Let It Go

If you haven't heard this story, I highly recommend that you do!

On a cold February night in 2007, a devoted father of four and a seventeen-year-old drunk driver both received life sentences. In one violent, devastating instant, both faced a drastically different—and uncertain—future. But as Chris Williams sat in his demolished vehicle, staring at the car that had just caused the death of his wife, his unborn baby, his nine-year-old daughter, and his eleven-year-old son, he committed to do something extraordinary: he would forgive.

That decision launched Chris on a journey toward healing that affected his family and friends, the young man who caused the accident, and an entire community—a community that would face another deadly tragedy just a few days later.

Chris's message of forgiveness is an empowering invitation to all who have suffered, however unjustly, to lay down their burdens and let it go. "On February 9, 2007, I, my wife, and our three youngest children went out for dessert while our oldest was out with friends. As we left to return home, I don’t recall feeling any prompting to adjust our travel in some way, to spend a few more seconds at a stop sign, to take an alternate route, or to not go out that night. But in an instant, our lives were changed forever." 

"Michelle and I both saw a pair of headlights appear at the top of the hill in front of us, moving at an unbelievably high speed and already crossing the median. It was on a direct collision course with our car. “Chris!” Michelle shouted. I attempted to swerve out of the way but to no avail. The vehicle T-boned our own car with a force so violent and tremendous that the impact stopped our car from going downhill and pushed it back uphill. The sound of the car hitting ours was a sickening, dense, crushing thud of metal on metal—a quick, catastrophic, singular sound of devastation." 

"I had no idea who has just hit us, and my mind didn't think to consider if they were all right or not, or what circumstances might have caused them to cross the median and strike us. I simply looked at the car in silence. Then I heard a voice that was not my own in my mind as clearly as if it had come from someone seated next to me. It was straightforward and filled with power, and the voice said, 'Let it go!'"