How could she forgive him?

How could a mother forgive the man who kidnapped her 7-year-old daughter and brutalized her in the most savage way?Last week I shared with readers the unforgettable story of Marietta Jaeger and her daughter, Susie.Marietta and her family lived through a year of emotional torture after little Susie Jaeger was kidnapped from her tent as she slept next to her sisters at a Montana campground.For a solid year they hoped for the best while fearing the worst. But when they finally learned what happened to Susie, it was worse than they ever could have imagined.Susie was kept alive for two weeks while the killer inflicted the most sadistic torture upon her. He then cut up her body and cannibalized her in ways we can’t even print.While all that is hard to believe, it’s even harder to believe Marietta Jaeger’s reaction:She forgave him.When I pressed Marietta for how she could forgive such evilness, she says it didn’t come overnight. It was a long struggle.At first, she raged that she wanted him dead.“Even before I knew what he did to Susie, I wanted to kill him for causing Susie anguish,” she said.It was her strong faith, she said, that kept her going after the kidnapping. And it was that same strong faith and a year of constant prayer that gave her the spiritual strength to forgive the killer.“It was what I was being led to do,” she says.Marietta can pinpoint the exact moment when her pain and rage turned to compassion and forgiveness.When the killer called her in the middle of the night exactly one year after he took Susie, she was able to stay calm enough to keep him talking for an hour and a half.“It was God’s gift that enabled me to stay calm.”At one point during the conversation, Marietta says she felt warmth wash over her and was filled with peace.It was the peace that surpasses all understanding.When she asked the killer what she could do for him, her unexpected compassion led him to break down sobbing.“He was sobbing in seemingly unbearable anguish. I was allowed to hear that and I was grateful to know some part of his spirit abhorred the act he had committed,” Marietta said.In the year that had passed since her daughter was taken, Marietta said she heard God’s call to let go of hateful feelings and to forgive the kidnapper.“God wouldn’t let go of me until I was willing to let go of those ugly feelings, because he knew it would destroy me in the end.”Even though she couldn’t imagine how she could grant the forgiveness she was being called to give, she said she trusted the Lord who had been there for her all her life.But she had three requests.She prayed that she could not only forgive the kidnapper with her lips, but to love him with her heart. And she prayed to be part of the resolution — whatever it was.It was her recorded phone call with the killer that allowed police to learn his identity.All three prayers were answered.Even after the kidnapper admitted he had killed four youngsters, Marietta told the FBI she didn’t want him to get the death penalty.“Taking his life wouldn’t bring back the innocent lives he had taken,” she says. “To kill someone in Susie’s name would violate the kind of goodness she had.”Execution or life in prison turned out to be a moot point. The first night the serial killer was in jail, he committed suicide in his cell.Understanding how his mother was suffering, Marietta went to see her.“I told her I had forgiven him. We wept on each other’s shoulders,” she says.That wasn’t the end of the story for Marietta. It was just the beginning.Her mission now is to help others, especially those who are having a hard time healing from past hurts.She wrote her book, “When a Child is Taken” to detail the healing process she went through with the help of God.She tells about her darkest hours when she questioned the existence of God. She also details the supernatural way he came to comfort her.“In the midst of my deepest pain I felt as though I was being swept up into his arms and totally enveloped in what I can only call the love of God,” she says.It is that love that to continues to fill her each day, giving her a special radiance that speaks of deep peace.She wants others to be able to forgive their hurts to feel that same peace.“Vengeance, hatred, resentment, grudge-bearing, even deliberate indifference, are death-dealing spirits that will take our lives as surely as Susie’s was taken from her,” Marietta says.“They will destroy us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.”She now travels all over the world giving talks, retreats and seminars to help others. She also works in prison ministries and campaigns against the death penalty.In the worst of her emotional pain when she was looking for comfort, she says it was Psalm 126 that sustained her during those dark hours:“Those who sow in tears shall reap with songs of joy.”Today, her tranquillity is living proof of the truth of that Psalm.Contact Pattie Mihalik at

newsgirl@comcast.net.