Enjoying the Fullness of Forgiveness
We speak of forgiveness with such ease. However, saying the words and genuinely meaning them from the heart are oceans apart. The kind of forgiveness God desires can be produced only by the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Corrie ten Boom expressed one of the most chilling examples of this truth in her book The Hiding Place. In September 1944, Corrie and her sister Betsie were taken by train to Ravensbruck prison for hiding Jews in their home. Her father had died on the grueling trip from their home to the prison and her sister died while in prison. The humiliation and harsh treatment by the prison guards were overwhelming.
Following her release, Corrie spent the remainder of her life sharing her story about the grace and comfort of Jesus to people around the world. In 1947 while speaking at a church in Munich she recalled an event in which she learned what the Lord means about the fullness of forgiveness. This is her story:
It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there—the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.
He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,” he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”
His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.
I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand, a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.
And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.[i]
Father, I thank You that You give me the ability to forgive. I choose forgiveness, that I might be forgiven. In Jesus’ name, amen.
[i] Corrie ten Boom with Elizabeth and John Sherrill, The Hiding Place (Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen Books, 2006), 247–248.
