Forgiveness

Every two months I get excited about the mail, and the chance to pour through the recent issue of Foreign Policy (Yes I'm a nerd.) I don't always agree with what gets printed in its pages, but I do enjoy reading about world events from multiple view points.

In the most recent issue I was caught off guard reading an article on the Kim Jong Il the leader of North Korea written by one of his school teachers. What surprised me was the beauty of a man living out Jesus instructions to forgive one another. To my shame it just was not something I thought to find in an article about such a despicable person. Here are a few excerpts from the story.

Foreign Policy: The Secret History of Kim Jong Il

I never returned to North Korea, and I never saw my family again. A few years later, I heard from a well-placed South Korean minister that my family had been sent to a gulag and murdered, the innocent victims of my treasonous crime. To this day, I know nothing of the details of their deaths, or whether they blamed me as they perished.

If Kim Jong Il ever realizes that opening up North Korea is in his
interest, I will return to Pyongyang the very next day. I want to
devise the best education system in the world based on my observations
and experiences in Seoul and the United States. But I am already more
than 75 years old. I can feel myself growing weaker by the day. Before
I grow so infirm that my experiences become useless, I would love to
meet Kim Jong Il one last time and give him one last lesson. I, who
became a university professor thanks to his father; I, who traveled to
Russia, Seoul, and now Washington. I no longer loathe him. I pity him.
Even though he killed my family, I have already forgiven him.

I can not imagine losing my family in such away. The man's crime was nothing more then visiting with his sister who escaped N. Korea and chose to live n the U.S. Here is a man who has lost his wife, children, and seen the evils Kim Jong Il has carried out on the people of N. Korea and his reaction is to pray for him and forgive him.

Many of us don't have any trouble forgiving a person when they come to us and ask for it, though we rarely think to forgive until that moment. How small are those infractions that we hold onto, waiting for the words "I'm sorry" from a friend or loved one?

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