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Now You See Me: How I Forgave the Unforgivable

Review

Now You See Me: How I Forgave the Unforgivable

In 1995, author Kathy Sanders and her daughter, Edye Lucas, became the first faces of grief to spread across the nation after the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Within minutes of the explosion, Kathy and Edye ran from the office building where they were both working and toward the daycare center where they had left Kathy’s two young grandsons, Edye’s only two children. The closer they got to the site of the explosion, the more chaos reigned, and they were pressing forward in desperate search of both Chase and Colton.

NOW YOU SEE ME tells the harrowing experience of that day when the bombing at that time was the largest loss of life on American soil. Kathy offers her moment-by-moment recollections of those first grief-stricken hours when they continued to search and hope that Chase and Colton might still be found. Kathy explains in graphic detail how the closer she and Edye got to the actual scene of the explosion, the more horrific the findings --- and the harder it was to have any hope that the boys had survived somehow.

"Kathy’s story is a remarkable one, given the fact that she lost her two grandchildren in the bombing yet reached out to the perpetrators in love and forgiveness. Readers likely will have the same questions that Kathy herself asked following the bombing that took so many lives."

Kathy and Edye soon did learn that both Chase and Colton had perished in the bombing, and Kathy recounts the support that they received from family, friends and locals who gathered around their home day and night. Since Kathy and Edye were two of the first faces caught by cameramen on the scene, floods of requests for national television interviews poured in, and Kathy truly became the bombing victims’ spokesperson.

Throughout this chronically accurately presented text, Kathy unfolds the inner workings of her personal life as she struggled to trust God, despite the grief she was feeling. She also lets readers into her theory that the government was holding back on releasing all of the information surrounding the attack. So convinced that law enforcement wasn’t telling the whole truth of the bombing, Kathy launched her own private investigation that took her into an Oklahoma cult compound, a maximum-security prison, and into the heart of the Aryan Nation. Needless to say, some folks opposed Kathy’s search for the truth, and when she felt the need to offer forgiveness to those who had been responsible, she received even more opposition.

At one point in her healing journey, Kathy realized that as she prayed for Terry Nichols and his family, she slept better at night, and it was by far easier to forgive him than to continue hating him. Eventually, Kathy began a correspondence with Terry that lasted for over 10 years. She continually encouraged him to tell the truth about what actually happened on that fateful day. She also reached out to Timothy McVeigh, hoping to help bring healing to these “other victims.”

Kathy’s story is a remarkable one, given the fact that she lost her two grandchildren in the bombing yet reached out to the perpetrators in love and forgiveness. Readers likely will have the same questions that Kathy herself asked following the bombing that took so many lives.

Reviewed by Michele Howe on April 20, 2014

Now You See Me: How I Forgave the Unforgivable
by Kathy Sanders

  • Publication Date: April 8, 2014
  • Genres: Christian, Nonfiction
  • Hardcover: 288 pages
  • Publisher: FaithWords
  • ISBN-10: 1455526193
  • ISBN-13: 9781455526192