"As We Forgive..."

"I'm a man of faith, but it gets tried in times like this.”  --Marcus Weaver, shooting victim injured in Aurora, CO

How does a “man of faith” respond to evil and unspeakable tragedy? 

From here, safe in my comfortable Northern California home, it is easy to turn it into an intellectual exercise.  I think about where a loving God was as this horror unfolded.  I think about the reasons why God might allow something like this to happen.  I think about how all of us, even the most ardent atheist and the most cynical agnostic, is still a “person of faith.”  

I can ponder these things because my body, unlike Marcus Weaver’s, was not violated by heat and metal.  I did not hear the screams of children and friends.  Perhaps you saw him, as you watched from the relative comfort and safety from your laptop or iPad, on the jerky cell phone images from the scene.  Mr. Weaver was the dazed, hulking figure in the bloodied white shirt being led like a lost child from the theater by a police officer. 

Mr. Weaver’s mind doesn’t wrestle with my questions but leaps to a much more practical one: What do I do in response to the horror that I’ve just experienced?

Perhaps, a man whose faith is (presumably) in Jesus always knows the answer:  "I'm not saying I'm forgiving him today,” says Mr. Weaver.  “I'm not saying I'm not mad, but at some point I'm going to have to let it go."

A man of faith, as defined by Marcus Weaver, knows he must forgive, even when, as the anger and pain are still fresh, it is the most difficult thing in the world to do.  A man of faith knows that forgiveness is the most powerful weapon anyone can wield against evil.

So I’ll stop asking “how,” “where,” and “why.”  Instead I will think about “what”…what will my response be when evil inevitably encroaches into my life?  Instead I will pray that I can respond to personal tragedy in the same way that Marcus Weaver has.  Instead I will pray not only for healing for the physical wounds Mr. Weaver and the others endured, I will also pray for the grace they and their loved ones will all need to forgive the unforgivable.