Restaurant Owner Forgives man who Robbed his Restaurant by Lauren Holter.

The owner of Mr. Seafood posed with the man who robbed his restaurant to send a message about forgiveness. (Photo: Mr.Seafood#1 via Facebook)

The owner of a Columbia, S.C., seafood restaurant sent a powerful message about forgiveness this week when he decided not to press charges against the man who broke into his restaurant.

 

A Facebook post explained that the Mr. Seafood restaurant “got hit” over the weekend and had to close on Sunday. But after neighbors helped identify the man seen stealing from the business in a surveillance video, the owner, Kevin Scott, decided to talk to him before calling the police.

  

“God inspired me,” Scott told Birmingham, Ala.’s WBRC Fox 6 News. “I talked to the guy, and he said he did it to feed his family, and his story didn’t seem dishonest to me. He apologized and offered to work to pay off what he stole, but I don’t want that. I just don’t want him committing crimes.”

 

A few days after the break-in, Scott met the man at the restaurant and later posted a photo of them on Facebook. “Forgiveness is better,” he wrote.

 

Locals praised Scott’s decision not to press charges.

 

“This speaks volumes. Praying for this young man that he finds a better way. Blessings to you for forgiveness,” one person commented.

 

“This is how we should really treat one another, love and sympathy,” another person said. “This could very well be, and I pray it is the turning point in this young mans life to do right and help his fellow human beings. We’ve got to all do our parts individually to make this planet a better place to live.”

Family, Place of Forgiveness.

There is no perfect family. We do not have perfect parents, we are not perfect, we do not marry a perfect person or have perfect children. We have complaints from each other. We disappoint each other. So there is no healthy marriage or healthy family without the exercise of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is vital to our emotional health and spiritual survival. Without forgiveness, the family becomes an arena of conflict and a stronghold of hurt.  

Without forgiveness, the family becomes ill. Forgiveness is the a sepsis of the soul, the cleansing of the mind and the liberation of the heart. Whoever does not forgive does not have peace in the soul nor communion with God. Hurt is poison that intoxicates and kills. Keeping heartache in the heart is a self-destructive gesture. It's autophagy. Those who do not forgive are physically, emotionally and spiritually ill.  

That is why the family must be a place of life, not of death; territory of cure and not of illness; Stage of forgiveness and not guilt. Forgiveness brings joy where sorrow has produced sadness;

Healing, where sorrow has caused disease.

Courtesy: Pope Francisco.

For me to go to Heaven,

“In order for me to go to heaven, I may have to forgive him. But I will never ever forget, as long as I stay Black. And I don’t see any chance of me turning White.” -  Evelyn Turner while being interviewed by CBS Evening News. The 80 year-old woman is opposing the candidacy of Senator Jeff Sessions as Trump’s attorney general. Turner’s grouse was that 33 years ago, the terribly racist Sessions practically brought financial ruins upon her family. And this was because she and her husband (as Civil Rights activists) were helping to get people registered to vote.

Let's Thank God for Jesus.

Let's thank God for Jesus. He preached love and tolerance. He taught us to always "remove the logs of wood in our eyes before seeing the little specs in other people's eyes". He also  admonished "those of you who have 'never sinned' to cast the first stone" when sitting in judgment over other persons.  

In essence, Jesus spent His lifetime preaching that we should let our individual consciences be our chambers of justice. He never wasted time or energy on outward appearances because His objective was to save our souls, not our bodies or adornments. And this is why the contents of our hearts are more important to Him than our bodies.

Yes, some Christians are into a life of miserable, dreadful and pathetic existence as proofs of their holiness...even though their hearts are filled with hatred, envy and all forms of negativity. But in all sincerity, Christianity doesn't have to be such a pain and neither does it have to be so suffocating.

All thanks to Jesus.



God's Magnanimous Kindness.

God, I want to thank you for your many blessings upon my life…because you often bless me publicly. Most times, I am baffled by the wonders you’re performing in my life, the same way I was baffled way back then when my high school principal gave me an “award” for doing some bull-sh***—his way of teaching me a "lesson".





Anyway, thanks for your patience, mercy and magnanimous kindness. If you were to consider my sins, I would have been in serious trouble. Fortunately, you don’t want the death of sinners but only for us to repent. And I thank you Lord for recognizing that some of us are “Work-In-Progress”…even though some people think mine is taking too long to “complete”.

The great thing is that your ways are different from that of Man. You’re never tired of my asking for forgiveness, knowing fully well that I don’t take your mercy for granted. In my total submission and gratitude to you therefore, I give you Lord all the praises, glories and adorations In Jesus name. Amen!

God's Magnanimous Kindness.

