April 17, 2025 • 32 mins
What happens when a parent's worst nightmare becomes reality? When Wilma Derksen's 13-year-old daughter Candace didn't return home from school one November day in 1984, it sparked one of Winnipeg's largest manhunts and began a journey through grief, justice systems, and ultimately, forgiveness that would span decades.
The discovery of Candace's body seven weeks later devastated her family, yet that very night, Wilma and her husband made an unexpected choice: "We're going to forgive." This seemingly impossible decision became their anchor through 22 years of uncertainty, not knowing who had taken their daughter's life, and the eventual court trials, convictions, appeals, and absence of closure.
Wilma's approach to forgiveness shatters conventional understanding. Rather than a single act or emotion, she reveals it as a complex, multi-dimensional process that engages the whole person: body, mind, heart, spirit, and community. Her framework, which she calls "Forgiveness to the Power of 5," offers a roadmap for anyone struggling with seemingly unforgivable circumstances.
Most powerfully, Wilma's journey led her into prisons where she shared her story with inmates – creating moments of "beautiful harmony" as both victims and offenders recognized their shared need for forgiveness. Through this radical path, she discovered that "love is more powerful than murder" and that choosing forgiveness allowed Candace's memory to flourish rather than be defined by tragedy.
Malcolm Gladwell featured Wilma's story in his book "David and Goliath," recognizing the counterintuitive strength that emerged from her approach to overwhelming loss. Now, in her forthcoming book "Impossible Forgiveness to the Power of 5," Wilma offers her hard-won wisdom to anyone seeking to break free from resentment and find healing through forgiveness.
Whether you're facing your own seemingly impossible situation or simply seeking to understand the transformative power of forgiveness, Wilma's story demonstrates how choosing to "let go of the negative and step into the positive" can become not just a decision but a way of life.
You can learn more with Wilma through her writing and website.
And you can share this episode using hashtag #Evangelical360 and join the conversation online!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian Stiller (00:03):
Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360.
I'm your host, Brian Stiller,and I'm pleased to share with
you another conversation withleaders, changemakers and
influencers having an impact onChristian life around the world.
Having an impact on Christianlife around the world.
(00:26):
We'd love for you to be a partof the podcast by sharing this
episode using hashtagEvangelical360 and by joining
the conversation on YouTube inthe comments below.
My guest today is Wilma Derksen.
Her story of losing herdaughter and then having to live
through court's hearings is aparent's worst nightmare.
(00:47):
Yet in her forthcoming bookImpossible Forgiveness to the
Power of 5, she leads us into aradical and redemptive journey
in which forgiveness becomes away of life.
I'm pleased to introduce to youthis remarkable person, a
writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba,who has been walking a path many
(01:12):
thought impossible.
Wilma, thank you so much forbeing with us today.
Wilma Derksen (01:22):
Thank you, Brian.
It's good to be here.
Brian Stiller (01:24):
Wilma, your story is like none other that I've
ever heard.
So to help people understandthe context in which these
lessons were learned, it wouldbe good to have you give a
capsule of what happened in theloss of Candace and the ensuing
story in your own life.
Wilma Derksen (01:46):
It was in November 30th 1984 that
everything changed.
We were an ordinary family.
Candace was 13, Woody was nineand Cyrus was two years old.
And Candace called me fromschool and asked me to come pick
her up and I was busy.
So I said, oh, why don't youjust walk home?
It's a warm November day?
And so she said, yes, mom.
She never came home.
(02:06):
She just, and immediately Iknew that something was wrong.
I knew that she was expectingher best friend to come in the
next day, so we just calledeverybody, I called all her
friends, we went to pick thecliff, we went, we just went.
I panicked, I absolutelypanicked, and she didn't come
home.
For seven weeks she didn't comehome and we looked for her and
it sparked one of Winnipeg'slargest manhunts ever.
(02:28):
And we all knew that somethingwas wrong with her.
And it was just a.
It was a panic, it was.
It was the worst nightmare ofany mother that could we could
experience.
And then on January 17th, sevenweeks later, her body was found
in a shack not that far fromour place.
Her hands and her, her feet hadbeen tied and she died.
She froze to death that nightwhen the plunging temperatures
(02:50):
of a Winnipeg winter justplunged that night, and so it
was then declared a murder site.
And so then we had to deal withthe murder.
It was just the horror of it,the exposure of it, the climax
of it and even the ending of itwas just horrible.
It was a threat.
Brian Stiller (03:08):
How did you survive those initial days?
Wilma Derksen (03:11):
I pled with God.
I really did.
And you know what he told me.
You know I'm a parent of amurdered child.
You see, I think before anyoneelse knew about it, I knew that
somebody had taken her and shewas probably dying or dead.
I just knew that because I justfelt it.
I think we have as mothers, wehave that instinct.
So then when I talked to God, Isaid God, just help her, just
(03:32):
don't make her suffer too much.
You know, I just had thishorrible feeling.
And so then God told me that hetoo was a parent of a murdered
child.
He understood it.
So he was there with me.
It was horrible, just horrible.
I could cry right now,
Brian Stiller (03:47):
Out of all of this, you have advocated
forgiveness.
But that notion was that fairlyimmediate, or was it something
that took you some time tounderstand and to accept and
embrace?
Wilma Derksen (04:03):
Well then, the day her body was found, of
course we went to identify herbody.
And then we came home and thewhole search committee came and
joined us that day to be in ourhouse, and we went up and down
the roller coaster of of therelief of finding Candace and
then the horror of not you know,realizing what had happened to
her.
And then they all left at 10o'clock that night, leaving one
couple to stay with me.
Us all left at 10 o'clock thatnight, leaving one couple to
(04:24):
stay with me us.
And so then we were talking atthe kitchen table and then there
was a knock on the door andthere's a parent of a murdered
child.
He came as a stranger.
He says I've come to tell youwhat to expect.
So we invited him to thekitchen table and there for two
hours he told us what hadhappened to him.
He told us how the murder ofhis daughter had destroyed his
ability to think, ability towork, ability to have a good
(04:45):
relationship with his family.
It had just totally destroyedhis life.
And he pulled out all the booksfrom the trial and it was just
like a whole kind of show andtell of what would lay ahead of
us and he said this is what youcould expect.
And he says I've even lost thememory of my daughter.
Cliff and I went to bed thatnight.
We were just horrified and wegot ready for bed and then we
went.
You know, we were going toclimb into bed.
(05:07):
All of a sudden we couldn't.
The trauma presence that thatman had talked about lay on our
bed.
We could not climb into bed,but yet we didn't have any place
to go.
We were exhausted, justabsolutely exhausted.
So then we both said almostimmediately we're going to
forgive.
And that's the strangest thing,why did we choose that?
I don't, you know.
I still look back and I stilldon't quite understand what
happened that moment.
(05:27):
But we chose the words we'regoing to forgive and then the
presence left and we climbedinto bed and we actually slept.
It was a miracle, an absolutemiracle.
So that's kind of where wechose okay, we're going to
forgive.
It was a God-given word at themoment that we really needed it.
Brian Stiller (05:43):
Malcolm Gladwell.
In his book David and Goliath,the Art of Battling Giants tells
about him going to Winnipeg andmeeting with you, and that for
him was a bit of a game changer.
What happened when MalcolmGladwell came to visit you?
Wilma Derksen (06:01):
Oh, my goodness, that was a visit like no other.
He is a wonderful person and hecame in and he asked me all
kinds of questions that werejust remarkable.
He even asked he'd read mybooks.
He had read everything about me, he had studied me like no
other and he said where was yourfather standing when he went
and bought the newspapers?
He had read my books sodistinctly and so I told him.
