Marietta Jaeger Lane’s daughter Susie was kidnapped and murdered. She recounts wrestling with the concept of forgiveness to restorative justice educator Elaine Enns:
I grew up in a house where we were never allowed to be angry. I was told that to be angry was a sin…. It took two weeks of sitting at the campground picnic table waiting for any news of Susie for my rage to roil up through the many inhibitions I had placed on it. When I finally allowed myself to get in touch with my anger … I knew that I could kill the kidnapper with my bare hands and a smile on my face. Even before I knew what he had done to Susie, I could have killed him for the terror he put her through, for taking her away from us and the effect it had on my entire family.
However, after a major midnight wrestling match with God in which I tried to justify my “right” to rage and revenge, I “surrendered.” Because I believe in a God who never violates our freedom or free will, I gave God permission to change my heart. I promised to cooperate with God in whatever God could do to move my heart from fury to forgiveness.
There was a time in the beginning where I felt that if I forgave the kidnapper, I would be unfaithful to Susie. I also struggled with a belief common to victims of violence—that if I could stay angry and get revenge, I was in control.
I was catapulted into a very intense, spiritual journey, and spent many hours in prayer and reading scripture. God spoke to me frequently. It was a long, gradual process but, during that year, I came to realize three things:
- In staying full of rage I was in fact handing my power over to the kidnapper, allowing his actions to change my value system and lead me away from the direction I wanted my life to go in.
- In God’s eyes the kidnapper was just as precious as my little girl.
- And if I wanted to live my Catholic faith with integrity, I was called to forgive and pray for my enemies.
Lane later became a human rights advocate:
As the months went by with no word of Susie, I also prayed to know what God’s idea of justice was. I came to understand that if Jesus is the word of God made flesh, then Jesus is the justice of God made flesh. As I looked at the life of Jesus in scripture I did not see someone who came to hurt, punish, or put us to death. Jesus came to heal and help us, to rehabilitate and reconcile us, to restore to us the life that was lost by “original sin.” God’s idea of justice is restoration, not punishment.
Reference:
Ched Myers and Elaine Enns, Ambassadors of Reconciliation: Diverse Christian Practices of Restorative Justice and Peacemaking, Volume 2(Orbis Books, 2009), 60–61.
Image Credit: Jordan Heath, untitled (detail), 2018, photo, New Zealand, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. At the meeting of river and lake, we see the great watershed of God’s mercy— justice rolling wide and without vengeance, drawing us into a love larger than our own grievances and inviting us toward the common good.
Story from Our Community:
When I was a little girl, God was a hard taskmaster. Whenever my mother (who suffered from schizophrenia) saw me doing something she disapproved of, she would shake her finger at me and say, “Stop that right now or you’re going to go to hell.” This terrified me, but I was blessed with precious nuns and parish priests that were kind and supportive. In the 1950s and 60s, these good people showed me a loving, merciful, caring God. I encountered Father Richard and the CAC in the 1990s, and they continued to feed my soul. I am in my 80s now and I experience God holding me close and guiding me each day.
—Mary W.
