Mommy Brain

In Deaths of Five Children, a Friendship is Born of Forgiveness - NY Times.

For more than a quarter mile, Clifford Helm veered in his pickup truck through a grassy median and oncoming traffic. What finally stopped him was another pickup truck, the one carrying Jeffrey Schrock and his five children.

Carmen, 12, Jana, 10, Carinna, 8, Jerryl, 4 and Craig, 2, were killed in the collision. Mr. Schrock, who had been taking the children to join their mother on some errands, had multiple broken bones.

Now, more than two years after the accident, Mr. Helm has been acquitted on charges of vehicular homicide. Mr. Schrock says he has accepted that he may never know exactly what happened or why. He also says he has a friend he did not have before, Mr. Helm.

“The primary bond there is the accident,” Mr. Schrock said. “We’re both injured by that, physically and mentally.”

Last month, when Mr. Helm went to trial, members of Mr. Schrock’s extended family sat with members of Mr. Helm’s family in the courtroom. The Schrock family is Mennonite, and the head coverings some women wore stood out.

“Some people were praying for his acquittal,” said Mr. Schrock, 40.

He and his wife, Carolyn, made a different request. “We were praying that God’s will would be done,” Mr. Schrock said, “because we really didn’t know what God had in this whole thing.”

Friendship under such circumstances is complicated, Mr. Schrock said, like pretty much everything else that has happened since the accident. For him, the challenge has been to forgive Mr. Helm without expecting resolution, and to build a friendship regardless of the forces working against it.

“It’s what the Bible teaches,” Mr. Schrock said.

This accident occurred less than 100 miles south of us. My parents live in Chewelah, the town the Schrock family is from, and my parents’ church was one of many local congregations to reach out to the Schrocks in love, prayer, finances, food, and other areas. I remember weeping when I heard the story; weeping again as I prayed for Mr. and Mrs. Schrock.

It is amazing acts of forgiveness like this that will draw unbelievers to Christ. I do not know if I would have the obedience and strength to walk this out in the same way as the Schrock family. They are a truly remarkable example of living in Christ.