A Portrait
I spoke with my students about forgiveness the other day. We had a Holocaust survivor come to our school to speak about his experiences during WWII. Part of his talk was about how he had forgiven those Nazis who had killed his father.
Why?
Because hatred is futile. That's what he said to us: hatred is futile.
So, I decided to "paint a portrait" of forgiveness using words from a story so that my students could see better what our distinguished guest meant...
Corrie Ten Boom
After WWII, Corrie Ten Boom began traveling throughout Europe speaking about her experiences during the Holocaust and how her family hid Jewish people from the Nazis. She also spoke about the consequences her family endured once they were caught.
But it was when she spoke in Germany that her life was forever changed.
During her speeches, Corrie often spoke about how she had forgiven those who hurt her family. She had often spoke about how Christ...the love of Christ...had helped her to forgive.
And then it happened after a speaking engagement in Munich....
“It was in a church in Munich that I saw him—a balding, heavyset 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, moving along the rows of
wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland
to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.
“It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land,
and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far
from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were
thrown. ‘When we confess our sins,’ I said, ‘God casts them into the deepest
ocean, gone forever. …’
“The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were
never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in
silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.
“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.]
“Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: ‘A fine message, Fräulein! How
good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the
sea!’
“And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook
rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course—how could he
remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?
“But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was
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
there.’ No, he did not remember me.
“ ‘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. Fräulein,’ again the hand came out—’will you forgive
me?’
“And I stood there—I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven—and could
not forgive. 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.’
“I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience.
Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi
brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also
to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the
physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as
simple and as horrible as that.
“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. ‘…
Help!’ 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”
(Excerpted from
“I’m Still Learning to Forgive” by Corrie ten Boom. Reprinted by permission
from Guideposts Magazine. Copyright © 1972 by Guideposts Associates,
Inc., Carmel, New York 10512>).
Forgiveness
What an amazing portrait of forgiveness!
What an amazing portrait of what God's love can do. Our distinguished guest knew this, too. He knows that to hate the Gestapo men who killed his father would never bring his father back and hatred would only keep him forever trapped there inside that ghetto prison.
Perhaps there is someone you need to forgive. Perhaps the very thought of forgiving them paralyzes you as it did Corrie Ten Boom.
But when we stop and remember the grace God poured out on us through Jesus Christ, we cannot help but cry out for Him to move us to forgive as He forgave us. As Corrie said, "Forgiveness is an act of will..."
Only when we let go can we be free.
Corrie is in heaven now. She is truly free.
And she has seen the perfect portrait of forgiveness in the face of Christ.
Your turn: Have you ever hesitated to forgive someone who hurt you? How did God move you to forgive?
Blessings,
Ruth
