Relationships essential for reconciliation

Harvey Thomas stared murder in the face almost 20 years ago, but six years ago he discovered how to forgive the man who tried to kill him.
   
A native of England, Thomas worked for 14 years as director of press and communications for Margaret Thatcher while she was prime minister of England. 
   
It was during this time that the bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, occurred.
   
Thomas was at the hotel with Thatcher and her Cabinet in 1984 when Patrick Magee, the “Brighton Bomber” who had ties to the Irish Republican Army, tried to assassinate them all in a politically motivated bombing attack. 
   
Thatcher and others were out the night the bomb exploded, but Thomas had stayed in. His room was right above the room where the bomb was planted. 
   
When it exploded, Thomas went flying through the roof, then fell back down to land on a steel girder three stories below where his room was. 
   
Thomas said he lay there for two and a half hours, praying for his wife and unborn daughter while he waited for rescuers to find him and dig him out.
   
Nearly six hours later a bruised and shaken Thomas resumed his duties directing the conference at the hotel. “The fireman said it was my ‘considerable bulk’ that saved me,” said Thomas with a smile.
   
Fourteen years later, Magee had been caught and was in prison, serving eight life sentences. Thomas had been asked to volunteer with Reconciliation Networks of Our World (RNOW) and was serving as European coordinator at the group’s meeting in Louisville, Ky.
   
At the conference, Thomas said, “I suddenly realized here I was talking reconciliation and forgiveness and I wasn’t doing anything about it. I became absolutely convinced that the role God wanted me to take in 1998 was to forgive Patrick Magee.”
   
Upon returning home, Thomas’s first action was to write Magee a letter in which Thomas said, “As a Christian, I’m writing to forgive you.” He stressed that he was not speaking for anyone but himself, therefore he forgave Magee for the harm done to himself.
   
In 2000, Magee was released from prison, and the two men have since built a friendship that lasts until today.
   
“Forgiveness is a very personal thing, and once I’d made my mind up it was a very easy thing,” Thomas said. “It was getting there for the 14 years (in between) that was hard. The concept of reconciliation is most and sometimes only effective with the name of Jesus Christ.”
   
Thomas said reconciling with Magee, “would not have been possible without (a) faith in Christ and (b) God using other people on the (Reconciliation Networks of Our World) team.”
   
Thomas, who has also worked for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, shared this and other experiences with members of national Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) and community leaders Feb. 9 in Birmingham.
   
Larry Martin, consultant with the missions growth team of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, was with Thomas, and he pointed out some of the principles of reconciliation that RNOW uses.
   
“Reconciliation comes through relationships,” he said. “There is no separation between reconciling with God and reconciling with people.”
   
Thomas stressed that RNOW’s work sharing stories of reconciliation from around the world is important for Christians, as is having an international worldview.
   
“If we do not know what the real situation is we cannot pray intelligently, act intelligently,” he said. “When you understand the whole situation, your attitude toward it changes dramatically.”