When Love Overcomes Hate: The Nickel Mines Story

What does it mean to truly forgive? Today's episode takes us to the heart of one of the most powerful examples of forgiveness in recent memory - the response of the Amish community to the 2006 Nickel Mines schoolhouse shooting.
When Charles Roberts walked into an Amish schoolhouse and fatally shot five young girls before taking his own life, the world expected outrage. Instead, within hours, an Amish man visited the gunman's mother with an astonishing message: "We do not see you as enemies. We see you as parents grieving the loss of your child too." As the story unfolds, we witness Amish parents forming a protective barrier around the shooter's family at his funeral, offering condolences to those related to the man who had just murdered their daughters.
This story challenges our conventional approach to healing. When we insist on emotional resolution before extending forgiveness, we often remain stuck. The Amish demonstrate a more biblical path - choosing forgiveness as an act of will, then allowing our emotions to follow. Their example prompts us to ask: Who might we need to forgive today? And what healing might begin if we made that decision first, rather than waiting until we feel ready?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with
Danny Mac.
I'm going to be here everyMonday to Friday to help you get
a great five-minute start toyour day.
So grab your cup of coffee, sitback, relax and let me help you
start your day right.
Today, I want to share with youa story about incredible
forgiveness.

(00:25):
It's a true story, one that Ihad forgotten about until I
recently came across it.
Let me preface the story withthese two verses Proverbs 17,.
Verse 9 says Love prospers whena fault is forgiven, and then
down in Luke 6, 27,.
But to you who are willing tolisten, I say love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you,bless those who curse you and

(00:49):
pray for those who hurt you.
Nickel Mines is a small town inrural Pennsylvania.
It's mostly an agriculturalarea, but very beautiful, with
farmlands everywhere around.
It's also a place where there'sa large concentration of the
Amish.
These people of deep faithcontinue to live by the
traditions of their forefathersof loving God, of peaceful

(01:11):
living and hard work.
On the morning of October 2nd2006, charles Roberts walked
into the one-room Amishschoolhouse.
In his right hand was a gun.
He ordered the adults and boysto leave, and then he tied up
ten little girls between theages of six and thirteen and he
shot them, killing five andinjuring the others before he

(01:33):
killed himself.
Terry Roberts is that man'smother.
She was devastated at the news,completely overwrought and
overrun by her emotions to thinkthat her son could do such a
horrible thing.
She couldn't bear the thoughtof facing those families of
those children that her son hadjust killed.
But within hours after themassacre, as the Amish parents

(01:55):
were still waiting at a nearbybarn to find out whether their
daughters had survived or not,an Amish man named Henry arrived
at the Roberts' home with amessage.
He wanted the family to knowthat they did not see the
Roberts as an enemy.
Rather, they saw them asparents who were grieving the
loss of their child too.
Before he left, henry assuredthe Roberts that the Amish

(02:16):
community considered themfriends and that they would be
praying for them in their lossof their son.
On the day of Charles Roberts'funeral, the world watched in
amazement as nearly 30 Amish menand women, some of them the
parents of the victims of theshooting, they came to the
cemetery and they formed a wallto block out the media cameras

(02:36):
Parents of daughters who haddied at the hand of their son,
approached the Roberts after thefuneral, offering them
condolences for their loss.
Then, just four weeks after thefuneral, offering them
condolences for their loss, then, just four weeks after the
shooting, charles Roberts'parents were invited to meet
with all the families in a localfire hall.
Terry Roberts, with tears inher eyes, said One of the Amish
mothers gazed into my eyes untilwe were both blurred with tears

(02:58):
.
We are all grieving, we're allstruggling to make sense of the
senseless.
And the Roberts family began tofeel forgiveness even as they
were still struggling with theloss and what their son had done
.
Stephen Nolt is a professor ofAmish studies at Elizabethtown
College.
He explained how the Amishprocess forgiveness.
He says the Amish forgive firstand then, every day, work

(03:22):
through the emotions of it.
This decisional forgiveness iswhat opened up the space for the
Roberts family to feel and tofind forgiveness and friendship
from the Amish.
The Amish are still friendswith the Roberts family.
In fact, that friendship isgrowing.
They regularly meet for picnicsand dinners together and this
friendship has only grownstronger on the basis of

(03:44):
forgiveness.
I believe those Amish peoplehave a perspective on
forgiveness which is far morebiblical than most of the rest
of us who are Christians.
The idea that you decide toforgive first and then work
through the emotional part of itis If we say that we have got
to work through our emotionsbefore we can forgive.

(04:06):
That's putting us before theother person.
When we choose to forgive firstand then work through our own
emotions and our own struggles,we are prioritizing the other
person and helping them to healas well.
It's not easy to do, and Ican't imagine what those Amish

(04:45):
families went through.
It would be devastating, butthey still knew and were able to
say I will forgive first and Iwill show love to the family of
this man who murdered mychildren.
That takes a lot of strengthand a lot of determination and a
lot of character.
I am humbled by their ability toforgive and the lessons that I
can learn from them today.
Maybe there's some people inyour life that you need to

(05:08):
forgive too and you have beenwaiting until you feel like
forgiving them.
Let's take this lesson todayand learn that the decision to
forgive has to come first, andthen we work out what's going on
inside of us.
Until we make that decision toforgive, the healing cannot
start, and we all need to behealed.
Have a great day, my friends.

(05:29):
We will talk again tomorrow.
Thank you for listening todayand I invite you to join me
Monday to Friday, right here onStarting Right with Danny Mac.