A woman says the “profound” grace and forgiveness from the parents of a teenager she accidentally killed have led her to personal grace and a rebirth of her Christian faith.

In November of 2014, Margaret “Maggie” Baisley was driving late at night when she drifted out of her lane, hitting a car on the side of the road that had run out of gas. High school student Dominik Pettey, who was sitting behind the driver’s seat, was killed.

Just a few days after the crash, Baisley’s attorney told her the Magdalena and Patrick Pettey wanted to meet with her. “I assumed they just wanted to yell at me. I figured they had that right,” Baisley told Catholic News Service contributor Paul Dykewicz, author of Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain.

Instead, “They said they were thinking of me and would be praying for me at the funeral the next day,” Baisley said. She continued:

I was surprised and confused. The major point that related to divine mercy is that it wasn’t just a blip. It was sustained. Their forgiveness seemed so deep for them. I was so confused and disoriented because they were being so nice. Against everything you might have been told to expect, people can totally transcend that muck.

According to Dykewicz:

[Baisley] said she became humbled and changed in a “billion different ways” when [Dominik’s] parents, Magdalena and Patrick Pettey, showed mercy by offering their prayers and by asking a local prosecutor not to charge her with manslaughter.

The greatest gift the parents gave, Baisley said, was to let her feel forgiven for her connection to the “worst possible thing you could do: be responsible for the death of another person.”

More than being able to forgive herself and others, and even her “new way of living” since gaining the freedom of forgiveness, the experience has brought Baisley back to her faith.

Though she was raised Irish-Catholic, Baisley said she never felt connected or accepted. She was confirmed in the eighth grade, but stopped going to church shortly thereafter, saying she “got distracted by the rules” and “totally missed the message of grace and divine mercy.”

The Petteys’ example and faith have since led her to become “re-engaged with an organized religious community,” though she no longer considers herself to be Catholic. “Spiritually,” Baisley said, “I would describe myself as a Christian, not as part of the Catholic Church necessarily.”