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234 August 21st
Supernatural Forgiveness
Often a photograph captures the emotion and drama of a moment in history. Nick Ut took one such photograph immediately after a South Vietnamese pilot had bombed a North Vietnamese village. This Pulitzer Prize winning picture poignantly captured the horror and angst of a young girl (and several other children) who had been severely burned by napalm. She was walking toward the camera, naked, holding her arms away from her body, and her face expressed total terror, excruciating pain, and bewilderment.
The girl’s name is Phan Thi Kim Phuc. She was 7 or 8 years old when her village was bombed. An American advisor devised the sortie, but the South Vietnamese pilot chose to divert his attention to Phan’s village believing North Vietnamese guerrilla soldiers occupied it.
After snapping the photograph, Mr. Ut gathered the children into his car and took them to a hospital. Phan Thi Kim was hospitalized for fourteen months and had seventeen operations and skin grafts. Upon her release, the North Vietnamese government forced her to become an anti-war poster child. As a young adult, her government allowed her to go to college in Cuba, where she met her future husband. While in Cuba, she became a Christian. Later, she and her husband defected to Canada and she became a spokesperson for UNESCO.
In 1996, the United States invited Phan to speak at the U.S. Vietnam Memorial on Veteran’s Day. She spoke of her ordeal and commented that she had no animosity toward the person who devised the bombing raid or the person who carried it out. Instead of exuding bitterness, she spoke of forgiveness and called her audience to chose kindness over animosity; peace over war. As she neared the end of her speech, someone handed her a note that said, “I am that man.”
Reverend John Plummer, a U.S. Vietnam War veteran, had seen the famous photograph. He knew he had devised the original bombing run. Although he did not choose to napalm her village, he felt responsible for it. After her speech, he came up, introduced himself to her, and asked her to forgive him for the role he played in her suffering. Amazingly, she forgave him and she did it publicly. This led to an amazing friendship between a Christian brother and sister.
I doubt that any of this would have happened had they both not given their lives to Jesus. When we belong to God, He enables us to do supernatural things, like forgive our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Forgiveness is not natural; it’s supernatural. Jesus is our example. Can you imagine hanging on a cross, looking out at a crowd, and extending forgiveness? It takes great Godliness to do such a thing.
Is God calling you to extend forgiveness to someone? Acknowledge who it is and what they did. Acknowledge any contribution you make to the situation. As best you can, settle all of the responsibility issues, i.e. don’t own anything that you did not do. Hold others responsible for what they actually did. Then, ask God to empower you to forgive. He wants to and He will.
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