One year ago was the tragedy at the West Nickel Mines Amish School where a man entered into this peaceful community, and killed five children and traumatized the other five. He then killed himself. But even more amazing then all of that was the Amish communities response to this horrible tragedy. Did they demand justice or retribution? No. Instead they did something completely unfathomable. They decided to forgive this man and embrace his family.

When money came in from around the world to support the families of these dead girls, the Amish community chose to give the family of the man who created this tragedy some of the money. And a man named Steve Nolt co-wrote a book entitled, Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy. The USA Today had an article about the book in todays newspaper that you can read here. It looks like a very good read.

But it got me to thinking about something…. Maybe our country should have taken a page from the Amish on 11 September 2001 and instead of demanding revenge and retribution for that horrible tragedy and instead offered grace and forgiveness. What if we had done that and instead of sending troops around the world, we beefed up or security here at home to protect us from any further terrorist attack, but made a public declaration of forgiveness to the people who committed this crime against our nation and offered a hand of grace, by offering humanitarian aid? I don’t know, it just got me to thinking that maybe our American way of life is getting in the way of our Christian way of life.

Just something to think about. Feel free to comment with your own ideas and thoughts.