(06:24):
And then he interviewed me, heinterrogated me and I think he
knew my heart, he knew thatsomething had happened, the
miracle of forgiveness hadhappened that night.
And then we kind of just knowthat, no matter what anybody
said, we always said we're goingto forgive, we're going to
forgive.
We just, we just pressed on onthat path and he, I saw the
miracle of what forgiveness didin our lives.
(06:45):
It was just wonderful to sharethat with him.
Brian Stiller (06:48):
So you and Cliff, you're standing by the bed that
night and the idea offorgiveness becomes common to
both of you.
But how does that work its waythrough, Does it?
Obviously there's a bit of aroller coaster on that theme,
isn't there?
And how did you engage withprisoners at the penitentiary in
(07:10):
Manitoba, and what did thatmean on understanding and
working through this idea offorgiveness?
Wilma Derksen (07:19):
Well, it didn't stop there.
That was the beginning.
You know, we chose it and thatis really just the beginning of
it.
And then it presented itselfover and over and over again.
And then at the pressconference they asked us what we
would do with the murderer.
And Cliff and I were just stillin such a daze we weren't even
thinking clearly.
We said, oh, we're going toforgive.
(07:39):
And it worked once, so it wouldwork with them, with the
reporters as well, and thatbecame a headline, so we became
known for it.
And actually Malcolm asked me.
He said, if you hadn't gonepublic with it, if it hadn't
gone public, would you still beas dedicated to the word?
And so I don't know.
I think we were held publiclyaccountable.
(08:01):
We were held emotionallyaccountable and we also were
held, you know, together.
We were held accountablebecause we did it together and
um, and so we just sought it.
We just sought it every time,and every time something would
come up we'd say we wouldforgive.
Then I met a man who was a, wasa lifer, and he was just the
worst criminal alive.
And then we, we just pursued it.
(08:24):
Where did you meet him?
We were at a restorativejustice conference and they had
invited him to come and speak.
And they invited me to comespeak.
He was supposed to be theoffender, I was supposed to be
the victim, representing ourgroups, and so I went to listen
to him and he went and talked toall these young peoples and he
just described his life of crime, the heists that he had done,
(08:46):
the, his violence, and they saidhe went into prison.
And then he changed and Iwasn't convinced he'd changed.
And here he was going andtelling all these kids and
talking about violence andglorifying it and dramatizing it
.
So I got upset and so I hadbreakfast with him and I really,
you know, interrogated him.
Forgiveness doesn't mean wejust accept things.
We, we have to search them out,we have to do it responsibly.
(09:08):
So I think that whole kind ofto me to be authentically
forgiving took me into areasthat I'd never expected.
And then we worked together andthen started to realize the
importance of going into it,working with surrogate offenders
, working through the issues.
So it was a remarkable journey.
Brian Stiller (09:28):
Was forgiveness kind of an instrument that you
used to lift the burden and thesorrow of the loss of Candace?
Wilma Derksen (09:38):
think in some ways it felt almost like a magic
wand that we would just saywe're going to forgive, we're
going to forgive, and then wewould follow that feeling of
forgiveness and it was kind ofit's hard to explain because we
had such an introduction to it.
That is a powerful thing.
Then, you know, as I got intoit more and more, I was just so
confused and panicking about it,like I didn't understand it
(10:00):
myself.
I really didn't.
We followed it.
We said it all the time.
It was a goal, but how to do itwe did not know.
It was always something new forus.
Brian Stiller (10:11):
So it wasn't something just to relieve your
sorrow, but it was larger thanthat.
Did it give you a sense of thepursuit of justice?
Did it make it more difficultor easier to pursue justice?
Wilma Derksen (10:30):
And this is when I really it's taken me this long
to understand exactly what wewere doing.
We were working at itinstinctively, we were working
at it as the events came up andwe didn't understand and not a
lot of people understood iteither Like when we talked about
it to people, we said, well,what are we doing?
Why are we doing this?
And they didn't understandbecause for them it only meant
(10:50):
justice and we didn't haveanybody.
We didn't know who did it for22 years, so we were working in
a vacuum most of the time.
And yet they were sayingforgiveness means that you
forgive the murderer, or wedidn't know who the murderer was
.
So we were just kind ofexploring this, this forgiveness
idea and concept that keptfreeing us.
That was really important, andwe didn't understand it
(11:10):
ourselves, and neither didanyone else
Brian Stiller (11:13):
I think it it's important to tell the rest of
this story Wilma, at some pointthey found a person that they
charged.
Tell us a bit about that
Wilma Derksen (11:23):
22 years later they found the man and they
arrested him and we went totrial and he was convicted of
second-degree murder.
It was horrible Trial ishorrendous because we were
minimized.
Convicted of second degreemurder.
It was a horrible trial.
It's horrendous because we wereminimized.
We went through all there-victimization of going
through a trial and yet itbrought us so many answers.
(11:44):
We found out that she had beenhogtied, we found out the
sexuality of it, we found outwho he was like and all that
kind of thing.
So the truth was and there's alot of forgiving to do in that
Constant, constant forgiving,constant letting go of the
negative, just letting go andletting God that was my
definition by this time lettinggo of the negativity and just
pushing into the positive, thegoodness, the love of it.
Brian Stiller (12:08):
And did that give you a sense of justice on the
issue?
Did that bring closure at that?
Wilma Derksen (12:14):
moment.
We've never had closure, noreconciliation.
We have had resolution and, yes, there is that, but it's never
felt complete.
No, but that isn't whatforgiveness is all about.
Forgiveness is about thehealing, the moving on.
I remember asking God okay, god, how do I do this?
(12:36):
And he gave me the verse inIsaiah where it says I'm going
to be walking beside you, youwould just move along, you just
go along, and I'm going to bethe voice behind you saying go
this way, go that way.
And that's kind of how I dealtwith the forgiveness was just
moving along.
I was in search of forgiveness,never really understanding.
I was feeling okay, this isanother issue, this is another
(12:56):
issue.
And just realizing thecomplexity of forgiveness would
make it too simple.
I just realized how big it is.
Brian Stiller (13:02):
But that's not the end of the story either,
because after the conviction,then what happened?
Wilma Derksen (13:13):
Well then he went to appeals and then went to the
Supreme Court of Canada andthen eventually he was acquitted
and he's now suing thegovernment for wrongful
conviction.
So it's still not over.
It doesn't end.
Brian Stiller (13:24):
Now, Wilma, you and Cliff were raised in a
Christian, evangelical Mennonitehome, and to what degree did
that the understanding of Godand creation and humanity?
How did that affect yourunderstanding of your own lives
and this idea of forgiveness asit's become such a central part
(13:46):
of your life?
Wilma Derksen (13:47):
I think it was huge.
Now, in looking back on it, Ididn't think it's so at the
moment.
You know, then it seemed it wasall immediate.
You know, it wasn't as if I wasdoing it the Mennonnonite way
because I don't know what themennonite way is really but it
was kind of a culturalunderstanding that forgiveness
was important and that if wedon't forgive, unforgiveness,
(14:07):
even though we didn't understandwhat trauma was at that point,
was a way of saying they're,they're traumatized, so.
So unforgiveness is a way ofdestroying life, it's an
emotional suicide.
And we were just moving on andembracing forgiveness, whatever
that meant.
We didn't understand it, wedidn't have any formulas for it,
(14:28):
but we were just moving alongand so it was just a long
journey of forgiving constantly.
And my daughter says this 490times, and it really was,
because every issue would comeup.
Cliff and I would be having ananniversary celebration and the
maitre d' says how many childrendo you have?
I said two and Cliff said three.
He was mad at me, he's justfurious.