On this glorious Sunday, I want to thank you God publicly for your many blessings upon my life…because you often bless me publicly. Most times, I am baffled by the wonders you’re performing in my life, the same way I was baffled way back then when my high school principal gave me an “award” for doing some bull-sh***—it was the man's way of teaching me a "lesson". Anyway, I'm thanking for your patience, mercy and magnanimous kindness. If you were to consider my sins, I would have been in serious trouble. Fortunately, you don’t want the death of sinners but only for us to repent. And I thank you Lord for recognizing that some of us are “Work-In-Progress”…even though some people think mine is taking too long to “complete”. The great thing is that your ways are different from that of Man. You’re never tired of my asking for forgiveness, knowing fully well that I don’t take your mercy for granted. In my total submission and gratitude to you therefore, I give you Lord all the praises, glories and adorations In Jesus name. Amen!

To Forgive and Forget? Nothing Short of a Mission Impossible.

Imagine getting offended by someone who, after a while, realizes their error and pleads for forgiveness. For many of us who have found ourselves in this type of situation, forgiveness is not a problem. Very often however, the offending person will not only ask for forgiveness. They will most likely ask that we “forgive and forget”. And this is where the problem arises. Yes, we tend to agree. But do we really ever forget? In reality, this is easier said than done. A brain has no eraser and neither does it have a delete button. Some things will just refuse to go away, depending on the hurts that arise from them.

The Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria have a saying to the effect, “Spoken words are like eggs. Once they fall off from a mouth, they can’t be repackaged into their previous shapes.” Now, actions or spoken words that inflict physical or emotional pain cannot, in all reality, be expected to go away. The aggrieved party only has to see the scar or remember the emotional anguish to feel offended all over again.

Therefore, the only anti-dote to this type of situation is for us all to be mindful of what we do or say in moments of anger. And each time we do mess up, as imperfect mortals, the best we can hope for is forgiveness. Asking the aggrieved parties to forget is akin to asking them to wipe off a part of their brains. This is a “Mission Impossible”.

NAL Merchant Bank: Remembering a Day of Infamy.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the month, in 1995, when Nigeria’s premier investment Bank decided to do away with several of its staff. It was not due to any professional misconduct on the part of the affected staff. And neither was the bank in financial distress. Ironically, it was only a couple of weeks earlier that the same bank declared a good profit. But the new CEO and some senior management staff got greedy. They wanted an increase in their collective benefits. And the only way to achieve this was through the massive staff lay off.

Unfortunately, NAL offered no gratuities or pensions. Each of the victims was only given a token sum of money which the bank called a “Golden Handshake”. The hardest-hit were those with outstanding loans. The little sum was summarily utilized to off-set their loans. Sadly, many of them walked out with nothing. And, unlike some of us young folks, there were those long-serving guys on whose backs the bank was built. They had invested the major part of their lives in the bank. Within the next couple of months therefore, the sad effects began to manifest in their lives. The shock was so palpable for some guys that they became psychologically-disoriented. Some others fell into manic depressions. There were those whose marriages fell apart. And worse, a couple of guys died.

Why all these severe reactions? In Nigeria of those days, NAL was a place to be. The salary was enormous. The benefits were gargantuan. There were assorted allowances. From Furniture to Housing and other allowances. Some perks were even duplicated. Monthly car maintenance allowance came with luxurious buses for those who preferred to be chauffeured-driven free-of-charge. Staff enjoyed generous monthly luncheon vouchers in addition to groceries that were called “essential commodities”. Opportunities for loans at very low interest rates were vast. Examples were mortgage loans, Car loans and shares (stocks) loans. Personal loans were interest-free. In addition to a paid annual leave, every staff was also entitled to a leave allowance. Every December, double salaries were paid for Christmas celebration. This would be followed by an elaborate Christmas party at a selected posh hotel. And lest I forget. At the end of every financial year, staff were paid “Incentive Bonus”, a share of the bank’s profit. But on the day of infamy, everything came to a screeching halt!

On that fateful day, I was the first person to walk out of the premises because I had earlier been tipped off about the impending doom. The source also gave me the names of those in the panel that compiled the list. In retrospect though, I will always thank God for His grace and mercy. I also congratulate the other survivors. But what about members of the panel, especially those of them who seized the opportunity to witch-hunt their “enemies”? Under what circumstances did each of them eventually leave the bank? And what about the CEO? Now, fast-forward to 2015, how much fortunes have they all amassed since 1995?

As for the bank, the March, 1995 mass sacking was the prelude to its demise. Neither its latter-day recourse to retail banking nor name-change could save it. It has since vanished from the nation’s banking landscape.  In 2006, I visited Nigeria and was (one day) driving by the erstwhile “NAL Towers”. A dear friend, who was with me, was so touched by the ghastly appearance of the building that he subsequently wrote a newspaper article about the rise, decline and fall of the bank.  It was aptly titled “In Loving Memory of NAL”.



Pictured above is the erstwhile majestic and magnificent "NAL Towers" towering above all other buildings along the Lagos Marina landscape.

The Issue of Forgiveness.