The Song She Never Expected to Hear

In 2002, Renee Napier received the phone call every parent dreads. Her daughter Meagan, just twenty years old, had been killed by a drunk driver named Eric Smallridge. The grief was the kind that bends a life in half.

But somewhere in the wreckage of her sorrow, Renee made a decision that defied every natural instinct. She forgave Eric Smallridge. Not just privately — she went before the judge and advocated for a reduced sentence. She visited him in prison. Eventually, the mother and the man who killed her daughter began speaking together at schools, warning young people about the consequences of drunk driving.

When singer-songwriter Matthew West heard Renee's story, he was so moved he wrote the song Forgiveness. In it, he captured the impossible weight of letting go: "It'll clear the bitterness away, it can even set a prisoner free." Renee later said that the hardest part wasn't the initial decision to forgive. It was choosing it again every single morning.

That is what makes her story sound so much like the gospel. The Almighty doesn't forgive us once and file it away. His mercy is new every morning, just as the prophet Jeremiah reminds us. Forgiveness is not a single moment of heroism. It is a daily practice, a muscle that strengthens each time we choose to use it.

If God extends that kind of relentless grace to us, perhaps we can find the courage to extend it to the person whose name just crossed your mind.