(14:49):
He says how can you, at thisimportant time in our lives,
when we're having an anniversary, how can you say we have two
children and we had three?
You're denying Candace, youknow, could cry, and so I had to
say OK, you know, every momentwas just, was OK.
Now let's forgive this, let'smove on, let's not, let's not
divorce each other right now.
Brian Stiller (15:12):
Let's realize this and let go of all those
feelings and move into good andhope and love again.
But this forgiveness wasn'tjust forgiving the person who
had done this to Candace, butalso it ended up you having to
forgive yourself.
Wilma Derksen (15:21):
Oh, it's forgiving everything forgiving
the police for not going andfinding Candace, forgiving all
our friends for saying all thosewrong things.
And then, of course, theanniversary of her, of my not
picking her up just visited meand it just crippled me and I
realized that if I had pickedher up, none of this would have
happened.
So it was really my fault.
And then really going back tothe cross and saying, okay, God
(15:43):
forgive me.
Brian Stiller (15:44):
But memory in our lives is so powerful.
How do you relate forgivingwith forgetting?
Wilma Derksen (15:55):
Well, I don't believe in forgetting.
We belong to a group and theysaid we're not going to forgive,
forget, because this is theonly memory we have of our
children, right, so we're goingto remember, but there is a kind
of forgetting that happens inforgiveness.
It's a long process, by the way.
It's taking what has happenedto us, organizing it into the
(16:18):
past memory and then letting itgo.
There's a present memory andthere's a past memory.
If everything stays in thepresent memory, we can't learn,
we can't do anything.
So we have to process things,forgive it, and then it goes
into the past memory, where wedo keep it in boxes and we love
it.
I'll never forget candles.
Brian Stiller (16:34):
How does forgiveness relate to the wrong?
Do you excuse the wrong?
How does that work?
Wilma Derksen (16:42):
No, there needs to be justice, and I think that
we have the Ten Commandments, wehave all of that, and Jesus
even goes ahead and says youknow what I want even more?
I don't only want just, I wantyou to have the attitude of
justice.
So forgiveness doesn't negatejustice.
It doesn't negate, it doesn'tsay anything was okay, like this
is what people thought, that wewere saying, that we exonerated
(17:04):
the murderer.
But really it's saying no, we,we live to a higher standard.
But the difference is is that,rather than adhering to the rule
of justice, I still think Godloves the people.
There's love and justice.
Justice without love is abuseand love without justice is
permissive.
But in the priorities of it, welove first and then do justice.
(17:30):
I had to really come tounderstanding that God really
loved the murderer who took ourchild and then to realize that
everybody I've met is reallybuilt in the image of God and
God loves everybody and he achesfor us when we do something
wrong and when we experience.
You know the cruelty of life,but he says no, you're important
(17:51):
and so is the other personthat's doing it to us is
important.
That's the hard part of it, andforgiving is moving towards
compassion for everyone, yetupholding justice
Brian Stiller (18:01):
but all these years later, Wilma, there still
isn't accountability, therestill isn't justice.
So you forgive without bringingresolution to the accountability
or to the justice factor.
Wilma Derksen (18:17):
Well, it doesn't look that way from here, you
know, like he wanted to justice.
No, the murderer wanted to killCandace, right?
Or the murderer wanted to killCandace, but she's more alive
than even my other children.
There is other kinds of living,so there has been a kind of
justice.
There is other kinds of living,so there has been a kind of
justice.
In hindsight I can see how Godhas really used this to create
(18:39):
more and more beautiful thingsout of her murder than if she
had lived.
She has a Candace house in hername.
People are still being inspiredby her.
We just had a 40th high teawhere everybody came.
We just honored Candace.
This is 40 years later and sheis still a memory.
She has not been diminished bymurder.
(19:01):
She has been living through theact of forgiveness and love.
Love is more powerful thanmurder, so we need to step into
that and live it other thanexact justice and live it other
than exact justice.
Brian Stiller (19:14):
You've just written a new book called
Impossible Forgiveness to thePower of 5.
What brought you to this thesis?
Something that was different tothe other books that you've
written?
Wilma Derksen (19:28):
Well, I think I've always been.
I've had a hard time explainingthis Like even now I'm
struggling to explain it to you,right?
And so I finally decided I'vegot to, I've got to figure this
out.
So I've had to figure out theconcept of five, of concept of
forgiveness.
I didn't understand until Irealized that it's the concept
of five.
We have to.
There's five parts of us thebody, body, a mind, heart,
(19:51):
spirit and collective.
We have to forgive on all thoselevels and it's going to look
different than every one ofthose levels.
So I had to look at the conceptof forgiveness and I really had
to organize it for myself, notfor anybody else, but for myself
.
Then I had to look at thechoice of forgiveness, the five
choices of forgiveness, and thenI also had to look at the
(20:11):
culture of forgiveness.
What does it look like?
Brian Stiller (20:15):
Let's work our way through those five steps of
forgiveness.
The first one you say is leapinto choice.
Wilma Derksen (20:22):
Yes, Our body doesn't understand things.
It needs to leap, it needs tojust make that decision.
Just like when we saw thepresence on the bed, we said
we're going to forgive.
That was our body saying we'regoing to forgive.
And then what it does is itgives it to the mind.
Then, after that, I wrote aboutthree books on the mind, trying
(20:43):
to understand it, identifyingthe issues of murder, going
through it and then goingthrough some of the processes
and then the heart, yeah.
So then I had to learn.
Okay, first of all we leap intoforgiveness, then we learn,
learn, learn, learn.
Brian Stiller (20:58):
So learn, learn, learn is your second step of
forgiveness.
What does that have to do withforgiveness?
Wilma Derksen (21:06):
My simple definition of forgiveness is to
let go, let go of the negativeand step into the positive.
Let go and let God, and so wejust have all this negativity.
So in order to even learn, itmeans that you have to let go of
t he trauma.
We can't learn if we'retraumatized.
We have to let go of the trauma, we have to let go of the anger
(21:26):
.
We have to let go of all ofthat and learn about it in order
to even forgive.
So it's a lot of work.
Forgiveness is a lot of work.
Forgiving is just a lot of work.
Brian Stiller (21:33):
Love your enemy.
Wilma Derksen (21:34):
Love, love, love.
Yes, to realize that you know,god loves everybody.
God has chosen everybody andGod loves everybody.
And so, even though we mighthave to have boundaries, we
might have to work at some verypractical issues about this, we
still have to realize God loveseverybody and that's how he can
still love us and we can stepinto that love.
(21:58):
I have met many prisoners, and Ithink the big one was when I
went into prison with two otherstorytellers and we went into
prison and I believe it's instorytelling.
I believe that we need to crossthese boundaries.
We can't live in isolation, wecannot defend ourselves.
We have to go and meet them andgreet them and love them.
And so we went into prison andI told my story, and then the
(22:21):
next storyteller, and then itall worked out.
And then one man got up and hesaid you know what?
You victims here, your parentsare murdered children.
You look awful, you look likeyou're carrying dead monkeys.
Wow, there's a hundred inmatesand three of us.
Well, one of the women got upand she was so mad she said I'm
not going to ever forgive.
She says Wilma does forgive,but I don't forgive.
And the room was electric,absolutely electric.
(22:44):
I thought here we're going tohave a riot.
And then the kingpin, the onethat had killed the most people,
stood up and says you guys,listen, we're here because we
don't forgive, we need toforgive too.
And so that word forgiveness onour side, our struggle with it
(23:05):
and their struggle with itbrought us together in a
beautiful harmony, absolutelybeautiful.
So to see the miracle of it.
So there was no resolution, butthere was beautiful harmony in
that we realized how importantwe were to each other.
So to me, that's kind of theworking of it, I think, in order
for us to.
This is the spirit, the humanspirit, not the Holy Spirit.
This is the human spirit thatis in us and we need to find our
(23:25):
reasons for it happening.
We have to find our purpose.
Like all things work togetherfor good.
That doesn't sound very funwhen we're in it, but what good
can come out of it and that wasthe hardest part for me was to
let go of all the negativity andsay, okay, Candace died, now
what good could come out of it?
And she had been actuallypromised that as well.
If we die prematurely and wegive our death to God and our
(23:49):
murder to God, then God is goingto make something beautiful
come out of it, and so that'swhat we did with that.
We purposed in our hearts thatwe were going to make something
good come out of Candace's death, and something very beautiful
came out of it.
Lots of beautiful things comeout of it.
She doesn't die.
She's still not murdered,really.
Brian Stiller (24:08):
Then the fifth one is leave it behind.
I suppose it's something that Icould say easily, but for you
you've lived with it for 40years how do you leave it behind
?
Wilma Derksen (24:20):
You know, there's been no resolution, there's
been no reconciliation.
So it was a very deliberatething for it not to control us,
right, right, we had to say okay, we've done the best we can and
we're going to leave it andwe're going to concentrate on
our lives.
It's kind of like I alwaysthink of Sodom and Gomorrah, how
Lot's wife turned around andlooked at Sodom.
Right, she turned around andshe says don't turn around, just
(24:44):
keep moving.
And so we have to let.
At some point we have to say,okay, it's not going to be
reconciled, it's not going to bereconciled, it's not going to
be resolved, we're just going tokeep moving into life and start
living our life again as weneed to.
Brian Stiller (24:55):
Through that period of time and I understand
that, Cliff, your husband haspassed away recently.
How did your marriage survive,or did it thrive at all, during
this time of the two of youholding on to forgiveness?
Wilma Derksen (25:13):
Well, it was good .
I had a good relationship.
We had a fun relationship tobegin with and we were very much
the same.
We were creative both of us.
So we had a good base.
But it was hard.
Of course it was hard.
And you know, he never onceblamed me for not paying Candace
up.
He knew that would havedestroyed me, that would have
destroyed our marriage, and Inever blamed him for those kinds
(25:34):
of things.
So we knew that there werecertain things that we couldn't
do to each other.
We respected and loved eachother.
It was grounded very deeply.
And then you know what Cliffloved church.
The church never paid muchattention to him and he would
have loved to be a pastor, hewould have loved to be a leader,
but the church never paid muchattention to him.
But he would always go tochurch and I don't like church
(25:55):
much myself, but we always wentto church.
Every Sunday when we could, wewent to church and could love
going to church.
And now, looking back on it,I'm sensing that, just that
tradition of going to church allthe time, loving it and letting
God work through the church.
Even though church was boringsometimes and they were singing
off key, everything washappening.
That was wrong.
There was something about goingto church, and did you know
(26:22):
that church is the most sexualplace there is?
They're doing research andthey're showing that it's a very
place of highly sensitiveintimacy.
It promotes it and encouragesit, and I don't think we've
realized it.
So now I'm looking back, Ithink that there's a lot of
tough stuff in our marriage.
It promotes it and encouragesit, and I don't think we've
realized it.
So now I'm looking back, Ithink that there's a lot of
tough stuff in our marriage.
We always believe that we don'tgo to bed angry.
(26:44):
We never did, except one time.
I think we did.
That's not bad.
That's not bad when you thinkof 52 years of marriage.
I can count the times when wewere that angry with each other.
We just refused to get angrywith each other.
Count the times when we werethat angry with each other.
We just refused to get angrywith each other.
And this is where the realreality of forgiveness happens.
This is where it's really tested.
In these kind of intimateconversations, relationships,
Brian Stiller (27:04):
every one of us we have people that we haven't
forgiven or we have reasons thatwe at least construct in our
mind, is why we don't forgive.
But when I even say that, Irealize how small, minuscule
that is in relationship to whatyou have faced.
So what would you say to thosewho are living in the angst of
(27:27):
anger and fear and are unwillingto forgive?
What would you say?
What advice, counsel would youhave?
Wilma Derksen (27:36):
I think I've realized that some forgivenesses
are more harder to forgive andI would say that we can forgive
on certain levels, but when itcomes to really the deep stuff,
we need to lean into God and Godwill teach us and help us.
We need to lean into God andGod will teach us and help us.
We need to lean into God andhe'll then bring us along the
road to forgiveness and justconstantly say I forgive, I
(27:59):
forgive, I'm going to forgive.
I don't know how right now, butI'm going to forgive.
And then following the path oflearning, loving lighting, just
working at it, just constantlyworking at it and realizing that
we fail and we have to forgiveourselves for failing.
That's the beautiful part aboutforgiving you can't even
(28:20):
forgive yourself for failing.
You forgive forgiveness for notworking.
You forgive everyone for notworking, realizing we just God
loves us and God wants to.
He loves the people around usand when we don't love them, we
cut ourselves off from that love.
Brian Stiller (28:36):
You use that phrase lean into God.
What does that mean inpractical, daily ways?
Wilma Derksen (28:43):
Well, I think that's kind of putting my hand
in God all the time, just saying, okay, god, where are you?
Tell me, I've got to know thisabout something Just a constant
(29:03):
conversation with him, notalways asking for forgiveness,
not asking him to judge and nottreating him like a fairy
godmother.
Everything that I have studiedit says that there's 80%
negativity in this world.
There's a negativity bias of80%, so we can expect 80% of the
day to go wrong, but keepmoving into the 20% of goodness
and love, and so it's a constantletting go, letting go, letting
(29:26):
God, letting go, letting God.
And that's kind of leaning intoall the time, knowing that we
can't do it by ourselves in anyway.
Brian Stiller (29:34):
When you let go and let God, as you say.
What's your understanding ofGod, given that your daughter,
Candace, was taken from you?
Wilma Derksen (29:44):
Oh, you know what , Brian?
I have a terrible, terribletheology and in my book what I
do is I do a romp, I do atheological romp, I do a
theological romp, I do apsychological romp, I do a
spiritual romp, I do a culture,I do romps.
And Cliff and I never agreed ontheology, but I had this awful
theology.
No, it's fun, no, it'simportant, I guess, and I don't
(30:06):
know if I can explain it here,but I do have a theology where
people often think that God isthe total control and in my
theology I go with Kushner whydo bad things happen to good
people?
He was the one that opened thisdoor for me and saying you know
what?
There is chaos.
There was chaos before that.
God created this world and wechose chaos.
God didn't create choice.
Brian Stiller (30:27):
How do you rely on God, then, in the midst of
that chaos, the chaos thatyou've known so well?
Wilma Derksen (30:37):
Because God is all powerful.
God can.
If we give God the reins and ifwe give God the control, he can
turn the chaos.
He's more powerful than thechaos.
It's only when we choose thechaos that we don't have the
power, but when we choose God,he's all powerful, he is
everything that we want.
He's omniscient, he's all ofthat, but he will not.
He's not.
He's all powerful, he iseverything that we want.
He's omniscient, he's, he's allof that, but he will not, he's
not, he's not evil, he can't, hedoesn't.
We're.
We have evil in us, we havechaos in us, we have all of that
(31:00):
in us.
But if we give our lives to him, like Candace did, and then
then he can work wonderful, hecan work miracles, he can work
miracles.
I've seen him work miracles.
Our lives are full of miracles.
My life is full of miracles, ofwhere I gave God saying God,
you help me, I can't do this.
I'm full of chaos, I'm full ofevil, everybody around me is
evil.
(31:20):
Come and you work and show usgoodness, goodness and light,
and you take over.
