Father relies on faith to forgive intoxicated teen driver

The most important point in his book, according to Williams, is that “the Savior heals all. I think for those that don’t believe in the Savior, that aren’t Christian, they’ve got to believe in at least a power that’s greater than themselves. If they can believe that there is a power that is greater than themselves, that heals, then they can really get through anything.”

The key to tapping into the Savior’s strength and love for all men, Williams reiterated, is to relinquish the desire to choose who and when to forgive and give everything over to the Lord.

“When life presents a burden to you, whether it’s that of a loss or something you’re suffering or trying to work through, it can be a really horrendous, significant burden, but the initial reaction is to try and regain that sense of control that was lost,” Williams said. “But I think in that, too many people will start to look at the people that offended them and include them in that group of things they want to control. … It’s a way of trying to find that empowerment within a life that suddenly is chaotic. So that’s a big part of the initial forgiveness. For me, it was being driven so very quickly to the point of realization that I am nothing. I can’t, I have no strength to heal, to move forward, and to carry anyone else’s burden.” The commitment to “let it go” changed everything for Williams.

“That’s what I was driven to in the car, is that very quickly, this realization that there’s no way I can take this burden, so the only way out is to give it all up and just trust in a power much greater than mine that he can heal me,” Williams said. “And when I made that commitment, that’s when it came, that’s when it immediately came. All of a sudden, as I write about (in the book), the world looked completely different. Even as I looked at my wife and my kids, suddenly they looked completely different than they did just seconds before. There was this immediate new perspective, a realization that I could be OK. … One of the great blessings of forgiveness is it allows the tragedy to stop. It doesn’t need any more lives wasted.”

Forgiveness: My Burden Was Made Light

Forgiveness and the power of Jesus Christ enable a man to survive losing his wife and several children in a car accident and allow the offending driver to begin rebuilding his own life.

Email: jhenrie@desnews.com