Choosing to forgive means freedom

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you,

along with all malice.  Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, 

as God in Christ forgave you.  Ephesians 4:31-32

We have one last meeting this Fall in our small group Bible Study, discussing the topic of forgiveness.  This has been such a good study.  In my studies, I came across this account from the life of Corrie ten Boom in an online resource.  I hope that it will be an encouragement to you as you learn to forgive others.  God's forgiveness toward each of us has been so lavish and undeserved, how can we extend any less to those who have wronged us?

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  Corrie ten Boom, author of "The Hiding Place", was taken captive and spent time in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. While in prison, Corrie saw incredible abuse, so inhumane that it drove the prisoners to incredible depths, including intentionally allowing lice to breed on their bodies because the more lice they had, the less likely it would be that the guards would molest them.  And Corrie even witnessed the death of her own dear sister.

   After the war, God sent Corrie ten Boom on a mission of mercy through the war-torn cities to encourage residents to choose forgiveness over bitterness. She would motivate her audiences by sharing some of the atrocities she had experienced,  implying that if she could forgive such horrors, so could her listeners.  

   One night speaking, she immediately recognized the man who came walking down the aisle as a particularly cruel guard in one of the concentration camps. The man did not recognize her however. As he approached Corrie he said...

"Fraulein, you don't know me, but I was a guard in one of those camps. After the war, God saved me. I wish I could go back and undo those years. I can't, but I've just been prompted by God to come tonight and ask you, would you please forgive me?"

   Then he extended his hand to her. Can you imagine the horrible thoughts and memories that raced through Corrie's mind as she recognized his face and then even worse, heard his incredible plea for forgiveness? How could she? Corrie said her arms froze at her side and she was literally unable to move. The flashbacks in her mind replaying the atrocities, the death of her sister, the abuse. 

And then God's Spirit said to her,

Corrie, what have you been telling everyone else to do? As an act of your will, will you choose to forgive?

Corrie went on to explain what happened next...

I reached out my hand, and I put it in his, and I said, "You're forgiven."

She later reported that at that moment...

It was like a dam broke loose—all the bitterness and resentment—and God set me free.

Later Corrie said...

"You never so touch the ocean of God's love as when you forgive and love your enemies."

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   Corrie ten Boom told of not being able to forget a wrong that had been done to her. She had forgiven the person, but she kept rehashing the incident and so couldn't sleep. Finally Corrie cried out to God for help in putting the problem to rest. "His help came in the form of a kindly Lutheran pastor," Corrie wrote, "to whom I confessed my failure after two sleepless weeks." 

   "Up in the church tower," he said, nodding out the window, "is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But you know what? After the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging. First ding, then dong. Slower and slower until there's a final dong and it stops. I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive, we take our hand off the rope. But if we've been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn't be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They're just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down." 

   "And so it proved to be. There were a few more midnight reverberations, a couple of dings when the subject came up in my conversations, but the force -- which was my willingness in the matter -- had gone out of them. They came less and less often and at the last stopped altogether: we can trust God not only above our emotions, but also above our thoughts."

Source: preceptaustin.org // Ephesians 4:31-32 "verse by verse commentary"