You take over.
Brian Stiller (31:26):
Wilma, I'm sure people will want to follow up,
learn more about your story andhow you came to understand
forgiveness as a way to live,and so your book Impossible
Forgiveness to the Power of 5.
That's a book that people willwant to access want to access
(31:55):
and for your time today, Wilma,thank you for your story, for
the story that has been sobeneficial to people over the
years and to joining us today onEvangelical 360.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, Wilma, for joining ustoday and for sharing your
remarkable and life-changingstory, and thank you for being a
part of the podcast.
Be sure to share this episodeusing hashtag Evangelical360 and
(32:21):
join the conversation onYouTube.
If you'd like to learn moreabout today's guest, be sure to
check the show notes for linksand info, and if you haven't
already received my free e-bookand newsletter, please go to
brianstillercom.
Thanks again.
Until next time.
(32:42):
Don't miss the next interview.
Be sure to subscribe toEvangelical 360 on YouTube.
See you there.
Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360.
I'm your host, Brian Stiller,and I'm pleased to share with
you another conversation withleaders, changemakers and
influencers having an impact onChristian life around the world.
Having an impact on Christianlife around the world.
(00:26):
We'd love for you to be a partof the podcast by sharing this
episode using hashtagEvangelical360 and by joining
the conversation on YouTube inthe comments below.
My guest today is Wilma Derksen.
Her story of losing herdaughter and then having to live
through court's hearings is aparent's worst nightmare.
(00:47):
Yet in her forthcoming bookImpossible Forgiveness to the
Power of 5, she leads us into aradical and redemptive journey
in which forgiveness becomes away of life.
I'm pleased to introduce to youthis remarkable person, a
writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba,who has been walking a path many
(01:12):
thought impossible.
Wilma, thank you so much forbeing with us today.
Wilma Derksen (01:22):
Thank you, Brian.
It's good to be here.
Brian Stiller (01:24):
Wilma, your story is like none other that I've
ever heard.
So to help people understandthe context in which these
lessons were learned, it wouldbe good to have you give a
capsule of what happened in theloss of Candace and the ensuing
story in your own life.
Wilma Derksen (01:46):
It was in November 30th 1984 that
everything changed.
We were an ordinary family.
Candace was 13, Woody was nineand Cyrus was two years old.
And Candace called me fromschool and asked me to come pick
her up and I was busy.
So I said, oh, why don't youjust walk home?
It's a warm November day?
And so she said, yes, mom.
She never came home.
(02:06):
She just, and immediately Iknew that something was wrong.
I knew that she was expectingher best friend to come in the
next day, so we just calledeverybody, I called all her
friends, we went to pick thecliff, we went, we just went.
I panicked, I absolutelypanicked, and she didn't come
home.
For seven weeks she didn't comehome and we looked for her and
it sparked one of Winnipeg'slargest manhunts ever.
(02:28):
And we all knew that somethingwas wrong with her.
And it was just a.
It was a panic, it was.
It was the worst nightmare ofany mother that could we could
experience.
And then on January 17th, sevenweeks later, her body was found
in a shack not that far fromour place.
Her hands and her, her feet hadbeen tied and she died.
She froze to death that nightwhen the plunging temperatures
(02:50):
of a Winnipeg winter justplunged that night, and so it
was then declared a murder site.
And so then we had to deal withthe murder.
It was just the horror of it,the exposure of it, the climax
of it and even the ending of itwas just horrible.
It was a threat.
Brian Stiller (03:08):
How did you survive those initial days?
Wilma Derksen (03:11):
I pled with God.
I really did.
And you know what he told me.
You know I'm a parent of amurdered child.
You see, I think before anyoneelse knew about it, I knew that
somebody had taken her and shewas probably dying or dead.
I just knew that because I justfelt it.
I think we have as mothers, wehave that instinct.
So then when I talked to God, Isaid God, just help her, just
(03:32):
don't make her suffer too much.
You know, I just had thishorrible feeling.
And so then God told me that hetoo was a parent of a murdered
child.
He understood it.
So he was there with me.
It was horrible, just horrible.
I could cry right now,
Brian Stiller (03:47):
Out of all of this, you have advocated
forgiveness.
But that notion was that fairlyimmediate, or was it something
that took you some time tounderstand and to accept and
embrace?
Wilma Derksen (04:03):
Well then, the day her body was found, of
course we went to identify herbody.
And then we came home and thewhole search committee came and
joined us that day to be in ourhouse, and we went up and down
the roller coaster of of therelief of finding Candace and
then the horror of not you know,realizing what had happened to
her.
And then they all left at 10o'clock that night, leaving one
couple to stay with me.
Us all left at 10 o'clock thatnight, leaving one couple to
(04:24):
stay with me us.
And so then we were talking atthe kitchen table and then there
was a knock on the door andthere's a parent of a murdered
child.
He came as a stranger.
He says I've come to tell youwhat to expect.
So we invited him to thekitchen table and there for two
hours he told us what hadhappened to him.
He told us how the murder ofhis daughter had destroyed his
ability to think, ability towork, ability to have a good
(04:45):
relationship with his family.
It had just totally destroyedhis life.
And he pulled out all the booksfrom the trial and it was just
like a whole kind of show andtell of what would lay ahead of
us and he said this is what youcould expect.
And he says I've even lost thememory of my daughter.
Cliff and I went to bed thatnight.
We were just horrified and wegot ready for bed and then we
went.
You know, we were going toclimb into bed.
(05:07):
All of a sudden we couldn't.
The trauma presence that thatman had talked about lay on our
bed.
We could not climb into bed,but yet we didn't have any place
to go.
We were exhausted, justabsolutely exhausted.
So then we both said almostimmediately we're going to
forgive.
And that's the strangest thing,why did we choose that?
I don't, you know.
I still look back and I stilldon't quite understand what
happened that moment.
(05:27):
But we chose the words we'regoing to forgive and then the
presence left and we climbedinto bed and we actually slept.
It was a miracle, an absolutemiracle.
So that's kind of where wechose okay, we're going to
forgive.
It was a God-given word at themoment that we really needed it.
Brian Stiller (05:43):
Malcolm Gladwell.
In his book David and Goliath,the Art of Battling Giants tells
about him going to Winnipeg andmeeting with you, and that for
him was a bit of a game changer.
What happened when MalcolmGladwell came to visit you?
Wilma Derksen (06:01):
Oh, my goodness, that was a visit like no other.
He is a wonderful person and hecame in and he asked me all
kinds of questions that werejust remarkable.
He even asked he'd read mybooks.
He had read everything about me, he had studied me like no
other and he said where was yourfather standing when he went
and bought the newspapers?
He had read my books sodistinctly and so I told him.
(06:24):
And then he interviewed me, heinterrogated me and I think he
knew my heart, he knew thatsomething had happened, the
miracle of forgiveness hadhappened that night.
And then we kind of just knowthat, no matter what anybody
said, we always said we're goingto forgive, we're going to
forgive.
We just, we just pressed on onthat path and he, I saw the
miracle of what forgiveness didin our lives.
(06:45):
It was just wonderful to sharethat with him.
Brian Stiller (06:48):
So you and Cliff, you're standing by the bed that
night and the idea offorgiveness becomes common to
both of you.
But how does that work its waythrough, Does it?
Obviously there's a bit of aroller coaster on that theme,
isn't there?
And how did you engage withprisoners at the penitentiary in
(07:10):
Manitoba, and what did thatmean on understanding and
working through this idea offorgiveness?
Wilma Derksen (07:19):
Well, it didn't stop there.
That was the beginning.
You know, we chose it and thatis really just the beginning of
it.
And then it presented itselfover and over and over again.
