LAST week, while preparing for a school assembly on the theme of ‘Justice,’ I came across a very moving video clip, entitled ‘Forgive Others’.

It’s a simple no-frills clip – a monologue, where a father, Darrell Scott, tells the agonising tale of how his 17 year old daughter, Rachel, was the first student to be shot and killed in the Columbine School massacre in April 1999.

More than this, this father tells of how his son, Craig, also a student at the school, watched as his two friends, sitting either side of him in the school library, were both brutally murdered, leaving him ‘covered with the blood of his own friends.’

Darrell Scott and his family, without doubt deserved justice, and could understandably have sought revenge; however in this video clip, he tells of their difficult but real journey to a place where they chose to forgive the two young men who visited such devastation on his family.

He tells of discovering a school essay that his daughter had written previously, outlining her ethics and codes of life.

She challenges her readers to start a chain reaction with kindness and compassion - beginning with forgiveness.

Her father tells of how no one in their family had the personal strength to forgive and of how they, daily, asked God for his help and strength to enable them to forgive those who had robbed them of one they had loved so dearly.

It’s a powerful and challenging message.

During this past week I’ve found myself reflecting on my willingness to forgive others.

Is there someone that I need to forgive?

Am I holding a grudge that I need to let go of?

And what about you - and your willingness to do the same?

In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray, ‘Our Father in Heaven…forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’

If we want to know God’s forgiveness, we have to be willing to forgive those who have caused us pain. That’s the challenging journey that we all have to consider.

I pray that we’ll make it - and in doing so, discover the freedom it brings.

The video clip mentioned above can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtXdrJkwCsY