by Jonas Beiler
As I have observed the world’s fascination with the forgiveness demonstrated by the Amish after the terrible tragedy that occurred in Nickel Mines, I believe I have grown in my own understanding of the immense appeal it holds. There is something about it that seems so right and so refreshing. On the one hand we are drawn to the outward peacefulness of the lives of the Amish, and the way that tranquility is reflected in their dealings, even with those who hurt them the most. But their story also catches our attention because each one of us holds too tightly to grudges or wrongs that have been done to us. When we see the way the Amish let go of wrongs done to them, we subconsciously think, “What if?” What if I could release some of my old burdens and pains? What if I could be free of this bitterness and anger that have had their claws stuck in me for years and years, until even the person who hurt me is dead or long gone?
Could I forgive the way those Amish people forgive?
The simple answer is yes. No matter what your circumstances, radical, complete forgiveness is possible. But it’s not easy. The Amish have a five-hundred-year tradition of forgiveness, passed down and modeled from generation to generation, yet even for them it is a choice that they must sometimes repeat daily, such is its difficulty. The rest of us live in a world where popular culture glorifies “payback” and vengeful retribution. If I so much as stub my toe in your home, you better have a good lawyer—that’s the message that tends to influence us more than the message of forgiveness that we have seen in this story.
Through the years, forgiveness has become one of the most misunderstood concepts of human interaction. Phrases like “forgive and forget” misrepresent the true meaning of, and work that goes into, forgiveness. It deludes people into thinking that forgiveness is supposed to be easy. Say the magic words and all the hurt goes away. You may be able to forget some small wrong against you, but most likely you will never forget life’s deepest hurts, betrayals, or disappointments, even after you are able to forgive the person who caused them. The parents of those Amish girls will never be able to forget what happened.
Then there is the perception that forgiveness is only for the weak or the poor, those without the ability or resources or wherewithal to defend themselves. After all, “an eye for an eye” is the attitude constantly touted in our society as just and fair. If someone takes something from you, then you must take it back, whatever the cost. If someone wrongs you, then you should fight back. If someone fails to protect you or warn you or side with you, then he is liable. But forgiveness isn’t just for the weak. In fact, I would argue it is only for the strong. True forgiveness is a courageous and unnatural act, while unforgiveness is an easy journey down the path of least resistance. It takes little strength to let grudges smolder; extinguishing them through forgiveness is a lot harder, yet so much more rewarding.
Yet these inaccuracies regarding forgiveness have persisted and have cost our culture and our hearts dearly. When counseling people who have been violated by others, I begin by giving them a more accurate view of what forgiveness really is:
• Forgiveness is a decision to release yourself from anger, resentment, hate, or the urge for revenge despite the injury you suffered
• Forgiveness is letting go of hope for a different past1
Think about the Nickel Mines school shooting in light of these two definitions. What could the Amish have done in response to the shooting that would have been a perfect example of living in unforgiveness? They could have allowed their anger or resentment for what had happened to separate them from Charles Roberts’s family. They could have allowed hate to build up in them to the point where they would be consumed by bitterness and ill will toward Charles Roberts or God. In an extreme response, they could have allowed their desire for revenge to manifest itself in violence toward the Roberts family or other people outside the Amish community.
As someone who has lost a child, I find the second definition, letting go of hope for a different past, especially poignant. It would have been so easy, after losing Angie, for me to have become overwhelmed by the things I could have done differently, or that others could have done differently, which would have allowed us to avoid that heartbreaking loss. What if I had stayed home that morning? What if my wife hadn’t let Angie go outside? What if my father-in-law could have gotten my sister-in-law’s attention before she backed up the tractor?
By clinging to the idea that the past could have been different, I am suddenly dwelling on all of the people involved in Angie’s accident and the small part they each played. This will always leave a crack in the door for unforgiveness to enter my heart. Until we let go of that hope of a different past, it will be difficult for us to move forward in forgiveness.
I’ve seen people spend a lot of time wishing things are not the way they are. This kind of activity is a waste of mental and emotional energy on something we can’t change—mental and emotional energy that needs to be directed toward how God intended you to live today. If we let the energy we need today get used up dwelling on the past, we will eventually run out of steam. This is often why people, years after a tragedy or difficult experience, will suddenly suffer depression and other mental and emotional illnesses. How much mental and emotional anguish do we bring on ourselves by refusing to forgive, or being unable to know how to forgive?
As I have observed the Amish community, I have come to believe that, first and foremost, forgiveness is self-care. Although it’s often thought of as something we do for the other person, it’s actually for ourselves. True, when you forgive someone, you are generously offering that person an opportunity to be freed from his guilt. However, you really can’t control how that other person receives your forgiveness. He might reject it, or it may take a while before he can accept it. But the second you forgive someone, you experience its benefits. You are relieved of the toxic burdens of anger, bitterness, resentment, and the like.
