I'm Still Learning to Forgive - Corrie Ten Boom

[Eli Brayley]

I'm Still Learning to Forgive
By Corrie Ten Boom


It was in a church in Munich where I was speaking in 1947 that I saw him-a balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat, the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones.

Memories of the concentration camp 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 of skin.

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.

Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: "A fine message, fraulein! How good it is to know that, as you say,, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!"

It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.

"You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk, " he was saying. "I was a guard therre. 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-" again the hand came out-"will you forgive me?"

And I stood there-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 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."

Still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgive- ness 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 thriust 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 jealing 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 former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.

[runner4jesus]

That was the most heart wrenching account from Corrie Ten Boom. She was so forgiving and a precious woman. She was the most humble woman I ever met. Back in the 70's at a woman's retreat at Mt. Hermon, California, I met her during a luncheon and sat across from her. She did not want anyone to make much of her. Everything about her was an inspiration to us. Even her dress and her demeanor. Never met anyone quite like her and I'll never forget her.

[4him]

The power of God that's released when we forgive is simply amazing !! Whenever I think of examples of people who demonstrated great forgiveness, Corrie ten Boom comes to mind. It's interesting that she once stayed for a few days at the home of a lady who used to live only a few doors down from my parents, who are Kitchener Ontario.

There are two other people I've come across in my life who also demonstrated forgiveness in a way that spoke powerfully to my life. One is a man named Maury Blair who wrote a book called, 'Child of Woe'. Despite the fact that his step father mistreated him and abused him greatly, while growing up, he chose to forgive him in a most amazing way.

Then there was Kim Phuk who came to be known as the 'Napalm girl'. There was a famous picture of her that appeared on the front of Time Life magazine.It showed a terrified little girl running from the burning village she had once lived in. This village had just been destroyed by a nuclear bomb, during the Vietnam war. Later in life, Kim sought out the pilot who had bombed her village, to let him know that she wanted to forgive him for dropping the bomb that killed many people whom she'd loved.

Myself, I've never been called upon to forgive so deeply as this. This may sound trite in comparison, but I did experience God working forgiveness in my heart, in a much less dramatic, and yet still significant way last year. I had been feeling upset at my neighbour, because his dogs had been barking all the time and he was not curbing their behaviour, despite my polite appeals to his sense of decency.

Then I read a statement by Leonard Ravenhill that wrenched my heart and brought me to tears :

“Have the Holiness people set a guard at the door of the beauty parlors lest any sister should enter to get her hair curled, while a block away there is a string of prostitutes trying to sell their sin-wracked bodies with none to tell them of eternal love? “

God used this statement to make me realize that in my 'righteous indignation' about my neighbours yapping dogs, I had lost sight of something far more weighty and important; his eternal soul. So after that I began using each barking episode as a reminder to pray for my neighbour and his salvation.

When I explained what God had started doing in my heart to my kids, I said that what was happening now whenever the dogs began barking was, 'Woof woof woof...God bless Mark....woof woof woof...God bless Mark.'

It's amazing how this began to change my heart, completely obliterating any vestage of bitterness towards my neighbour, and instead filling me with a sense of compassion towards him. To God be the glory !

John