Forgiveness is the best gift on Good Friday...

There has been so much written and said about Terri Schiavo all week. My father-in-law died in the fall of 2003, and in the end, he was on a respirator. As my husband and his brother were on their way to remove life-support, their father died on his own before they arrived. I believe that this was a gift that he gave them. They agonized about the right thing to do for their father. He had been dying for over two years--they knew that his quality of life was nothing like it had been before, but they were still not prepared for that time when they would have to make such a gut-wrenching decision. I have compassion for both her parents and her husband--it is a terrible situation, but as Johann Christoph Arnold asks, "Whose will should prevail?" It gives you pause on this Good Friday. The one gift my husband did give his father before he died was the gift of forgiveness. Two weeks before having to make the life-support decision, my husband travelled to see his father and told him that he forgave him for any and all past wrongs and then asked his father for his forgiveness. I believe that it was this gift of forgiveness that they gave to each other that allowed God's will to be done.