I can lift my hand

Many of you will have heard of Corrie Ten Boom. During the war her family hid Jews above their family shop until she and her sister Betsie were arrested by the Nazis and put in Ravensbrook concentration camp. There Betsie died.

After the war Corrie was speaking in a church in Munich. Then, as she shook hands with people, she found herself confronted by a man she recognised as having been a guard in the comp. She heard him saying, 'You mentioned Ravensbrook in your talk, I was a guard there. But since that time I have become a Christian. I know God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear from your lips as well. Fräulein, will you forgive me?'

Corrie says that she could not. Betsie had died in that place. Could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking? Corrie says that it could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out. But to her it seemed hours as she wrestled with the most difficult decision she had ever had to make.

She stood there with coldness clutching her heart. But she knew that forgiveness is not an emotion, it is an act of the will - she had to hand on the forgiveness she knew.

‘Jesus help me,’ she prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand; I can so that much. You supply the feeling.’

So woodenly, mechanically, she thrust out her hand into the one outstretched to her and offered the forgiveness God had given her. As she did, an incredible thing took place. She says that the current started in her shoulder, raced down her arm and sprang into their joined hands. Then a healing warmth seemed to flood her whole being, bringing tears to her eyes.

‘I forgive you, brother,’ she cried, ‘ with all my heart!’

For a long moment they grasped each others hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. Corrie had never known God’s love so intensely as she did then. She was able to forgive as she had been forgiven.

Drive The Point Home, Graham Twelftree, p72