My Two Modern Day Heroes – I mean, Heroines

Walking in forgiveness when the world says, you have every right not to forgive. That is one characteristic of a hero in my book.

There are two women in my life who have become my heroes. They are not my only modern day heroes. They are the two I want to mention today.

One is my sister, Joanne. The other a dear friend named Johnna. Both women have experienced tremendous personal agony. Not distress that many could see from the outside, although Johnna’s one child’s illness was an obvious burden. But pain that they have each borne internally and silently. Because on the outside their friends, and even family, saw them smiling, always helping others, being model wives and mothers who were always there for their families. When the real pain they were experiencing was exposed, both in different ways and over different time spans, all were astounded. Both women would have been excused by society’s standards for never forgiving the parties who had hurt them. They would even have been excused for retribution.

What makes them my heroes, is not that they smiled as they endured, but that they both found a way, through their deeper faith, to truly forgive. And to walk and live that forgiveness. That is a hero’s stand in my book. Thank you, Joanne and Johnna.