“If you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not
forgive you.” ~ Matthew
6:15
If ever a person deserved to be
angry, Sara Weaver had the right.
She was just 16 when her father, Randy, was struck in the
shoulder by a sniper’s bullet outside their home on Ruby Ridge, a mountaintop in
northern Idaho. Her 14-year-old brother
Sammy and a deputy were both killed after officers tried to serve a warrant for
weapons charges in 1992.
Sara raced back to the cabin just as her mother, Vicki, was
shot in the head while holding her 10-month-old sister. Mom died in a pool of blood.
For more than a week, the surviving Weavers holed up in the
cabin while hundreds of federal agents laid siege in a standoff that helped
spark anti-government protests that included the Oklahoma City bombing which
took 168 innocent lives.
Randy Weaver was eventually acquitted of the most serious
charges. In 1995, surviving family members
won a wrongful death lawsuit against the government.
In the years after Ruby Ridge, Sara Weaver, struggled with
depression and PTSD, as well as what she called a "toxic bondage" of
bitterness and anger.
She admitted to being ‘broken’ until a close friend revealed
her positive relationship with Jesus Christ.
Something clicked for Sara. He
began earnestly reading the Bible, where she learned that "Jesus commands
us to forgive (Matt 6:15)." She described an evolving spiritual journey in
her book, "From Ruby Ridge to Freedom” released in 2012.
“I’d been a victim for almost two decades,” she confessed,
“but if you don’t surrender it to God, the bitterness sucks the life from
you.”
Forgiving the men who killed her mother and brother wouldn’t
be easy. “But I had to do so … as
many times as it took. I’ll never
condone what they did to my family, but my faith helped me release the raging
hatred the incidents retold.”
Then, during an agonizing divorce, she saw forgiveness from
a different perspective. “I realized
that I’d also been a perpetrator: I’d inflicted great pain on my
ex-husband. The guilt and the shame I
felt from that, was worse than the pain of being the victim. I realized I must forgive as I had been
forgiven.”
God doesn’t care if you’re a victim or the perpetrator. He died for both.
Forgiveness makes better use of the energy once consumed by
holding grudges, harboring resentments, and nursing open wounds. It’s rediscovering our strengths and releases
our limitless capacity to understand and accept other people and ourselves.
It comes more readily when we have faith in God and trust
His Word. Such conviction enables us to
withstand the worst of humanity and allows us to look beyond ourselves. Could there be someone in your life that needs
your forgiveness today?
Merciful Lord, thank You for Your gift of
forgiveness. Your only Son loved me
enough to come to earth and experience the worst pain imaginable so that I
could be forgiven. Help me demonstrate that
kind of love today, even to those who hurt me. Amen
