“I was thinking how a man could spend thirty years in prison, and come out and forgive the men who did it to him…”
– Francois Pienaar (Invictus)
For various reasons, this line said by Matt Damon really struck a chord in my heart.
Can you imagine…
Stuck in a tiny cell for 27 years! That’s practically my entire life. Not to mention the tiny space…I would have hyperventilated and died of claustrophobia in just under 2 hours…
Jailed for no good reasons, merely because you happen to hold very different (but noble) views from the Powers-that-be…
Estranged from family and friends for decades…
Hard labour under the hot sun every single day…
Classified as the lowest of the lowest, worse than the crap of society… devalued because of the colour of your skin…
Probably yelled at constantly by your jailers…
Complete loss of freedom…
Overwhelming feeling of injustice and even helplessness…
Extreme loneliness…
I don’t know about you, but I for one am completely amazed that he could simply forgive his enemies, work with them and treat them decently.
He brings to mind another person I admire a lot. Corrie Ten Boom – she and her family helped and even hid Jews from the Nazis during the Second World War but because of their involvement, the entire family was arrested. Her elderly father died in captivity, so did her beloved nephew and sister who died in the infamous camp, Auschwitz. She herself was sent to Auschwitz where she suffered terribly under the Nazis. After the war, she became a messenger of forgiveness and went around speaking to people about forgiveness, once even personally extending forgiveness to an ex-SS officer who had treated her with brutality.
Call me petty, call me foolish but there are things that people said or did in the past that I can’t completely let go, no matter how hard I try, and there are some people whom I would give an arm and a leg not to see for the rest of my life… and to be very honest, when certain memories play back in my mind, I get rather agitated again…I’m definitely not the poster girl for forgiveness…It has always been a hard thing for me to do, especially when I perceived I have been unjustly treated. I’m not proud of that… but the reason I am saying this is because it really brings to mind the “smallness” and “meanness” of my heart compared to giants like Nelson Mandela and Corrie Ten Boom.
What else can I say? I am totally blown away by their graciousness. Yep, Nelson Mandela…a new guy to add on to the list of people I admire and respect 
Hope?