If you asked anyone who knew Laurie A. Coombs, they would tell you what an incredibly strong person she is — the kind of person who can make it through anything. As Coombs details in her new memoir, Letters from My Father’s Murderer: A Journey of Forgiveness, that outward veneer of strength masked a crumbling interior.
An interview with Laurie A. Coombs:
Q: Why did you want to write Letters from My Father’s Murderer, which details such a tragic and painful part of your life?
To be honest, I didn’t initially want to write this book. I wanted to share my story, but I knew writing it in a book would require me to bare all. I knew I’d have to share difficult things, and I didn’t want to. But greater than my resistance was my desire to see people experience freedom and redemption and healing as I had. I wanted God to be glorified for what He had done in and through my life.
I knew God was calling me to write this book. And I knew God well enough to know that if I answered that call I’d most assuredly see lives change as a result of the message He has given me. God allowed me to see something good could come out of the ashes of my past. I could play a small part in the grand story He has been unfolding since the beginning of time. I could participate in what He’s doing in the here and now for the good of many. And so, I chose to say yes, and of course I’m now completely on board.
Q: Tell us about the significance of the few interactions you had with your father just prior to his murder.
About one month before my dad died, he said to me, “Laurie, when I die, I want people to remember me for who I am. I don’t want anyone turning me into something I’m not.” The comment sort of stunned me at first. It came out of absolutely nowhere. My dad continued to tell me people only want to talk about the good parts of a person after they die. “But that’s not who they really are,” he said. “There are good parts and bad parts to every one of us.”
For many years, I didn’t understand why my dad said that to me – obviously, neither one of us knew he was going to die – but as I began to write this book, his words came to mind. I knew then, without a doubt, God had him speak those words to me more than a decade before I needed them to give me the freedom to share my story however God would lead.
Q: You’re very honest in the book about the mistakes your father made and how that affected your teen years and even your choice to reject the faith you had been raised in. Was that difficult for you to do?
Absolutely. I had to do a lot of thinking and praying about how to write what God wanted me to write in this book. But ultimately I knew God was calling me to truth. My dad was an amazing man. A wonderful father. I really was a daddy’s girl. But he wasn’t perfect, and neither am I. It’s my hope that I conveyed my imperfections throughout the book as well.
Q: Almost immediately after learning about your father’s death, you say the hate for his killer began to fill your heart. How did that hatred affect you?
My hatred affected just about everything I thought and did at first. Anger quite literally consumed me. But then after several months, I chose to lay aside my anger and my grief. I knew my dad wouldn’t have wanted me to live like that, so I deliberately chose to put the whole terrible thing behind me and move on.
I didn’t see the affects of anger on the surface after that, and I honestly thought I had worked through it. In reality, I had simply unintentionally buried it. For years, that anger festered in my heart and turned into bitterness without me even knowing it until the day God brought it to my attention nine years after the murder.
Q: How did this experience change how you view the attitude toward violence in the media?
Initially, I couldn’t do the things I did before the murder. I stopped watching TV, I turned off the news, I carefully screened movies to protect myself from seeing any type of violence, and of course, the rap music I once listened to was definitely out. Honestly, I just couldn’t take it. All around me, throughout most of our culture, I saw an unhealthy fascination with murder. Rappers glorifying it. Television shows depicting it to boost ratings. Movies using it to entice audiences. Kids running around, saying, “I’m going to kill you!” like it’s no big thing. We have murder-mystery dinner parties. Murder-mystery board games. True crime TV shows. We’re glorifying it. Sensationalizing it. Because, after all, murder sells, right?
Seeing murder elevated to entertainment sickened me, to be honest. I just wanted to scream, “This is not a game, people!” Murder is real. Murder is horrific. It is not entertainment. It is not something we should have this unhealthy fascination with. It’s murder. Real people exist behind each and every murder. Real victims. Real families left behind. Murder is not a game. And it is certainly not something to be glorified.
Q: Before sentencing at trial, what did you tell the jury on the day you stood in the courtroom and came face-to-face with your father’s killer?
I told them about my dad. I tried to make my dad real to them. And then I left them with a challenge. I said,
“Until the day of Anthony’s death, we will have to deal with the fact that there is a man out there who took our dad’s life. How long this murderer will spend in prison is left up to you, and we encourage you to help our family in our pursuit of justice.
