Living next to your son’s killer

Notice that when this lady unpacked forgiveness with her son’s killer forgiveness meant “more than a feeling.”  The victim’s mom and the killer ended up being neighbors.

If you watch the video, you will notice there is still some of the language of privatized / therapeutic forgiveness. For instance, the victim’s mother says that forgiveness is something that a person does for herself. However, Cross centered forgiveness is not just for the person forgiving. It is for reconciliation and a redeemed relationship. Indeed, I think this story of this lady forgiving her son’s killer shows that forgiveness wasn’t simply for herself. It has also been redemptive for her son’s killer and for her relationship with him.

Of course, I have lots more to say about this in Unpacking Forgiveness

MINNEAPOLIS – In Minnesota, a young man was murdered and his killer was sent to prison. Then, as CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports, the story took a surprising turn.

In a small apartment building in North Minneapolis – a 59-year-old teacher’s aid sings praise to God for no seemingly apparent reason. Indeed, if anyone was to have issues with the Lord, it would be Mary Johnson.

In February 1993, Mary’s son, Laramiun Byrd, was shot to death during an argument at a party. He was 20, and Mary’s only child.

“My son was gone,” she says.

The killer was a 16-year-old kid named Oshea Israel.

Mary wanted justice. “He was an animal. He deserved to be caged.”

And he was. Tried as an adult and sentenced to 25 and a half years — Oshea served 17 before being recently released. He now lives back in the old neighborhood – next door to Mary.

How a convicted murder ended-up living a door jamb away from his victim’s mother is a story, not of horrible misfortune, as you might expect – but of remarkable mercy.

A few years ago Mary asked if she could meet Oshea at Minnesota’s Stillwater state prison. As a devout Christian, she felt compelled to see if there was some way, if somehow, she could forgive her son’s killer.

“I believe the first thing she said to me was, ‘Look, you don’t know me. I don’t know you. Let’s just start with right now,'” Oshea says. “And I was befuddled myself.”

Read the rest here.