Forgiveness

In his heartbreaking book "The Tears of my Soul", Sokreaksa Himm recounts how his entire family and himself were led to execution by the Khmer Rouge in the late seventies. They were marched to a shallow grave in the jungle and hacked to death with hoes by a group of ruthless brainwashed thugs. Miraculously, he survived the ordeal (he was only eleven years old), buried by the bodies of his father, sisters and brothers, including his baby brother, while the soldiers walked away, laughing... Later while hiding in the bushes, he watched his older sister and mother also being butchered and thrown into the grave. Along with an older sister who was in a different village at the time of the massacre, and was spared due to a spelling mistake, Sokreaksa is the only member of a large united family to survive the Cambodian killing fields.

Sokreaksa was from a traditional Buddhist background, and for a long time he could not come to terms with his ordeal. The concept of Karma only made him feel worse, as he felt that he was being blamed for what had happened to him and his family, due to something he did in a previous life. He finally turned to God and Jesus, because he felt that above all he needed forgiveness if he was to continue living. He found that Jesus offered him the unconditional love and forgiveness he was seeking, in order to find hope and a renewed purpose in life.

Here are some quotes from Sokreaksa's mesmerising book, that I read in one sitting:

"The people who killed my family were evil, and they should be punished... Yet I needed to forgive them - not for their sake, but for my own. As long as I was unable to forgive, that fire burned in my heart."

"My refusal to forgive meant that I never gained internal peace, and that ball of fire continued to consume me."

"As I gave up my desire for revenge, and pulled out the root of hatred, anger and bitterness from my heart, I was journeying towards forgiveness, and the healing of my soul and the wiping away of its tears."

"I couldn't do this for myself... I needed a power outside myself, and that power was the love of God."

"Forgiveness has released me from the emotional torment that burned within me for years, and now my heart is lighter and my spirit has peace."

Isa

Cambodian painting by Hor Many