Topics:<\/b> Conversion; Crime; Forgiveness; Freedom; Murder; New Life<\/p>\n
References:<\/b> Genesis 50:15\u201321; Matthew 18:15\u201335; Ephesians 2:10; 1 Peter 4:12\u201319<\/p>\n
Yvonne Pointer was one of ten children born to a wonderful mother and father, though she admits, \u201cI was the worst. I did everything my parents did not want me to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
For three years a friend of her father tried to reach her. \u201cHe would come to where I was getting high and say, \u2018You need to change your ways.\u2019 He was a thorn in my flesh,\u201d Pointer says. But in time the high turned on her. Then she remembered the words of her father\u2019s friend, went to church, and cried out to God. And on May 4, 1975, she turned her life over to Christ.<\/p>\n
Less than ten years later, Pointer experienced what some say is the greatest pain on earth\u2014the loss of a child. On December 6, 1984, her daughter Gloria was raped and murdered while on her way to school in Cleveland, Ohio. \u201cAfter she died, I would spend hours in the church when no one was there, because Gloria\u2019s death didn\u2019t make sense to me,\u201d Pointer says. \u201cI had come through drugs, through street life\u2014and now this? I could not fathom why this would happen. But because I\u2019d had that personal experience with God, I went to God.\u201d<\/p>\n
People from the church rallied around her, washing clothes, cooking, and cleaning when the mother didn\u2019t have the strength. Slowly, a new sense of direction emerged. \u201cIn the beginning it was all about the injustice done to my child. Period,\u201d Pointer says. But soon she became aware of others with similar losses. She wrote letters and talked to police, to reporters, and to anyone who would listen.<\/p>\n
Meantime, Pointer cofounded Parents Against Child Killing, which later became Positive Plus, a women-helping-women organization. \u201cWe started out with mothers who had lost children,\u201d Pointer says, \u201cbut I found out pain is pain. If your husband walked out and left you with five babies, that\u2019s pain. We felt we could find solutions by helping each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pointer has received numerous honors for her work as an advocate for child safety. She even speaks in prisons, sharing the love of God with inmates. \u201cI found hatred too heavy a load to carry. Would I want the person who murdered Gloria over for Sunday dinner? No. But if I didn\u2019t forgive him, unforgiveness would kill me too,\u201d she says quietly. \u201cForgiveness releases you to live.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Audrey T. Hingley, \u201cGloria\u2019s Legacy,\u201d Today\u2019s Christian<\/i> (May\u2013June 2006)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Topics: Conversion; Crime; Forgiveness; Freedom; Murder; New Life References: Genesis 50:15\u201321; Matthew 18:15\u201335; Ephesians 2:10; 1 Peter 4:12\u201319 Yvonne Pointer was one of ten children born to a wonderful mother and father, though she admits, \u201cI was the worst. I did everything my parents did not want me to do.\u201d For three years a friend … Continue reading “CHILD\u2019S
\n MURDER INSPIRES MOM”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}