The Song That Forgiveness Wrote

In 2002, Renée Napier received the phone call every parent dreads. Her daughter Meagan had been killed by a drunk driver named Eric Smallridge. The grief was crushing, the anger all-consuming.

But over the months that followed, Renée felt God doing something she never expected — softening her heart toward the man who had taken her daughter's life. She began visiting Eric in prison. She told him she forgave him. And then she did something that stunned everyone: she petitioned the court to reduce his sentence.

When songwriter Matthew West heard Renée's story, he turned it into the song Forgiveness. One lyric captures the raw honesty of her journey: "It's the hardest thing to give away, and the last thing on your mind today... it always goes to those who don't deserve."

That line echoes what the Apostle Paul wrote: "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you" (Ephesians 4:32). Forgiveness is not natural. It is supernatural. Renée did not conjure it from willpower — she received it from the same God who forgave her, and then she passed it along.

Some of you are carrying a weight today that only forgiveness can lift. You do not have to feel ready. You just have to be willing to let the God who forgave you write His song of mercy through your life.