Hi dear friends, I have read this story many times. Each time I am still touched and amazed by it. Thus I would love to share it with you.
A frail black woman about seventy years old stands in the courtroom and listens to the confessions offered by Mr. Van der Broek, the white policeman who had brutally murdered her husband and son.
The judge asks her,"How do you want justice be done to this man who has destroyed your family?"
"I want three things," begins the old woman. "First, I want to give my family a decent burial."
She paused, then continued,"My husband and son were my only family. I want secondly, therefore, for Mr Van der Broek to become my son. I would like for him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I still have remaining in me." She also stated that she wanted a third thing. "This is also the wish of my husband. And so, I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr Van der Broek in my arms and embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven."
As the court assistant came to lead the elderly woman across the room, Mr Van der Broek, overwhelmed by what he has just heard, fainted. As he did, those in the courtroom, family, friends, neighbours - all victims of decades of oppression and injustice - began to sing, softly but assuredly, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me"
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