And then at the pressconference they asked us what we
would do with the murderer.
And Cliff and I were just stillin such a daze we weren't even
thinking clearly.
We said, oh, we're going toforgive.
(07:39):
And it worked once, so it wouldwork with them, with the
reporters as well, and thatbecame a headline, so we became
known for it.
And actually Malcolm asked me.
He said, if you hadn't gonepublic with it, if it hadn't
gone public, would you still beas dedicated to the word?
And so I don't know.
I think we were held publiclyaccountable.
(08:01):
We were held emotionallyaccountable and we also were
held, you know, together.
We were held accountablebecause we did it together and
um, and so we just sought it.
We just sought it every time,and every time something would
come up we'd say we wouldforgive.
Then I met a man who was a, wasa lifer, and he was just the
worst criminal alive.
And then we, we just pursued it.
(08:24):
Where did you meet him?
We were at a restorativejustice conference and they had
invited him to come and speak.
And they invited me to comespeak.
He was supposed to be theoffender, I was supposed to be
the victim, representing ourgroups, and so I went to listen
to him and he went and talked toall these young peoples and he
just described his life of crime, the heists that he had done,
(08:46):
the, his violence, and they saidhe went into prison.
And then he changed and Iwasn't convinced he'd changed.
And here he was going andtelling all these kids and
talking about violence andglorifying it and dramatizing it
.
So I got upset and so I hadbreakfast with him and I really,
you know, interrogated him.
Forgiveness doesn't mean wejust accept things.
We, we have to search them out,we have to do it responsibly.
(09:08):
So I think that whole kind ofto me to be authentically
forgiving took me into areasthat I'd never expected.
And then we worked together andthen started to realize the
importance of going into it,working with surrogate offenders
, working through the issues.
So it was a remarkable journey.
Brian Stiller (09:28):
Was forgiveness kind of an instrument that you
used to lift the burden and thesorrow of the loss of Candace?
Wilma Derksen (09:38):
think in some ways it felt almost like a magic
wand that we would just saywe're going to forgive, we're
going to forgive, and then wewould follow that feeling of
forgiveness and it was kind ofit's hard to explain because we
had such an introduction to it.
That is a powerful thing.
Then, you know, as I got intoit more and more, I was just so
confused and panicking about it,like I didn't understand it
(10:00):
myself.
I really didn't.
We followed it.
We said it all the time.
It was a goal, but how to do itwe did not know.
It was always something new forus.
Brian Stiller (10:11):
So it wasn't something just to relieve your
sorrow, but it was larger thanthat.
Did it give you a sense of thepursuit of justice?
Did it make it more difficultor easier to pursue justice?
Wilma Derksen (10:30):
And this is when I really it's taken me this long
to understand exactly what wewere doing.
We were working at itinstinctively, we were working
at it as the events came up andwe didn't understand and not a
lot of people understood iteither Like when we talked about
it to people, we said, well,what are we doing?
Why are we doing this?
And they didn't understandbecause for them it only meant
(10:50):
justice and we didn't haveanybody.
We didn't know who did it for22 years, so we were working in
a vacuum most of the time.
And yet they were sayingforgiveness means that you
forgive the murderer, or wedidn't know who the murderer was
.
So we were just kind ofexploring this, this forgiveness
idea and concept that keptfreeing us.
That was really important, andwe didn't understand it
(11:10):
ourselves, and neither didanyone else
Brian Stiller (11:13):
I think it it's important to tell the rest of
this story Wilma, at some pointthey found a person that they
charged.
Tell us a bit about that
Wilma Derksen (11:23):
22 years later they found the man and they
arrested him and we went totrial and he was convicted of
second-degree murder.
It was horrible Trial ishorrendous because we were
minimized.
Convicted of second degreemurder.
It was a horrible trial.
It's horrendous because we wereminimized.
We went through all there-victimization of going
through a trial and yet itbrought us so many answers.
(11:44):
We found out that she had beenhogtied, we found out the
sexuality of it, we found outwho he was like and all that
kind of thing.
So the truth was and there's alot of forgiving to do in that
Constant, constant forgiving,constant letting go of the
negative, just letting go andletting God that was my
definition by this time lettinggo of the negativity and just
pushing into the positive, thegoodness, the love of it.
Brian Stiller (12:08):
And did that give you a sense of justice on the
issue?
Did that bring closure at that?
Wilma Derksen (12:14):
moment.
We've never had closure, noreconciliation.
We have had resolution and, yes, there is that, but it's never
felt complete.
No, but that isn't whatforgiveness is all about.
Forgiveness is about thehealing, the moving on.
I remember asking God okay, god, how do I do this?
(12:36):
And he gave me the verse inIsaiah where it says I'm going
to be walking beside you, youwould just move along, you just
go along, and I'm going to bethe voice behind you saying go
this way, go that way.
And that's kind of how I dealtwith the forgiveness was just
moving along.
I was in search of forgiveness,never really understanding.
I was feeling okay, this isanother issue, this is another
(12:56):
issue.
And just realizing thecomplexity of forgiveness would
make it too simple.
I just realized how big it is.
Brian Stiller (13:02):
But that's not the end of the story either,
because after the conviction,then what happened?
Wilma Derksen (13:13):
Well then he went to appeals and then went to the
Supreme Court of Canada andthen eventually he was acquitted
and he's now suing thegovernment for wrongful
conviction.
So it's still not over.
It doesn't end.
Brian Stiller (13:24):
Now, Wilma, you and Cliff were raised in a
Christian, evangelical Mennonitehome, and to what degree did
that the understanding of Godand creation and humanity?
How did that affect yourunderstanding of your own lives
and this idea of forgiveness asit's become such a central part
(13:46):
of your life?
Wilma Derksen (13:47):
I think it was huge.
Now, in looking back on it, Ididn't think it's so at the
moment.
You know, then it seemed it wasall immediate.
You know, it wasn't as if I wasdoing it the Mennonnonite way
because I don't know what themennonite way is really but it
was kind of a culturalunderstanding that forgiveness
was important and that if wedon't forgive, unforgiveness,
(14:07):
even though we didn't understandwhat trauma was at that point,
was a way of saying they're,they're traumatized, so.
So unforgiveness is a way ofdestroying life, it's an
emotional suicide.
And we were just moving on andembracing forgiveness, whatever
that meant.
We didn't understand it, wedidn't have any formulas for it,
(14:28):
but we were just moving alongand so it was just a long
journey of forgiving constantly.
And my daughter says this 490times, and it really was,
because every issue would comeup.
Cliff and I would be having ananniversary celebration and the
maitre d' says how many childrendo you have?
I said two and Cliff said three.
He was mad at me, he's justfurious.
(14:49):
He says how can you, at thisimportant time in our lives,
when we're having an anniversary, how can you say we have two
children and we had three?
You're denying Candace, youknow, could cry, and so I had to
say OK, you know, every momentwas just, was OK.
Now let's forgive this, let'smove on, let's not, let's not
divorce each other right now.
Brian Stiller (15:12):
Let's realize this and let go of all those
feelings and move into good andhope and love again.
But this forgiveness wasn'tjust forgiving the person who
had done this to Candace, butalso it ended up you having to
forgive yourself.
Wilma Derksen (15:21):
Oh, it's forgiving everything forgiving
the police for not going andfinding Candace, forgiving all
our friends for saying all thosewrong things.
And then, of course, theanniversary of her, of my not
picking her up just visited meand it just crippled me and I
realized that if I had pickedher up, none of this would have
happened.
So it was really my fault.
And then really going back tothe cross and saying, okay, God
(15:43):
forgive me.
Brian Stiller (15:44):
But memory in our lives is so powerful.
