The mother of the man who killed five Amish schoolgirls seven years ago says it was the act of forgiving her son that allowed her to be transformed from a grief-stricken mom to a woman who is inspiring thousands with her story.

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting on the remarkable transformation of Terri Roberts, whose son, Charles Carl Roberts IV, burst into an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania on October 2, 2006 and gunned down ten students. The victims, all girls, were tied up and shot execution style. Five died, and five were seriously injured before Roberts turned the gun on himself.

Among the injured was a girl named Rosanna, who was just six years old at the time of the shooting. Now 13 years old, she is permanently disabled, unable to speak, and eats through a feeding tube.

But she is well cared for and even has a weekly visitor – Terri Roberts, the mother of the man who shot her – who comes to read her stories, sing to her, even bathe her. All the while, Roberts is reminded that it was her son who did this to Rosanna.

As difficult as it might seem that a mother could ever endure such a horrific event – the death of her son and the knowledge that he heartlessly slaughtered innocent schoolgirls – Roberts road to recovery actually began the day of the murders when the Amish people responded to her family with forgiveness.

Various news sources quoted grieving members of the Amish community warning one another that it would be wrong to “think evil” of the killer and to remember that he had a wife, children, parents, and was now “standing before a just God.”

But it was one man in particular that started Terri on the road to healing. She calls him her “angel in black” – an Amish man named Henry who comforted her sobbing husand. “Roberts, we love you,” Henry said while massaging Roberts sunken shoulders. “We don’t hold anything against you or your son. We’re a forgiving people.”

Terri Roberts calls this moment her “first glimmer of hope” that she would one day recover from this nightmare and be able to move on with her life.

That day finally came when she was asked to tell her story to a group of Japanese exchange students. The talk was well received and she felt a calling from God to go out and tell the world about the power of forgiveness, something she now does regularly.

She’s not the only member of the Roberts family who is involved in spreading the message of forgiveness. Her son, Zachary, 35, is working on a documentary of his mother’s transformation from a grieving mom to an inspirational speaker.

Terri’s former daughter-in-law, Marie Monville, who was married to the shooter, is also on the verge of publishing a book, One Light Still Shines, in which she shares a similar message of hope. She also relied on her faith to carry her through that terrible time.

“The message of the book is that it doesn’t matter how dark the day is, the love of the Lord continues, and he is capable of writing a redemption story over our lives even in those dark places,” said Monville, who is now remarried and no longer the “shooter’s wife.”

Meanwhile, the Amish continue to forgive – and to struggle with how difficult it can be at times.

The AP interviewed the father of Rosanna King, Christ King, who said there are times when the Amish struggle to forgive what happened in their peaceful community seven years ago.

“We hope that we have forgiven, but there actually are times that we struggle with that, and I have to ask myself, ”Have I really forgiven?”’ King told the AP.

“We have a lot of work to do to live up to what we are bragged up to be. Everyone was talking about this forgiveness thing, and I felt that was putting a lot of weight on our shoulders to live up to that.”

But King has indeed lived up to the Gospel’s call to forgive and both he and his fellow Amish have been an inspiration to millions, including the family of the very man who committed an unspeakable crime in their peaceful community just seven years ago.
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We all have wounded hearts. In Praying the Rosary for Inner Healing, Fr. Dwight Longenecker helps you to heal life’s hurts with the power of the rosary.