In Christianity Today, psychiatrist Robert Coles told an amazing story of a girl who had learned to pray for those who were hostile to her. Coles was in New Orleans in 1960 when a federal judge ruled that the city schools must be integrated. A six-year-old girl, Ruby Bridges, was the only black child to attend the William T. Frantz School. Every day for weeks as she entered and left the building, a mob would be standing outside to scream at her and threaten her. They shook their fists, shouted obscenities, and threatened to kill her. One day her teacher saw her lips moving as she walked through the crowd, flanked by burly federal marshals.
When the teacher told Coles about it, he asked Ruby if she was talking to the people. “I wasn’t talking to them,” she replied. “I was just saying a prayer for them.”
Coles asked her, “Why do you do that?”
“Because they need praying for,” came her reply.
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“Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free and realizing you were the prisoner!” (Max Lucado).
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“Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hate. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness” (William Arthur Ward).
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“My salvation will be complete only when I cease to resent God’s forgiveness of those who have hurt me” (John Leax).
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“Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge, and dares forgive an injury” (Edwin Chapin).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One