveness eradicates the reason to retaliate. An
unforgiving person demands a day of reckoning and a chance to get even.
Forgiveness clearly gives a person a better way of dealing with the hurts that
come his way. Forgiveness sets a person free from the past and hands him a
brand new future. Forgiveness is the better way to live.
[1] Laura
Hillenbrand, Unbroken, A World War II
Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, Random House, NY, 2010.
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