When a Mother's Forgiveness Became a Song

In 2002, Renee Napier received the phone call every parent dreads. Her daughter Meagan had been killed by a drunk driver named Eric Smallridge. The young man was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison, and by every measure of human justice, the story could have ended there — a family shattered, a young man locked away, and bitterness settling in like winter.

But Renee did something that stunned everyone. She forgave Eric Smallridge. Not quietly, not abstractly — she visited him in prison, built a relationship with him, and then petitioned the court to reduce his sentence. She stood before a judge and asked for mercy on behalf of the man who killed her daughter.

When singer-songwriter Matthew West heard Renee's story, he turned it into the song Forgiveness, and invited both Renee and Eric to appear in the music video, telling their story side by side. The song's most piercing line asks the question we all wrestle with: "It's the hardest thing to give away, and the last thing on your mind today — forgiveness."

What Renee understood is what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Colossians: "Forgive as the Lord forgave you." She did not forgive because Eric deserved it. She forgave because the God she served had forgiven her first, and that mercy was never meant to be hoarded.

Forgiveness is rarely the first thing on our minds. But it is always the first thing on God's.