It is a story that first hit Florida newspapers 33 years ago when 10-year-old Chris Carrier was reported missing by his family.

A fifth-grader at Westminster Christian School in Coral Gables, Fla., Carrier and his classmates had been released early to begin the Christmas holiday. Witnesses reported seeing Chris disembark from the school bus and begin walking along this familiar route in Coral Gables. It was the same route he walked daily after school.

But on that day, Chris Carrier never arrived home.

His father, a prominent and well-liked local attorney, offered a $10,000 reward and called in favors from local law enforcement agencies to put more personnel on the case. The extensive search turned up nothing.

Six days later a man on a hunting trip with his two children found the boy. He might not have stopped had it not been for Chris’ two black eyes, bloody clothing and disorientation.

Carrier recalls the event with complete clarity. As he approached his house in the middle of the block he looked up to see a man walking toward him. The man was smiling and seemed friendly. “You must be Hugh Carrier’s boy; you look just like him,” he said.

Carrier recalls feeling proud that the man could see the resemblance to his father and as they talked the man referred to his mother by her nickname, used only by family members and close friends. “He told me he was giving a party for my father and asked if I wanted to help him decorate.”

Instead Chris was driven to a remote road in the Everglades in a motor home where he was stabbed multiple times with an ice pick, shot in the temple with a small revolver, and left for dead. The bullet entered Chris’ left temple and exited through his right temple, causing blindness in his left eye.

News of the brutal crime and Carrier’s survival stunned the community. Carrier and his family viewed the situation as a series of miracles, for each ice pick injury was no more than ½ inch deep. He survived six days in the Everglades without shelter from the elements and the many wild animals that reside in the area. And he survived a gun shot wound to his temple.

Carrier has no memory of seeing the gun or hearing the shot. “I thought I had fallen asleep for a short nap and had better get out by a road because my dad was going to be there soon to pick me up.”

A few weeks later a police sketch artist produced a drawing Carrier’s father and uncle immediately identified as someone they had hired to care for a great uncle suffering from a stroke. They had fired the man six months later. Police searched David McAllister’s home where they located a gun with the same caliber and a motor home out back. But forensics of that era were unable to give police the evidence necessary for a conviction.

Today Chris Carrier is a 43-year-old teacher and director of student activities at San Marcos Baptist Academy in Florida. He says the experience left him with a choice: Would he see himself as a victim of a tragic set of circumstances that left him physically scarred and emotionally changed, or would he look at himself as the receiver of blessings beyond belief?

His ideas were put to the test the day he learned that 77-year-old David McAllister was a patient at a local nursing home and had confessed the crime to a detective haunted by the unsolved crime. Believing that Carrier deserved to know of the confession, the detective called Carrier.

Then the unthinkable happened: Chris Carrier visited McAllister and forgave him. Blind, frail, and alone, McAllister did not know that the man standing before him was his young victim until Carrier went on to speak of forgiveness and a promise that there would be nothing but forgiveness and friendship between them.

God says a lot about forgiveness in the Bible. He tells us forgiveness is an undeserved privilege or immunity and there is no sin too great for God to forgive. God also tells us that his promises are workable in our lives as well. Once we truly understand that forgiveness is extended to each one of us who honestly regret what we’ve done, we will develop the capacity to apply that same gift of forgiveness to those around us.

Once forgiveness is offered to someone who has hurt you, you will regain your dignity and can use that same energy to encourage those around you who are struggling.

For three weeks Chris Carrier and David McAllister spent time talking, praying, and reading the Bible together. The last time they visited Carrier brought along McAllister’s favorite fish treat: smoked amberjack. Later that night McAllister died.

Says Carrier, “While I think there was purpose in sharing the gospel with David McAllister, I hope a lot of that purpose is still being lived out in an ongoing ministry to help kids with anger and situations they don’t understand.”