Let It Go: Learning Forgiveness from Corrie ten Boom

When those we love hurt us, it leaves our emotions raw and gaping, gasping for air. It scars our hearts, our memories. It scars our friendships and it sometimes even leaves us with an injured outlook on life, on people.

And we just can’t forget.

But whatever happened to ‘forgiving those who trespass against us’? Does the Lord really expect us to show grace to those who do us harm?

There once was a girl who wondered the same thing, after the time of war in Germany and that evil man who would crush & torture God’s people. And this is her story …

“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!

“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…

But even so, I realized it was not my love. I tried and did not have the power. It was the power of the Holy Spirit as recorded in Romans 5:5… ‘because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us.'”

— from Corrie ten Boom in Tramp for the Lord

No, she wasn’t perfect. She was made of bones and flesh, and faced temptations just like you and I do. But she still learned that lost art of showing God’s unfailing grace to those who don’t seem to deserve it.

Something I still need to learn. That forgiveness is not a feeling, but instead it is an act of grace & love — Christ-like love — that God gives us the strength to give so freely, as He has so freely given to us.

And, I think, why should I hold grudges against others for hurting me, when I have hurt God over and over again and He still loves me, He still shows me this grace without fail, without hesitation? And you know what? I don’t exactly deserve it either.

I fail Him daily, because I am not perfect. I’m nothing near perfect. But I am loved by a perfect God.

This forgiving others, letting go, giving grace — it’s a way to share the gospel, to witness, to those who don’t know Christ.

Just like the martyrs.

The martyrs never fought back against their persecutors, but boasted in Jesus Christ alone and showed off His grace, love, and forgiveness to those who hurt them.

And then great things happened. Things like prison guards falling to their knees in prayer before the most High God, and kings and nobles and whole countries bowing their heads in worship of the King of Kings. Could there be a greater reward for giving grace?