How do you relate forgivingwith forgetting?
Wilma Derksen (15:55):
Well, I don't believe in forgetting.
We belong to a group and theysaid we're not going to forgive,
forget, because this is theonly memory we have of our
children, right, so we're goingto remember, but there is a kind
of forgetting that happens inforgiveness.
It's a long process, by the way.
It's taking what has happenedto us, organizing it into the
(16:18):
past memory and then letting itgo.
There's a present memory andthere's a past memory.
If everything stays in thepresent memory, we can't learn,
we can't do anything.
So we have to process things,forgive it, and then it goes
into the past memory, where wedo keep it in boxes and we love
it.
I'll never forget candles.
Brian Stiller (16:34):
How does forgiveness relate to the wrong?
Do you excuse the wrong?
How does that work?
Wilma Derksen (16:42):
No, there needs to be justice, and I think that
we have the Ten Commandments, wehave all of that, and Jesus
even goes ahead and says youknow what I want even more?
I don't only want just, I wantyou to have the attitude of
justice.
So forgiveness doesn't negatejustice.
It doesn't negate, it doesn'tsay anything was okay, like this
is what people thought, that wewere saying, that we exonerated
(17:04):
the murderer.
But really it's saying no, we,we live to a higher standard.
But the difference is is that,rather than adhering to the rule
of justice, I still think Godloves the people.
There's love and justice.
Justice without love is abuseand love without justice is
permissive.
But in the priorities of it, welove first and then do justice.
(17:30):
I had to really come tounderstanding that God really
loved the murderer who took ourchild and then to realize that
everybody I've met is reallybuilt in the image of God and
God loves everybody and he achesfor us when we do something
wrong and when we experience.
You know the cruelty of life,but he says no, you're important
(17:51):
and so is the other personthat's doing it to us is
important.
That's the hard part of it, andforgiving is moving towards
compassion for everyone, yetupholding justice
Brian Stiller (18:01):
but all these years later, Wilma, there still
isn't accountability, therestill isn't justice.
So you forgive without bringingresolution to the accountability
or to the justice factor.
Wilma Derksen (18:17):
Well, it doesn't look that way from here, you
know, like he wanted to justice.
No, the murderer wanted to killCandace, right?
Or the murderer wanted to killCandace, but she's more alive
than even my other children.
There is other kinds of living,so there has been a kind of
justice.
There is other kinds of living,so there has been a kind of
justice.
In hindsight I can see how Godhas really used this to create
(18:39):
more and more beautiful thingsout of her murder than if she
had lived.
She has a Candace house in hername.
People are still being inspiredby her.
We just had a 40th high teawhere everybody came.
We just honored Candace.
This is 40 years later and sheis still a memory.
She has not been diminished bymurder.
(19:01):
She has been living through theact of forgiveness and love.
Love is more powerful thanmurder, so we need to step into
that and live it other thanexact justice and live it other
than exact justice.
Brian Stiller (19:14):
You've just written a new book called
Impossible Forgiveness to thePower of 5.
What brought you to this thesis?
Something that was different tothe other books that you've
written?
Wilma Derksen (19:28):
Well, I think I've always been.
I've had a hard time explainingthis Like even now I'm
struggling to explain it to you,right?
And so I finally decided I'vegot to, I've got to figure this
out.
So I've had to figure out theconcept of five, of concept of
forgiveness.
I didn't understand until Irealized that it's the concept
of five.
We have to.
There's five parts of us thebody, body, a mind, heart,
(19:51):
spirit and collective.
We have to forgive on all thoselevels and it's going to look
different than every one ofthose levels.
So I had to look at the conceptof forgiveness and I really had
to organize it for myself, notfor anybody else, but for myself
.
Then I had to look at thechoice of forgiveness, the five
choices of forgiveness, and thenI also had to look at the
(20:11):
culture of forgiveness.
What does it look like?
Brian Stiller (20:15):
Let's work our way through those five steps of
forgiveness.
The first one you say is leapinto choice.
Wilma Derksen (20:22):
Yes, Our body doesn't understand things.
It needs to leap, it needs tojust make that decision.
Just like when we saw thepresence on the bed, we said
we're going to forgive.
That was our body saying we'regoing to forgive.
And then what it does is itgives it to the mind.
Then, after that, I wrote aboutthree books on the mind, trying
(20:43):
to understand it, identifyingthe issues of murder, going
through it and then goingthrough some of the processes
and then the heart, yeah.
So then I had to learn.
Okay, first of all we leap intoforgiveness, then we learn,
learn, learn, learn.
Brian Stiller (20:58):
So learn, learn, learn is your second step of
forgiveness.
What does that have to do withforgiveness?
Wilma Derksen (21:06):
My simple definition of forgiveness is to
let go, let go of the negativeand step into the positive.
Let go and let God, and so wejust have all this negativity.
So in order to even learn, itmeans that you have to let go of
t he trauma.
We can't learn if we'retraumatized.
We have to let go of the trauma, we have to let go of the anger
(21:26):
.
We have to let go of all ofthat and learn about it in order
to even forgive.
So it's a lot of work.
Forgiveness is a lot of work.
Forgiving is just a lot of work.
Brian Stiller (21:33):
Love your enemy.
Wilma Derksen (21:34):
Love, love, love.
Yes, to realize that you know,god loves everybody.
God has chosen everybody andGod loves everybody.
And so, even though we mighthave to have boundaries, we
might have to work at some verypractical issues about this, we
still have to realize God loveseverybody and that's how he can
still love us and we can stepinto that love.
(21:58):
I have met many prisoners, and Ithink the big one was when I
went into prison with two otherstorytellers and we went into
prison and I believe it's instorytelling.
I believe that we need to crossthese boundaries.
We can't live in isolation, wecannot defend ourselves.
We have to go and meet them andgreet them and love them.
And so we went into prison andI told my story, and then the
(22:21):
next storyteller, and then itall worked out.
And then one man got up and hesaid you know what?
You victims here, your parentsare murdered children.
You look awful, you look likeyou're carrying dead monkeys.
Wow, there's a hundred inmatesand three of us.
Well, one of the women got upand she was so mad she said I'm
not going to ever forgive.
She says Wilma does forgive,but I don't forgive.
And the room was electric,absolutely electric.
(22:44):
I thought here we're going tohave a riot.
And then the kingpin, the onethat had killed the most people,
stood up and says you guys,listen, we're here because we
don't forgive, we need toforgive too.
And so that word forgiveness onour side, our struggle with it
(23:05):
and their struggle with itbrought us together in a
beautiful harmony, absolutelybeautiful.
So to see the miracle of it.
So there was no resolution, butthere was beautiful harmony in
that we realized how importantwe were to each other.
So to me, that's kind of theworking of it, I think, in order
for us to.
This is the spirit, the humanspirit, not the Holy Spirit.
This is the human spirit thatis in us and we need to find our
(23:25):
reasons for it happening.
We have to find our purpose.
Like all things work togetherfor good.
That doesn't sound very funwhen we're in it, but what good
can come out of it and that wasthe hardest part for me was to
let go of all the negativity andsay, okay, Candace died, now
what good could come out of it?
And she had been actuallypromised that as well.
If we die prematurely and wegive our death to God and our
(23:49):
murder to God, then God is goingto make something beautiful
come out of it, and so that'swhat we did with that.
We purposed in our hearts thatwe were going to make something
good come out of Candace's death, and something very beautiful
came out of it.
Lots of beautiful things comeout of it.
She doesn't die.
She's still not murdered,really.
Brian Stiller (24:08):
Then the fifth one is leave it behind.
I suppose it's something that Icould say easily, but for you
you've lived with it for 40years how do you leave it behind
?
