Never Too Late [True Story]*

* From: Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks by Wayne Rice
** adapted


On June 8, 1972, a nine-year-old Vietnamese girl, her clothes
flaming from gasoline bombs, fled the American-led assault on her village
of Trang Bang. With her eyes screwed shut and her mouth spread wide in a
scream of pain, she was captured on film in America's most remembered
Vietnam wartime photo.

In Officer John Plummer's nightmares, this picture flashed huge, in
black and white, to a sound track of children screaming. His order had
directed bombers to shower Kim Phuc's village with the chemical
explosives. For years, guilt over destroying and maiming the villagers
haunted the officer. Women and alcohol were his escape of choice.

Twenty years after the destruction of the village, Officer Plummer
asked Christ to take control of his life , unleashing God's ultimate
power to end guilt. Although free from guilt, he carried inside himself
scars somehow linked to the thick white scars on the neck, arm, and back
of the now-grown Vietnamese girl. Six years later, Plummer knew he
needed to find her. In an effort to meet her face to face, he tracked
her down while she was visiting America.

Unlike the June 1972 event, no photographer captured the moment
when Plummer explained to Kim Phuc who he was. But in the middle of a
busy sidewalk, the soldier, now 49 years old, and the child, now 33 years
old, embraced. "She just opened her arms to me," Plummer later said. "I
fell into her arms sobbing. All I could say is, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"It's all right," she replied as she patted Plummer's back, "I
forgive, I forgive."

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** It is our Christian responsibility to seek forgiveness for the wrong
we have done to God and to people we've hurt. With God, repenting of our
sins and asking pardon for them is never too late. "If we acknowledge
our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse
us from every wrongdoing. If we say, 'We have not sinned,'...His Word is
not in us" (1 John 1: 9-10). For Jesus' sake let us ask forgiveness
from our family and friends for the wrong we have done and pardon those
who have asked forgiveness from us. Nothing you've ever done is too bad
to ask forgiveness for. Saying sorry to those we have hurt and asking
for forgiveness is never too late.

From: jgat@mozcom.com