With Forgiveness Comes Healing

I was glued to the TV set when BBC featured the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt, Colombian Presidential aspirant, kidnapped by the FARC rebels while campaigning in hostile Colombian territory in 2002. The rescue itself was straight out of a movie plot. Reality is sometimes more amazing than fantasy! See this footage taken from susjed.com.

But even more amazing to me was an interview of Ingrid done afterwards that showed the inner faith and strength of this mother of 2. As I watched her interview I saw how cool and calm she was as she related a little bit of her 6-year captivity. Of course she did not expound on the horrors she underwent but I can just imagine the various torture methods applied on her. They were probably a combination of physical, emotional and psychological torture. How amazing that she managed to hang on to her sanity and spiritual fervor all throughout her horrendous nightmare.

I had some time after viewing this video to reflect on Ingrid Betancourt’s disposition. Here was someone who was aiming for the Presidency of Colombia. No mere thing! But her 6-year captivity became her LIFE-CHANGING EXPERIENCE. She has come out of this miraculously alive. In some sense she is stronger, because now she knows that her spirit had never been broken throughout those years. She has become more generous with her thanks and appreciation – first to the Almighty for sustaining her, then to everyone who kept her connected to the outside world in various ways.

The interviewer asked her at one point if she felt anger or hatred towards her captors (some of them accompanied her on the helicopter that turned out to be a rescue mission). I was initially shocked at Ingrid’s response as I expected her to respond with a desire for vengeance. “Vengeance is a chain. I don’t want to be chained to that jungle. I am not going to take any of this to my future life. It’s down there; it stays there”, she said. I immediately understood where she was coming from. She said that she asked the commander of the rescue mission not to maltreat her captors. What grace in the face of victory. What forgiveness and kindness she showed despite the unmerciful evil heaped on her all those years! “For me, it’s very important to forgive.”, Betancourt said.

A part of the Today Show interview is seen below.

When tragedy strikes, a great part of the healing process has to do with the ability to forgive and move on. Yes, justice needs to be served. But that is left to the legal process. Internally, as an individual who was hurt, one somehow has to reach deep inside himself/herself, learn to transcend the evil, hurt, pains, trials, doubts, fears and a spectrum of other emotions, and decide to forgive the transgressor. Bearing or even wishing ill will on someone ultimately is damaging to one’s self.

I see a little of myself in Ingrid Betancourt though my own experience pales in comparison to hers. Like her, I aimed high in my younger days and, if I had seriously pursued it, I would say I had a great chance at making it up the corporate ladder just as she aimed high for Colombia’s presidency. I also went through my own life-changing experience years ago when I almost died. And like her, I was faced with the decision either to hate and bear ill-will or to forgive. With God’s grace, I chose the latter.

We both had the same striking realization. Despite the strength that reinforced my character after that life-changing experience, I also realized, like her, that I was a fragile and vulnerable woman and not just the corporate go-getter I thought I was. It has made me relish LIFE even more. There is hardly a morning that passes that I do not thank God for yet another day to live out the rest of my life as best I can. More than work, quality of life for myself and people I love has become my paramount passion.

Ingrid Betancourt is a compleat, wonderful person with a beautiful soul: a mother, a woman, a survivor, a spiritually-guided human being, a changed person for the better. If someone who faced so much evil under such trying circumstances for years can look as peaceful, composed and devoid of hatred as she did in her post-rescue interviews, those of us who face day-to-day life trials can surely hurdle ours if we have Ingrid’s divine faith and will to live better lives. I am sure she will live the rest of her life even more fully than she had in the past.

Choosing to take a different life path does not erase the scars. Only God knows the scars that Ingrid bears up to now. I have my own “scars” too that remind me always that I was not dreaming what I had gone through. But we choose how we deal with the scars. They can mar us for life if we let them; or, we can choose to make them our reminder that LIFE IS GOOD and how thankful we should be for a second chance at it.