thesmoochproject.blogspot.com

February 1993 is a date that Mary Johnson will probably never forget. A dispute between her 20-year-old son, Laramiun Byrd and 16-year-old Oshea Israel would take a turn for the worse, ending in the shooting of Laramiun by Oshea. “My son was gone. I was angry and hated this boy, hated his mother.” said Johnson as she recounted the immediate aftermath and to be honest, who could blame her. But as Oshea served his 17 year prison sentence, Johnson struggled with her faith as overtime she felt a greater urge to meet Israel face-to-face in order to see whether she could indeed forgive him. Remarkably, she did and now Israel and Johnson are not only good friends, but take their message of forgiveness to churches, prisons, and to whoever would listen. “Unforgiveness is like cancer” she says, “It will eat you from the inside out.”