That’s Guerrilla Love
Elizabeth Morris is a woman from a small Kentucky town who, two days before Christmas in 1982, was sitting up one night waiting for her son Ted to come home from his job at the mall. He was in college but had come home and was working a temporary job over Christmas break to make some extra money for school. And he was late. And at 10:40 p.m., Elizabeth got the telephone call that all parents fear. “Mrs. Morris, this is the hospital. Your son has been killed in an accident.”
A 24-year-old man named Tommy Pigage had been driving drunk – his blood alcohol level was 3 times the legal limit – and had crossed the highway’s center line & smashed head-on into Ted’s car. The drunk driver was only slightly injured, but 18-year-old Ted Morris was dead.
Elizabeth and her husband, Frank, were devastated. Ted was their only child. And their anger only escalated when, at the trial, their son’s killer, Tommy Pigage, was only given probation. Elizabeth says that day after day she would replay her mental videotape of that night like a horror movie. She wanted revenge. She would fantasize about driving down the road, seeing Tommy walking, and driving him into a tree, then watching him die slowly in agony. She actually spent a lot of her time tracking Tommy, hoping she could catch him violating his probation so he could be sent to prison.
There was only one problem. Elizabeth was a Christian. And as she brought her feelings to God, and prayed about all it, she came to the realization that her heavenly Father had also lost His only Son. But on the cross Jesus had said, “Father, forgive them” about the soldiers who had tortured and crucified Him. And that in a very real sense she had put Jesus on the cross, her sins had, and yet God had forgiven her. And she realized that she had to forgive Tommy. It wasn’t a feeling, she didn’t feel like forgiving Tommy, but she had to, and she chose to, as an act of her will. She decided to and offered forgiveness to the man who killed her only son.
But … check this out. She didn’t just forgive him. She and her husband actually began to build a relationship with her son’s killer. And after some time they led Tommy Pigage to Christ. Because of their influence, in part because of their compassion, because of their forgiveness, because of their guerrilla love, he decided to follow Jesus and become a Christian. That’s guerrilla love.
Want to learn how to become a guerrilla lover? Join the guerrilla revolution? Then check out my book, Guerrilla Lovers.