Time Magazine picking "You" as the their Person of the Year might have been hokey, but the group Beliefnet picked as their Most Inspiring Person of the Year is perfect and indeed inspiring. The winning "person" goes to the Amish of Nickel Mines, Pa.
You'll recall that community lost five young girls when a local milkman stormed into a one-room schoolhouse and shot ten of them.
During the ordeal, one of the girls, 13-year-old Marian Fisher, offered to be killed first in hopes that the others would be spared. (View video: A Young Girl's Sacrifice.)...Within hours of the shooting, the families of the children not only expressed their forgiveness of the killer but reached out to his family, giving food and raising money for his wife and children.
In a Beliefnet video interview, Herman Bontrager, a spokesman for the Amish of Nickel Mines, explained, “The Amish believe that we must forgive because we ourselves need to be forgiven. [They're] trying to live the way Jesus lived. He turned the other cheek, he told us to love everybody, to love our enemies."
In this article, a Beliefnet member asks, "If the Amish can forgive the man who killed their children, how much more should the rest of us be able to forgive the petty hurts and perceived insults we receive each day?”
Yeah, I've got some of that I need to be working on this Christmas season.
If you're struggling with the Writer's or Christmas Blues and want a healthy distraction, check out this article and the related videos, and also check out the the articles on the other nominees. They'll inspire you.