Family of God: [FamilyofGod] Corrie Ten Boom- Forgiveness

Corrie ten Boom has long been honored by evangelical Christians as an exemplar
of Christian faith in action. Arrested by the Nazis along with the rest of her
family for hiding Jews in their Haarlem home during the Holocaust, she was
imprisoned and eventually sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp along with
her beloved sister, Betsie, who perished there just days before Corrie's own
release on December 31, 1944. Inspired by Betsie's example of selfless love and
forgiveness amid extreme cruelty and persecution, Corrie established a post-war
home for other camp survivors trying to recover from the horrors they had
escaped. She went on to travel widely as a missionary, preaching God's
forgiveness and the need for reconciliation. Corrie's devout moral principles
were tested when, by chance, she came face to face with one of her former
tormentors in 1947. The following description of that experience is excerpted
from her 1971 autobiography, The Hiding Place, written with the help of John and
Elizabeth Sherrill.
I'm Still Learning to Forgive

It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavy-set man in a gray
overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of
the basement room where I had just spoken. It was 1947 and I had come from
Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. ...

And that's when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One
moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a
visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge
room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in
the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see
my sister's frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin.
Betsie, how thin you were!

Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi
occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration
camp where we were sent. ...

"You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk," he was saying. "I was a guard in
there." No, he did not remember me.
"I had to do it — I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior
condition: that we forgive those who have injured us."

"But since that time," he went on, "I have become a Christian. I know that God
has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it
from your lips as well. Fraulein, ..." his hand came out, ... "will you forgive
me?"

And I stood there — I whose sins had every day to be forgiven — and could not.
Betsie had died in that place — could he erase her slow terrible death simply
for the asking?

It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to
me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to
do.

For I had to do it — I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior
condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. "If you do not forgive men
their trespasses," Jesus says, "neither will your Father in heaven forgive your
trespasses." ...

And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is
not an emotion — I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the
will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. "Jesus, help me!"
I prayed silently. "I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the
feeling."

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to
me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my
shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing
warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
"I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my heart!"

For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former
prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.