The Healing Power of Forgiveness

September 13th, 2022

By Ty and Charlene Bollinger

Guest Writers for Wake Up World

With a global recession on the horizon, war, COVID, and an increasingly polarizing political climate, it feels like we’re more at odds with our fellow man than ever. Social media has made it even easier for friends, relatives, and strangers alike to offend us. But what if holding a grudge is keeping you from finding true peace and happiness? It’s been said that “resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the person to die.” If resentment is poison, maybe forgiveness is the antidote.

Georgia Congressman John Lewis is an African American civil rights activist who suffered through unspeakable oppression in the racially divided American South of the 1960s. Some 30 years after he suffered a severe beating for standing up in solidarity for racial equality, he wrote a (now famous) op-ed piece for The New York Times following the death of one of his most outspoken political persecutors.

In the piece, Lewis surprised the nation when he offered up words not of hatred against the man, but kind-hearted reprieve and forgiveness.

In case you’re unfamiliar with this particular tidbit of American history, former Alabama Governor George Wallace was said by many to have been one of the most staunchly segregationist voices of the time. Rather than shame Wallace’s legacy in one of the world’s most widely circulated newspapers, Lewis (who grew up watching Wallace promote black-white division on the national stage), openly and publicly forgave his former archrival… much to the surprise of the American people.

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