Forgiveness

“It was at a church 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 on 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 him 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.” (excerpt from The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom)

Forgiveness is one of the hardest things for me in my walk with God. I just don’t want to let go of the sins committed against me. There’s hypocrisy for you; I am more than willing to accept, in fact I expect, God’s forgiveness. But at the same time, I am not willing to forgive others.

In the famous passage from Matthew 18 (you know, the one our parents all made us memorize so we would have to forgive our siblings), Peter asks that timeless question, “how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven?”
And Jesus Replies to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” That’s 490 for any of you math whizzes.

And that got me to thinking, why am I withholding something that I so desperately rely upon myself? Why can I not find it in me to forgive?

If Corrie Ten Boom could forgive the very German who persecuted her and her family in a concentration camp, who played a hand in her sister’s death, than why can’t I forgive my sister when she takes the last chocolate chip cookie? How is it that I cannot find it in myself, a professed born-again believer, to forgive even the least of offenses?

And after hours of soul-searching what I, the thickheaded fool that I am, finally realized is that I need God in everything, even the little things. In my everyday walk I am more than content to tell God to take a backseat and I will call Him in when I need ‘the big guns.’ I am foolishly trying to do things on my own strength, or lack thereof. I need God, especially in the little things.

Forgiveness will always be something that I greatly struggle with, but I’m resigned now to never try it on my own again, that just leads to bitterness. As Miss Ten Boom so wisely pointed out, when God tells us to love our enemies he gives us the love with which to love them, we just have to let ourselves realize that. I think the same thing goes for forgiveness, when he tells us to forgive others, he gives us the strength with which to forgive.