This tragedy, which has affected all of our lives, is not over. This will be something we must live with for the rest of our lives; nonetheless, only when justice is served will we be able to move on with our lives and have closure.
Leonardo da Vinci once said, ‘He who does not punish evil commends it to be done. Justice requires power, insight, and will. . . .’ I challenge you to uphold justice and sentence Anthony to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.”
Q: You began to build a lovely life with your family in the years following the trial, and appeared very strong. What happened that finally brought you to the point where you turned to the Lord?
I fell apart. I did. God presented me with something I couldn’t fix. It was anxiety and depression that finally brought me to my knees, and for the first time in my life, I couldn’t fix myself. I couldn’t pull myself up by my bootstraps, so to speak, as I had many times before. I had fallen into such an incredibly dark place, and I was scared. I tried everything the world tells you to do in a situation like that, but nothing worked. As a last resort, I found my way to church.
Q: What made you decide to begin corresponding with your father’s killer? What did you hope would come from it?
God had freed me from the anxiety and depression after coming to Jesus, but then He began to show me I was irritable pretty much all the time. It was ugly, and quite honestly, I didn’t like myself very much. I began to pray for God to show me why I was like this. Why can’t I just be nice? I wondered. And then He showed me that the root of my irritability was anger, which had ultimately turned into bitterness.
I prayed, asking God to remove the bitterness in my heart, and that’s when I heard His gentle whisper tell me, “It’s time to forgive.” But then He took it a step further. “Love your enemy,” He said. God’s call to forgive and love my enemy resulted in the correspondence between the man who murdered my dad and me. Initially, I wasn’t sure what would come out of our interaction, but I did know where God was taking me. I knew He was leading me toward forgiveness and healing. I didn’t know what that journey would look like along the way, but I did know wherever I ended up would be a good place.
Q: Tell us about the moment you were finally able to forgive.
Forgiveness came when I least expected it. My correspondence with the man who murdered my dad had gotten heated. He was blame-shifting and justifying, and I was obviously not OK with that. All I wanted to do was rebuke him — I almost did — but instead, God said to me, “Laurie, leave him to me. Now forgive.” And I did. But it wasn’t of me. If I had my way, I would have met all the blame-shifting and lies with a rebuke. Instead God called and enabled me to give that which I had already been given. He called me to give grace and love and forgiveness.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that,” and he was right. The moment I extended grace and love and forgiveness, I began to see the man who murdered my dad change before my eyes.
Q: What is his status today? Do you maintain regular contact with him?
I do still have contact with him. It’s still ridiculously crazy to me that things have turned out the way they have. God has put a man who was once my enemy in my life. The man I once hated is now someone who works alongside me in my calling. The message he shares in there is the same one I share out here, so we do still write every now and again — but now our letters are centered around how God would have us use our story.
Q: Why do people often feel like forgiving someone means that person “got away” with the wrong they committed?
I think a lot of people mistakenly think forgiving someone is saying what they did was OK, but it’s not. What that person did will never be OK. God does not take sin lightly, and neither should we. But God does call us to forgive. Forgiveness is not letting the person off the hook. It’s giving that person to God. It’s stepping down from the judgment seat, allowing God to take His rightful place as judge. God does not take sin lightly. Romans 12:19 says, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” Justice will be served. Our sins will be paid for one way or another, either by Jesus on the cross or by us.
Q: What is at the heart of the message you share in your book?
Hope is at the heart of my message. God truly has worked all things for good in my life. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” The first part of Genesis 50:20 says, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” God brings good out of evil. Love out of hate. Peace out of despair. I believe it is His desire to do this for every one of us. You see, our pain won’t be wasted. We don’t have to sit in it. If we bring our pain, past and present, to God, He will redeem it.
Q: There are people who believe they will never be able to forgive people who have hurt them. What would you say to them?
I would tell them they’re right. They can’t forgive the person who hurt them on their own. I had tried to will myself into a place of forgiveness and healing for more than a decade, only to fall to bitterness and anxiety and depression. Until we come to God for help, until we lay ourselves down before Him and are willing to do whatever it takes to forgive, we won’t be able to do it. True forgiveness is only possible by the grace of God.
Learn more about Laurie Coombs and Letters From My Father’s Murderer at www.lauriecoombs.org
Featured image courtesy of lauriecoombs
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