Revenge and Forgiveness

By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission

The long blade of the machete glinted as 21-year-old Wilder swung it over his head.

Image © Pacific Press

His eyes flashed with anger. He aimed for his stepfather’s neck.

At that moment, his stepfather, Alberto Rui Quaresma, raised his arm, and the blade sliced deeply into his forearm.

Alberto spent the next 24 days in the hospital in São Tomé, capital of the island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe off the West African coast. He underwent surgery, and doctors put a metal plate in his arm. He angrily plotted revenge. He would get a machete and cut Wilder’s arm, too.

Wilder wasn’t arrested after his biological father pulled some connections. He had attacked his stepfather over a scolding.

Lying in the hospital bed, Alberto noticed that a woman, Maria Rita, came every day to visit her brother, injured in a motorcycle accident, in the same room. He admired her kindness to her brother and announced one day, “I have fallen in love with you”.

“No”, Maria Rita replied. “I don’t want to have a husband. All men should be thrown in the fire”.

Her reaction surprised Alberto, who realized that she was carrying hurt from a past relationship. He could understand. At the age of 44, he had had three common-law wives, and the son of his most recent wife had tried to kill him.

Maria Rita didn’t want to discuss marriage. She changed the subject to God.

“God is love, and God can change your life and make you a new creation”, she said. “God will help you to forget what happened and forgive that boy”.

After being released from the hospital, Alberto saw Maria Rita occasionally on the street. One day she invited him to attend a 40-day revival meeting at her Seventh-day Adventist church.

Alberto was fascinated by the presentations and was baptized five months later. Later, he proposed to Maria Rita, and she accepted.

Today, Alberto, pictured left, is 50 and works as foreman at a cement warehouse. He also is the treasurer, stewardship director, and Sabbath School teacher at his local church.

He is praying for an opportunity to share with Wilder how God changed his life. The two sometimes meet on the street and exchange greetings.

He laughed when reminded that Wilder tried to kill him the last time they had a serious conversation.

“I’m not worried because God is with me”, he said.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission.
Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

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Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “The Assyrian Captivity”, pages 279-292; “The Call of Isaiah”, pages 303-310, in Prophets and Kings.

“Against the marked oppression, the flagrant injustice, the unwonted luxury and extravagance, the shameless feasting and drunkenness, the gross licentiousness and debauchery, of their age, the prophets lifted their voices; but in vain were their protests, in vain their denunciation of sin”. – Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 282.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

For Isaiah, “the outlook was particularly discouraging as regards the social conditions of the people. In their desire for gain, men were adding house to house and field to field … Justice was perverted, and no pity was shown the poor … Even the magistrates, whose duty it was to protect the helpless, turned a deaf ear to the cries of the poor and needy, the widows and the fatherless …

In the face of such conditions it is not surprising that when, during the last year of Uzziah’s reign, Isaiah was called to bear to Judah God’s messages of warning and reproof, he shrank from the responsibility. He well knew that he would encounter obstinate resistance”. – Pages 306, 307.

“These plain utterances of the prophets … should be received by us as the voice of God to every soul. We should lose no opportunity of performing deeds of mercy, of tender forethought and Christian courtesy, for the burdened and the oppressed”. – Page 327.

Discussion Questions:

Summary: 

The Old Testament prophets were passionate and often angry and upset defenders of the way and will of God to their people. Reflecting the expressed concern of God Himself, this passion included a strong focus on justice for the poor and oppressed. The prophets’ calls to return to God included putting an end to injustice, something God also promised to do in His visions for a better future for His people.

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