Why is it when it comes to sports that forgiveness becomes much easier than when it comes to life in general?
Perhaps it's because of one word: winning. If a player from your favorite team's arch rival ends up on your team and gives your team a better chance to win, than it happens: all is forgiven. Such a sad world we live in.
1. When Dennis Rodman was with the Detroit Pistons basketball team he was considered a bad boy because he did all the dirty work such as knocking opposing players around. He was disliked by many including his team's top rival Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, as they knocked the Bulls out of the playoffs two years in a row. So, years later when Dennis Rodman came over to the Chicago Bulls to play and help them win three more championships, all his past bullying versus the Bulls was forgiven by both players and fans.
2. First baseman Bill Buckner was famous for booting an easy ground ball that cost the Boston Red Sox a World Series Championship. The fans held a grudge against him for years, Buckner even received death threats. It wasn't until a few years later when the Red Sox finally won a championship that they would forgive Buckner. The following season the Red Sox invited Buckner back to throw out the first pitch and declare it Bill Buckner Day. Some fans held up banners to say they forgave him. Umm, he didn't do anything wrong in the first place! All he did was boot a ground ball in a baseball game. It was Bill Buckner who should be forgiving the fans for what they did to him and to his family with their bad sportsmanship behavior. I mean come on, death threats?
Buckner did forgive them during a press conference after the game.
Mathew West's latest single called Forgiveness describes the hardness of saying and acting upon that one simple word in "real life":
It's the hardest thing to give away
And the last thing on your mind today
It always goes to those that don't deserve
It's the opposite of how you feel
When the pain they caused is just to real
It takes everything you have just to say the word...
Forgiveness
Mathew West's song was written after crossing paths with a woman named Renee who lost her 20 year old daughter to a drunk driver. Renee had a lot of anger toward the man, and rightfully so, but it was affecting her healing process.
Help me now to do the impossible
Forgiveness
It wasn't until Renee visited the driver, Eric, in prison and forgave him that she was able to experience true freedom from the anger she harnessed inside. Not only that, but Renee asked the judge to release Eric early, so that he could join her speaking around the country on the dangers of drunk driving.
I love how Mathew West finishes his song describing how the prisoner is being set free, and that prisoner is us in our unwillingness to forgive others:
It'll clear the bitterness away
It can even set a prisoner free
There is no end to what it's power can do
So, let it go and be amazed
By what you see through eyes of grace
The prisoner that it really frees is you
Forgiveness
Until we truly learn to do the impossible and forgive others, we will never feel set free.
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