The Healing Power of Forgiveness

During the very difficult and dark months after the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945, people all over Europe were desperately trying to piece together their traumatized lives. Everywhere there were shortages of food and shelter, but perhaps more importantly, there seemed to be an even greater shortage of mercy and hope. It was into this kind of an environment that a middle-aged Dutch watchmaker named Corrie ten Boom arrived in Germany. After having spent time in Ravensbrück concentration camp for hiding Jews during the war, Corrie said in her book The Hiding Place that she had “come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.” It was a message that was desperately needed in those difficult times, for unimagined evil and unrestrained violence had left the country in utter collapse.

While giving a speech in Munich one day, suddenly Corrie was confronted with one of the men who had been a guard in the concentration camp where she and her sister, Betsie, had endured so many days of living hell. As he made his way towards her, suddenly as if in a vision, “his overcoat and brown hat changed back to a blue uniform and a skull-and-cross-bones cap, and she was back in the concentration camp, walking past him naked along with her sister, who later died there – one of the cruelest guards of all.” How could she face him? How could her message of love and forgiveness apply in this situation? How could this man – this guard – expect her to forgive him? With an extended hand he said, “A fine message, fraulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!” Since Ravensbrück he had become a Christian and he felt in his heart that God had forgiven him for all the cruel and sinful things he had done. But now, standing before Miss ten Boom, he wanted – he needed – to hear whether she too would extend forgiveness to him. “Will you forgive me?” he said, as he put forward his hand.

As Corrie said later, it seemed like hours that she stood there, frozen in time. She knew that the Lord had forgiven her of all the sins she had ever committed, and she knew that she had to forgive the man, but how? How could she forgive this man who had been so cruel? Inside herself she said, “Betsie had died in that place – could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?” Her heart felt cold, but she knew that forgiveness was an act of the will, not some emotion that had to be stirred up at the right moment. A person could choose to forgive, or not to forgive. It was a decision, not a feeling. What should she do?

With great courage, and the silent prayer, “Help me,” Corrie stuck out her hand. As she wrote later, when she grasped his hand “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.’” Truly a miracle had taken place. This victim of unbelievable hatred and cruelty became the channel of God’s love and forgiveness – she literally became a vessel whom God used to set the captive free! She had made a choice, and that choice has become a model of how we too can extend love and forgiveness to those who have hurt us.

When Jesus was teaching His disciples about prayer, He challenged them to include the words, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Mt. 6:12, NIV). What a revolutionary way of praying, and what a revolutionary way of living! To think that the best approach to life is to forgive those who have harmed you is absolutely staggering! The reason, of course, is that forgiveness sets people free. It sets both the victim and the perpetrator free, for in forgiving others the power of God’s healing Spirit is released to soften, to shape, to cleanse, and to mend the depth of brokenness in the human heart. Perhaps this is why King David could rejoice in saying, “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him” (Ps. 32:1, 2, NIV). Indeed, how blessed is the person who knows the joy of being forgiven and the joy of extending forgiveness to others.