The Amish are so far ahead of the rest of us when it comes to this concept. They forgive because they believe God’s way is the best way to live. They know that when God commands us to do something like forgive someone “seventy times seven,” it is not a capricious rule for us to follow, but part of a properly ordered life that is intended for our good. They don’t pass these lessons on to their children just for the sake of tradition, but because they want their children to be free of bitterness and anger, too. That’s why it’s woven deep into their culture. They model this forgiveness for their children, along with their entire belief system, by living it out, and they are able to do it so well that the next generation does not wonder how things like this should be handled.
When the families of those Amish schoolchildren chose to forgive Charles Roberts, it didn’t help Charles. After all, he was dead. In fact, since he was absent from their midst, you might think there was no need to forgive him, but the Amish knew that by forgiving him they were actually freeing themselves from the hate, bitterness, and years of pain that would otherwise imprison them.
Make no mistake: if you have been wronged, thoughts of revenge and unforgiveness will want to come back from time to time, even many years later, depending on how deep the violation feels to you. Having the occasional thought of revenge after you have chosen to forgive is normal—after all, we are human, and sometimes we have feelings that we don’t know what to do with or where to place. But it is important to understand that feelings are just that: feelings. They are not actions or choices. The best way to deal with those kinds of feelings is not to judge them. After all, people don’t judge you by your thoughts, they judge you by the choices you make in life, the actions that you take.
We often judge ourselves by the thoughts that we have, and this causes a lot of unnecessary guilt and heaviness of spirit. What is most important are our actions, our choices. This is the part that I find the most unfair for the victim of a tremendous wrong—that person is the one with the long journey ahead. The person who wronged him is long gone and in some cases may not even think about what happened, while
the victim is left holding a bag of hurt and difficult feelings that he doesn’t know what to do with. The simple truth is that being victimized in such a way is unfair. It is terribly unfair that the victim is forced to decide how to respond to what happened. But life is not always fair, is it? And people are not always reasonable. In order to keep from getting deeper into bitterness and despair it becomes our responsibility to make good choices, no matter what has been thrust upon us.
In light of these facts, let’s consider again these Amish families. When they found out that their daughters were shot, or killed, they may have felt as though they had lost nearly everything. Yet who was left with the difficult process of working through all of these painful feelings and emotions? The very people who were initially hurt, the Amish families. Not Charles Roberts. He was gone. But they understood that living a life of forgiveness is the only way to live, to truly live, and to choose otherwise would only hand them a life weighed down by despair and sadness.
IN ADDITION to the emotional and psychological benefits of forgiveness, people who forgive experience tremendous health benefits. Learning to forgive has been proven to
• lower your blood pressure
• improve immune system response
• reduce anxiety and depression
• improve your sleep
• improve self-esteem and sense of empowerment
• increase rewarding relationships, both professionally and personally
• reduce stress by releasing toxic emotions
• reduce dysfunctional patterns of behavior
• increase energy for living and healing
• improve relationships and social integration
• increase peace of mind
• aid peaceful death2
Maybe this is why the Amish are generally very healthy people. In a study done at the University of Tennessee by Dr. Kathleen Lawler, the physiological advantages of forgiveness became clear: after studying the affects of anger and hostility on the heart for more than twenty-five years, she started to wonder how people could avoid the side effects of unforgivingness. She began by measuring baseline statistics for adults, things like heart rate and blood pressure and forehead muscle tension (an indicator of stress). Then she asked them to retell their stories of being hurt or abused or mistreated. While everyone’s heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension increased, the measurements for those who reported withholding forgiveness were 25 percent higher. Those who had forgiven reported fewer trips to the doctor for things like colds, headaches, and minor illnesses. Those who forgave were on 25 percent less medication. As more and more studies are done, it becomes increasingly evident that forgiveness is a key to long-term physical and mental health.3
The data keep coming in. And it all points to one conclusion: forgiveness is one of the most important things you can do for your long-term health and quality of life.
Forgiveness is good medicine, but it’s not always easy to take.
Amish buggy continuing down the road
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Edit Your History1
ANNE AND I were living in a Texas town where my family lived. It was during the winter of 1981. Over six years had passed since the death of our daughter, but the relationship between my wife and me had never been the same. A quietness had grown between us, and both of us seemed to mourn Angie’s passing in our own individual ways. We didn’t realize it at the time, but we had been isolating each other for all those years. I would later learn as a counselor that, often, the death of a child puts tremendous stress on a marriage.
On one particular day, Anne came out to the body shop where I worked.
“Jonas,” she said, “I have something to tell you.”
She looked gaunt with worry.
“You know the things being said about some of the women at our church?” she asked.
