Anne Frank Good at Heart
Good at Heart I believe people are truly good at heart. Despite what has happened with every bad thing in this world. Everyone knows knows there are still good people. Anyone can tell me that I can’t comprehend the loss and hurt and destruction that the world and the people of it are willing to dish out. And in a way, that is right. I’m blessed with such a lack in my experience. Loving and praying for something good is the strongest thing we can do to help make a change to a better world. This world is blessed with the fact that humans can forgive. Another dead body or revenge will not heal the past, even though it may cushion it.
But people are truly good at heart. The bad boys aren’t born bad and don’t die bad. Most of the time they are forced to portray a character, different and distinct from what they are, sadly they adapt that character and forgot who they really are. “It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. ” from the Diary of Anne Frank (last entry). I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to be that daughter or sister or mother of someone killed in cold blood.
And I still can’t say another dead body would soothe my pain. The last time Anne was seen by two of her friends, most of her precious family were dead. She was bald, emaciated and shivering. In February, 1945 she told her friends that she didn’t want to live any longer. In March of the same year, she tragically died. But I think that no matter what happens to me, what kind of hurt I see, despite everything, I will still believe that people are generally good and beautiful and wonderful and lovable. And people do things that are destructive and horrific and cruel and monstrous, but I still can’t do it.
Matthew 5:44 says: ? ”But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. ” If we want to grow as individuals and as a country, we have to realize how precious forgiveness is. We are not only blessed to receive forgiveness, but we are also blessed with the capability to forgive. Our hearts are bigger than we will ever let them be, because we are too red-blooded and proud to let us love someone who was hurt us. Despite everything, I still believe that loving a person, forgiving a person, praying for a person, is stronger than anything else we could do.
This is how I feel still tonight. A dead body can’t heal the wounds our country has had for the past ten years. A dead body doesn’t give us back all the fear as the airplane wheels left the ground. It doesn’t give us back lost men and women of the military. It doesn’t give me back my hours debating our presence in Afghanistan even. As I see my Facebook feed fill with chanting cries of victory and God Bless Americas, I fell it’s all in vain. Deep down people are truly good. Rather, you choose not to believe that God is rich in mercy, and because of that, you end up with a revolting image that you have created in your own mind.
Don’t forget that when Anne Frank said that she believed that people were truly good at heart, she was still in hiding with her family. Her naive faith in human goodness may have been shaken when she and her family were taken to Auschwitz in 1944, and her father was separated from her. At 15 years old, she was then forced to strip naked, disinfected, had her head shaved, and was tattooed with an identifying number on her arm. She was then used as slave labor until disease caused her skin to became badly infected by scabies. But, I still can’t condemn someone when I know myself what little things I have done.
Especially when the the world is full of billions of people who are good at heart. As a person, you would consider yourself good right? Even though we all have made mistakes we are not bad people. Truly we are all good. The surest sign of our faith is our ability to love those who have crossed against us if we are incapable of this, we may need to look at ourselves a little closer. I just hope that those I have crossed will not celebrate at my death, but rather release the pain I have caused them along with me, and go forward in love.
