After suffering devastating tragedies, these remarkable people were able to put aside anger and blame to find mercy in their hearts
10 Inspiring Stories of Extreme Forgiveness That Will Lift Your Spirits
Updated on Jun. 09, 2025
The unlikely pardoner
Iranian Samereh Alinejad wanted revenge after her teenage son was murdered in a street fight. But in a dramatic turn at the gallows, literally moments before the killer was to be executed, Alinejad made a last-minute decision to pardon the man. She explained later that her son had come to her in a dream and asked her not to take revenge. Photos of Alinejad hugging the mother of her son’s murderer made international news. Years later, this incredible story of forgiveness continues to inspire.
A mending feud
In May 2014, New York Times photographer Peter Hiogo began a photo essay project in Rwanda to demonstrate the forgiveness between the Hutus and Tutsis—the two cultures involved in the 1994 Rwandan genocide that took millions of lives. In the photos, members from both cultures stand by side, illustrating a story of forgiveness and how the subjects’ lives are now thoroughly intertwined.
The understanding widower
After a long shift at the fire department, Matt Swatzell fell asleep while driving and crashed into another vehicle, taking the life of pregnant mother June Fitzgerald and injuring her 19-month-old daughter. Fitzgerald’s husband, a full-time pastor, asked for the man’s diminished sentence—and began meeting with Swatzell for coffee and conversation. Many years later, the two men remain close. “You forgive as you’ve been forgiven,” Fitzgerald said, referencing the Bible.
The unexpected caregiver
Domestic violence survivor Pascale Kavanagh said that she never thought she would reconnect with her mother—her abuser—during her adult life. However, in 2010, her mother suffered several strokes that left her unable to communicate or take care of herself. With no one else to help, Kavanagh began to sit by her mother’s bedside and read to her. By caring for her mother day by day, Kavanagh said the hate she had for her mother dissipated into forgiveness and love.
The unwavering mother
Teenager Jordyn Howe took his stepfather’s gun to school and accidentally shot Ady Guzman-Jesus’s daughter, Lourdes, while showing the firearm to friends. Astonishing the judge and the community, the victim’s mother, Guzman-Jesus, not only forgave the boy but also asked for him to get a lighter sentence, telling reporters that she believes her daughter would have wanted it that way. Howe served one year in a juvenile detention center and visited local schools with Guzman-Jesus warning kids of the dangers of guns.
The unbelievable friend
During a night swim with girlfriends, bride-to-be Rachelle Friedman was horsing around and got jokingly pushed into the shallow end of the pool, where her head hit the bottom. She broke her neck and is now paralyzed from the chest down. Despite the life-changing injury, Friedman went on with her marriage and has said she never harbored resentment toward her friend about the freak accident. “There is no use in being down in the dumps and depressed. It’s not going to get you anywhere,” she said. Friedman has since written a book about her experience.
The sympathetic victim
Mary Hedges was at a mall with her son when two boys pushed a cart over a railing onto her, causing severe brain injury as well as blindness in one eye and the amputation of her right foot. Even though she suffered a coma and spent weeks fighting for her life, Hedges was forgiving of her young attackers and launched a foundation called Sweet Returns to help mentor teens.
The unexpected connection
Sandra Walker, a mother of two, lost her husband in a car accident that also caused her to have a life-changing brain injury. At the trial for the accident, in her court statement Walker said she sympathized with the woman who crashed into them—who herself lost a child in the accident—and gave her a hug. “I know she is going through as much pain as I am feeling. I wanted her to know that I forgive her for what she did,” Walker said.
The compassionate officer
Steven McDonald was a young police officer in 1986 when he was shot by a teenager in New York’s Central Park, an incident that left him paralyzed. “I forgave [the shooter] because I believe the only thing worse than receiving a bullet in my spine would have been to nurture revenge in my heart,” McDonald wrote. While the younger man was serving his prison sentence, McDonald corresponded with him, hoping that one day the two could work together to demonstrate forgiveness and nonviolence. Unfortunately, the young man died in a motorcycle accident three days after his release, but McDonald continued to travel around the world delivering his message of forgiveness. McDonald died in 2017 at the age of 59.
An unlikely friendship
Mary Johnson lost her son in 1993 after a then-teenaged Oshea Israel got into a fight with him at a party and shot him. With so much unanswered, Johnson went to visit Israel in jail. After their first contact, “I began to feel this movement in my feet,” Johnson said. “It moved up my legs, and it just moved up my body. When I felt it leave me, I instantly knew that all that anger and hatred and animosity I had in my heart for you for 12 years was over. I had totally forgiven you.”
After Israel’s release, the two lived as neighbors and traveled the country sharing their message of forgiveness and reconciliation. Johnson has even referred to Israel as “son” in interviews. “I admire you for your being brave enough to offer forgiveness, and for being brave enough to take that step,” Israel said. “It motivates me to make sure that I stay on the right path.” Johnson died in 2024 at the age of 71.
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Sources:
- Guardian: “Iranian mother who spared her son’s killer: ‘Vengeance has left my heart'”
- New York Times: “Portraits of Reconciliation”
- Today.com: “Widower forges friendship with man in crash that killed wife, unborn baby”
- Real Simple: “How to Forgive Yourself Even When It Feels Impossible”
- CACINA: “I Forgave My Mother for Abusing Me”
- ABC News: “Mother Embraces Daughter’s Killer in Court”
- Diary of a Wheel Girl: “My Story”
- Today.com: “‘I survived being dead’: Mother struck by falling shopping cart 10 years ago speaks out”
- Daily Mail: “Widow’s incredible moment of forgiveness: Sobbing woman went to court so she could HUG the woman who killed her husband in horror crash as she was sentenced”
- Plough Quarterly: “Steven McDonald’s Story”
- New York Times: “Steven McDonald, Paralyzed Officer Who Championed Forgiveness, Dies at 59”
- Daily Beast: “You Killed My Son…And I Forgive You”
- CBS News: “Thousands expected to mourn death of Mary Johnson-Roy, Minneapolis woman who forgave her son’s killer”
