I was at the scene of the crime again two days later when the carpet repair workers removed the areas that were stained. When they ripped up the carpet, I saw the truth. Beneath the small visible bloodstains on the top of the carpet, the blood had spread in two giant puddles that almost outlined the upper part of a body. That scene gore beneath the surface has reappeared in my mind many times since that day.
When my father had died of cancer about six years prior to my mother's murder, I had handled his death without undue grief. Perhaps it was because we had anticipated his eventual death as cancer ravaged his lungs. There was time for adjustment. But my mom's murder was so sudden, so violent.
For almost four months, I could talk of the murder only to family and friends. At about four months, I shared it for the first time in a talk. It was an emotional experience for me and for the 500 people who heard the Story but it felt healing to talk about it. Throughout that first year, I had shared the story of my mother's murder and my struggle with forgiveness at about five conventions. Telling the story helped me deal with my grief and helped people in the audience empathize with our common struggles at forgiving people who have wounded our minds and souls. I could forgive in the midst of great rage only as I began to empathize. My empathy with the kid who had done the evil to my mother, which had eventually wounded me and the rest of my family, had unleashed an awareness of a spreading stain within my own heart.
Blessedly, I was not left to wallow in the gooey stain of revenge. I recognized quickly that Jesus had died that I might have forgiveness and be washed clean of that stain. I thought, If I have received forgiveness for the stain in my heart, then who am I to withhold forgiveness from this youth. With that thought I released my desire for revenge, my hatred, my bitterness, my desire for punitive justice. I forgave and paradoxically the chains that bound me to the youth in hatred fell from my heart and set us both free. That did not end the story. Like the blood on the carpet, so much more widespread underneath than on top, the awareness of the stain in my own heart did not end when I forgave the youth for his murder. Instead, as I have reflected on, spoken about, and researched forgiveness, I have seen how utterly unforgiving I often am. Before the murder, I thought of myself as a fast forgiver. Since becoming aware of the stain, though, I have seen underneath the carpet that covered my heart. I have seen the many times since then in which I have been offended and responded with unforgiveness.
I do not think personality characteristics explain all behavior, but I have found one personality characteristic particularly relevant for forgiveness. As Caprara has observed, some people tend to be ruminators and others are dissipators. Ruminators think, worry, and stew over events. Dissipaters seem to let troubling events roll off of them. Ruminators tend to have more depressions, anxieties, fears, and hostilities than do dissipators. I am a dissipater, which means I probably suffer less with many of my troubles than do most ruminators with theirs. Yet merely because dissipators let go of anger and fear more quickly than do ruminators does not mean they are Immune to unforgiveness. They do not stew about it as much. The stain can be just as wide, just as messy. Furthermore, because ruminators are often more aware of their struggles than are dissipaters, they are often primed to do something about their problem of the stain.
My mother's murder allowed me to experience forgiveness which helped heal my trauma. Even better, though, it helped me to become aware that I needed a heart transplant because unforgiveness is more of a struggle for me than I ever thought it could be. It helped me rely on Jesus Christ more because I could not rely on myself to keep a clean heart. So, like Solzhenitsyn in the gulag was able to say, Thank you prison camp for bringing this illumination into my life, which otherwise I would have lost,2 I can then thank God because in the trauma of my mother's murder he has brought good from it. I now can honestly say to my mother's murderer, like Joseph said to his brothers, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Through that murder, many people have received a message about forgiveness when we have been wronged or harmed that could not have been shared with the same Impact. I have told a story of forgiveness on national TV in the United States and in South Africa, spoken about it at many conferences, taught about it, written about it. A mother whose son had committed a murder himself once told me that my understanding and empathy with the youth who killed my mother helped her see that people could empathize with her son without condoning his act of murder.
Forgiveness has been both a revealer of the stain of unforgiveness in my own heart and simultaneously the washer of my heart in the bloodshed on the cross. Nothing can turn an evil act into good, but God is truly greater than evil and can use it for his good purposes. Yet knowing this does not empower me to share glib answers with people who are suffering trauma. It is too trite a truth to utter aloud as a person is trying to make meaning of a loss or an injury. As counselors and caregiver, we are best advised to enter into suffering with the personas frail co-participants, dependent with the person on God. We are not called to point to the stain on the persons suffering heart nor to try to cover tears with happy faces. We are called to share in humility and empathy with the one who is struggling or grieving and let the Holy Spirit use us or other instruments, if he wills, to accomplish Gods work of healing and forgiveness in that person's life.
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