This is a story about sin and redemption. I heard it at a 12-step recovery meeting on the west coast 19 months ago. It bears repeating.
The speaker (a recovering alcoholic and drug addict in his mid-50’s) began by saying his mother died when he was 3 or 4 years old and that he always resented God for taking his mother from him. His father was in and out of jail and he spent much of his childhood in foster care. He grew into the street life and became a member of a large Mexican street gang. Shooting erupted during a drug deal. He was wounded but killed one of the rival gang members who was shooting at him. He spent 8 years in a maximum security prison. He had gone to grade school with the young man he shot and was consumed with remorse. He had alcohol and drug problems before prison and after her was released they rapidly intensified. After several failed attempts and relapses, he finally got sober. In a halfway house he began working the 12 steps. Since early in his sobriety he has worked in a program which helps divert teens from the street life and gangs. He speaks in jails, prisons, and on Spanish-language radio programs. For him, the most difficult step was the 9th step (amends to people he’d harmed). He was desperate to make amends to the man he’d killed. For years it bothered him and it got to the point where he was certain he’d drink or use again if he couldn’t make this amend. His sponsor had him pray about it for a couple months and then instructed him to make a graveside amends when he felt ready.
One morning he felt ready and drove to the cemetery. At the grave, he fell on his knees sobbing and poured his heart into the amends. As he was finishing, he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw an elderly woman whom he recognized as his victim’s mother. (He remembered her from the trial almost 20 years earlier.) There were tears on her face. She put her hand on his cheek then helped him to his feet and embraced him. She said she hadn’t been to the grave in over a year but that something told her to go that morning. She told him “My son was a bad man. He would have killed you if you didn’t shoot him. He killed others before you. I don’t know if he heard you just now, but I very much needed to hear this. Thank you. I’m an old woman now. I have no one; all my relatives are in Mexico. I have no son. I never had a son. But now I have you.” He told her he always wished he’d had a mother and now he had found one.
From that day, he began to care for her, drive her places, visit her and spend holidays with her. During the last couple years of her life he moved her into his house. She died in his arms. Her last words were “Te amo mijo” (I love you my son.). Although this had happened a few years ago, he stood at the podium for a minute afterwards struggling to regain his composure.
There is NO OTHER EXPLANATION for what happened. God did this. If you ever, for a moment, doubt that there is a God who loves us immensely and is acting in our lives, just listen to other people’s experiences. There will be no doubt. God loves us and wants us to love Him and others. If we ask and are willing, God will lead the way. God is so beautiful.