Wilma Derksen (24:20):
You know, there's been no resolution, there's
been no reconciliation.
So it was a very deliberatething for it not to control us,
right, right, we had to say okay, we've done the best we can and
we're going to leave it andwe're going to concentrate on
our lives.
It's kind of like I alwaysthink of Sodom and Gomorrah, how
Lot's wife turned around andlooked at Sodom.
Right, she turned around andshe says don't turn around, just
(24:44):
keep moving.
And so we have to let.
At some point we have to say,okay, it's not going to be
reconciled, it's not going to bereconciled, it's not going to
be resolved, we're just going tokeep moving into life and start
living our life again as weneed to.
Brian Stiller (24:55):
Through that period of time and I understand
that, Cliff, your husband haspassed away recently.
How did your marriage survive,or did it thrive at all, during
this time of the two of youholding on to forgiveness?
Wilma Derksen (25:13):
Well, it was good .
I had a good relationship.
We had a fun relationship tobegin with and we were very much
the same.
We were creative both of us.
So we had a good base.
But it was hard.
Of course it was hard.
And you know, he never onceblamed me for not paying Candace
up.
He knew that would havedestroyed me, that would have
destroyed our marriage, and Inever blamed him for those kinds
(25:34):
of things.
So we knew that there werecertain things that we couldn't
do to each other.
We respected and loved eachother.
It was grounded very deeply.
And then you know what Cliffloved church.
The church never paid muchattention to him and he would
have loved to be a pastor, hewould have loved to be a leader,
but the church never paid muchattention to him.
But he would always go tochurch and I don't like church
(25:55):
much myself, but we always wentto church.
Every Sunday when we could, wewent to church and could love
going to church.
And now, looking back on it,I'm sensing that, just that
tradition of going to church allthe time, loving it and letting
God work through the church.
Even though church was boringsometimes and they were singing
off key, everything washappening.
That was wrong.
There was something about goingto church, and did you know
(26:22):
that church is the most sexualplace there is?
They're doing research andthey're showing that it's a very
place of highly sensitiveintimacy.
It promotes it and encouragesit, and I don't think we've
realized it.
So now I'm looking back, Ithink that there's a lot of
tough stuff in our marriage.
It promotes it and encouragesit, and I don't think we've
realized it.
So now I'm looking back, Ithink that there's a lot of
tough stuff in our marriage.
We always believe that we don'tgo to bed angry.
(26:44):
We never did, except one time.
I think we did.
That's not bad.
That's not bad when you thinkof 52 years of marriage.
I can count the times when wewere that angry with each other.
We just refused to get angrywith each other.
Count the times when we werethat angry with each other.
We just refused to get angrywith each other.
And this is where the realreality of forgiveness happens.
This is where it's really tested.
In these kind of intimateconversations, relationships,
Brian Stiller (27:04):
every one of us we have people that we haven't
forgiven or we have reasons thatwe at least construct in our
mind, is why we don't forgive.
But when I even say that, Irealize how small, minuscule
that is in relationship to whatyou have faced.
So what would you say to thosewho are living in the angst of
(27:27):
anger and fear and are unwillingto forgive?
What would you say?
What advice, counsel would youhave?
Wilma Derksen (27:36):
I think I've realized that some forgivenesses
are more harder to forgive andI would say that we can forgive
on certain levels, but when itcomes to really the deep stuff,
we need to lean into God and Godwill teach us and help us.
We need to lean into God andGod will teach us and help us.
We need to lean into God andhe'll then bring us along the
road to forgiveness and justconstantly say I forgive, I
(27:59):
forgive, I'm going to forgive.
I don't know how right now, butI'm going to forgive.
And then following the path oflearning, loving lighting, just
working at it, just constantlyworking at it and realizing that
we fail and we have to forgiveourselves for failing.
That's the beautiful part aboutforgiving you can't even
(28:20):
forgive yourself for failing.
You forgive forgiveness for notworking.
You forgive everyone for notworking, realizing we just God
loves us and God wants to.
He loves the people around usand when we don't love them, we
cut ourselves off from that love.
Brian Stiller (28:36):
You use that phrase lean into God.
What does that mean inpractical, daily ways?
Wilma Derksen (28:43):
Well, I think that's kind of putting my hand
in God all the time, just saying, okay, god, where are you?
Tell me, I've got to know thisabout something Just a constant
(29:03):
conversation with him, notalways asking for forgiveness,
not asking him to judge and nottreating him like a fairy
godmother.
Everything that I have studiedit says that there's 80%
negativity in this world.
There's a negativity bias of80%, so we can expect 80% of the
day to go wrong, but keepmoving into the 20% of goodness
and love, and so it's a constantletting go, letting go, letting
(29:26):
God, letting go, letting God.
And that's kind of leaning intoall the time, knowing that we
can't do it by ourselves in anyway.
Brian Stiller (29:34):
When you let go and let God, as you say.
What's your understanding ofGod, given that your daughter,
Candace, was taken from you?
Wilma Derksen (29:44):
Oh, you know what , Brian?
I have a terrible, terribletheology and in my book what I
do is I do a romp, I do atheological romp, I do a
theological romp, I do apsychological romp, I do a
spiritual romp, I do a culture,I do romps.
And Cliff and I never agreed ontheology, but I had this awful
theology.
No, it's fun, no, it'simportant, I guess, and I don't
(30:06):
know if I can explain it here,but I do have a theology where
people often think that God isthe total control and in my
theology I go with Kushner whydo bad things happen to good
people?
He was the one that opened thisdoor for me and saying you know
what?
There is chaos.
There was chaos before that.
God created this world and wechose chaos.
God didn't create choice.
Brian Stiller (30:27):
How do you rely on God, then, in the midst of
that chaos, the chaos thatyou've known so well?
Wilma Derksen (30:37):
Because God is all powerful.
God can.
If we give God the reins and ifwe give God the control, he can
turn the chaos.
He's more powerful than thechaos.
It's only when we choose thechaos that we don't have the
power, but when we choose God,he's all powerful, he is
everything that we want.
He's omniscient, he's all ofthat, but he will not.
He's not.
He's all powerful, he iseverything that we want.
He's omniscient, he's, he's allof that, but he will not, he's
not, he's not evil, he can't, hedoesn't.
We're.
We have evil in us, we havechaos in us, we have all of that
(31:00):
in us.
But if we give our lives to him, like Candace did, and then
then he can work wonderful, hecan work miracles, he can work
miracles.
I've seen him work miracles.
Our lives are full of miracles.
My life is full of miracles, ofwhere I gave God saying God,
you help me, I can't do this.
I'm full of chaos, I'm full ofevil, everybody around me is
evil.
(31:20):
Come and you work and show usgoodness, goodness and light,
and you take over.
You take over.
Brian Stiller (31:26):
Wilma, I'm sure people will want to follow up,
learn more about your story andhow you came to understand
forgiveness as a way to live,and so your book Impossible
Forgiveness to the Power of 5.
That's a book that people willwant to access want to access
(31:55):
and for your time today, Wilma,thank you for your story, for
the story that has been sobeneficial to people over the
years and to joining us today onEvangelical 360.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, Wilma, for joining ustoday and for sharing your
remarkable and life-changingstory, and thank you for being a
part of the podcast.
Be sure to share this episodeusing hashtag Evangelical360 and
(32:21):
join the conversation onYouTube.
If you'd like to learn moreabout today's guest, be sure to
check the show notes for linksand info, and if you haven't
already received my free e-bookand newsletter, please go to
brianstillercom.
Thanks again.
Until next time.
(32:42):
Don't miss the next interview.
Be sure to subscribe toEvangelical 360 on YouTube.
See you there.
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