Dan Byl

I just watched Invictus a movie about South Africa and in particular president Nelson Mandela. The story starts with him getting out of jail after being placed there for 30 years for being a political activist and trying to get the white government to treat the Africans as equals.

The movie is a powerful story of forgiveness and the people that around Mandela. As Mandela gains power he invites the white workers to stay and work with him in his new government. He then goes on to keep the South African rugby team which to the Africans was a symbol of the apartheid. He does this so that the white people will not be treated as they expected to be treated. He makes a speech in which he says that “we must give them grace, allow them to keep the things important to them, and give them all the things that they did not give us.” (not an exact quote)

So often we feel more strength in anger, in getting even. We feel powerful and in control, this is the opposite feel that forgiveness often gives us in the moment. We feel like we are giving someone power over us, that we are allowing people to treat us poorly. But the truth is that forgiveness is the real power. It frees us from the hurt and the affect that the offending person may have over us. It allows us to deal with things in our own lives without coming back to the offense. We are able to see the rout of what caused the pain or hurt, to see past the fruit of the tree to see what is causing the bad fruit and fix the problem so that it does not reoccur.

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