Recently there had been some disturbing rumors about the pastor and some of the ladies in the church, specifically that he had been having affairs with them. I wasn’t sure who to believe. Or what to believe.
I nodded at Anne that yes, of course I had heard the rumors.
“I was one of those women,” she said.
My insides dropped. The foundation of my life was cracked from top to bottom. I knew things had not been right between us since Angie had died, but I had never imagined the hurt that Anne had felt, or the places that despair had driven her to.
“I’m sorry, and I’m a sorry person,” she blurted out, before running out, leaving me to process what I had just heard.
I stared at the wall after she left, trying to regain my composure. There were other coworkers in the shop, and I can only imagine what they thought was going on. First I was shaking and pacing back and forth, then I just sat and stared. After making several attempts to regain my composure, I informed one of my coworkers that I needed to leave and probably wouldn’t be back until the next day.
I drove to our house, not knowing if Anne would be there or not, and I remember going inside, frantically walking back and forth in the hallway, thinking all kinds of irrational thoughts. She was not home. I became disoriented. I found my mind going into some dark places, thinking things like “I could burn the house down and burn with it, or maybe I should just get in my car and drive off.” I didn’t think I could bring myself to end my life, but I had never felt so desperate.
After a period of walking back and forth, back and forth, I collapsed beside the couch and screamed into a pillow at the top of my lungs. My voice echoed deep inside me. There was this immense emptiness in my soul. My ego felt crushed, my manhood seemingly stripped from me. My faith was challenged like never before.
My wife continues to say that the day our daughter was killed was the worst day of her life, but for me this was without a doubt the worst day. I thought I was losing my wife, my family, and everything else that I had worked so hard for.
I can’t remember how much my wife and I talked that evening, but because of the pain I was feeling my bedtime prayer was, “Oh God, please don’t let me see the dawning of another day.” When I woke up early the next morning, I felt this intense anger at God for not answering my prayer, for forcing me to live another day with that pain. I didn’t want to deal with it, I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t feel it was fair, and I just wanted it to go away.
What people do when they are discouraged is crucial. Deep hurts and discouragement can drive them to behavior they never imagined or even thought possible. When I reflect on how I felt that day, I can completely understand how a person like Charles Roberts can get to a place where his pain drove him to destruction. There were things I considered doing that day, and in the weeks and months that followed, that I still can hardly believe. In fact, I can’t believe I didn’t act on at least one of them.
I went to work the next day and shared with a few coworkers and my boss that I had experienced something that had shaken me to the core. I told them I might not be myself for several days. Little did I know how much I would change.
On October 2, the day of the shooting, these memories came flooding back along with the memories of losing Angie. Reflecting on these horrific pains in my own life is what drove me to tears that day on my way to the King farm, where the Amish were congregating. I knew the hard road those Amish families had ahead of them. Making sense out of things that cut so deeply is not something that happens quickly. I know of no shortcuts in the grief process. What I know now, after all these years, is that at a time like that, when pain seems overwhelming, you have two friends: God and time. If you can somehow keep from losing your will to live, you can get through horrendous experiences.
In those moments, so soon after a tragedy strikes, what people need most is a friend to stand beside them. This is one thing the Amish people do very well: in just a few hours, seventy-five to a hundred people formed a wall of friendship around the farm where all ten of the families had gathered. They brought coffee and refreshments, and stood in small groups, sha
king their heads, wondering how something like this could happen, some talking and some silent. Sometimes the best support is silent support.
The day after Anne told me the shocking news, after I got off work, I decided to call a counselor. His name was Cuby Ward, and he had recently spent the weekend at our church doing a couples’ retreat dealing with marriage and family issues. I called him and, in a shaky voice, explained the situation as best I could. I remember how his quiet voice had an instant calming effect on me; how his gentle words put me at ease.
I asked him if I could ever feel close to my wife again. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could. How do you ever recover from something like that? I felt that what had happened was so unfair and honestly wondered if Anne and I could ever have the kind of loving, intimate relationship we once had. But I’ll never forget what he said to me and the way it changed my whole outlook. Cuby is such a wise man, and he was very careful not to set me up for any false expectations. But what he told me changed my life forever:
“Jonas, the only chance you have of saving your marriage is if you will love your wife the way Christ loves you.”
Those words stunned me. If he would have said that I needed to love my wife the way that Christ loved the church, I might not have paid much attention to his words. But because he connected it back to me, it had enormous impact. Somehow, because of my deep faith and the rich tradition of faith in which I was raised, I reached deeper into my soul than ever before and found God giving me the grace to do things I never thought possible. Cuby helped me manage my smashed masculinity and assured me that my physical relationship with my wife could be good again. Before our conversation ended, he agreed to meet with my wife and me, together, in just a few days’ time.