When Someone Kills

I’m sure your all are as tired of the George Zimmerman trial as I am. Living in Florida, we get way more than our fair share of news coverage. While clicking through the stations, I came upon Trayvon Martin’s mother testifying. She did her best to hold herself together while on the stand. I’m not sure why they had her testify. She wasn’t there the night of the killing. It probably had more to do with the emotional impact than anything else.

But one question does come to mind. How will she, as a Christian, ever forgive George Zimmerman? Even if he’s convicted and sent to prison, the pain of the loss of her child will still be there. Yet God expects us to forgive others as he has forgiven us. Luke 6:37 states, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”

How much easier it is to forgive someone who cut you off in traffic than to forgive them for killing your child? As humans, we want to measure sin. We want to be able to say that what we did was not as bad as Zimmerman, after all, most of us have never killed anyone. However, God doesn’t differentiate betweeen sins. To him a liar is a guilty as a thief who is as guilty as a murder.

I pray that Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sabrina Fulton, does find a way to forgive Zimmerman for the death of her child. I pray she finds a way to move on. Something that will be hard to do with the media circus surrounding this trial.

She could use the help of such women as Cynthia Arias who forgave her son’s killer, even handing him a Bible as he was led away to spend the rest of his life in jail. She said, “I have to accept his forgiveness and tell him that I forgive him too,” she said. “I told him, ‘just read it, God is good; read it every day.”

Then there’s Mary Johnson who not only forgave her son’s killer, but lives next door to him. Ms. Johnson is quoted as saying in an interview in June, 2011, “Unforgiveness is like cancer. It will eat you from the inside out. It’s not about that other person, me forgiving him does not diminish what he’s done. Yes, he murdered my son – but the forgiveness is for me. It’s for me.”

Two young men who had very different walks in life but that ended tragically the same, with murder. And two powerful women who know what the term forgiveness means. If you’d like to read more about their stories, visit the following websites:

For Cynthia Arias: http://oceanside-camppendleton.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/cynthia-arias-mario-arias-mother-forgives-son-s-kille1a0877ba40

For Mary Johnson: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-20069849.html

I pray with all my heart for Sabrina Fulton that she has a story for the media about forgiveness. With the national news watching, she could be a good example of God’s healing.