Summary: It is the end of the year, 2013, and the apostle Paul writing a long time ago, reminds us how to end it well: "Make allowance for each other's faults," he wrote to the small church at Colossae, "and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others." I want to end well, don't you? And if that means ending this year forgiving somebody, that also is what I want to do. More recently, another person wrote something about forgiveness that I want to recite. I heard it read in a federal courtroom in Kentucky. I was sitting on the back row watching, listening, praying. A young man was to be sentenced for robbing a bank. It was a bad thing he did, slipping a note pad to the teller, demanding money. He was six foot one inch, rough and rugged, muscles along every limb, shabbily dressed. The teller was about the same age, but smaller and nine months pregnant. The thief did not know that, of course; nor did he know it was her birthday. So much of it was so random. "Do you have anything to say?" the judge asked that day in court. The thief turned to the young woman, sitting with her husband on the other side of the courtroom. With tears streaming down his face, he said, "I am so sorry for what I did. You did not deserve this. I did not mean to harm you. I am sorry." Then it was her turn. She read a letter in response. No, the prosecutor read it and I remember it vividly. "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you." He read for her. "You do not deserve any mercy. You have ruined my life. I was nine-months pregnant that day last summer when you robbed our bank. It was my birthday. I have been in therapy ever since. I hate you."
