I read The Hiding Place a few years ago, and it had a great, great impact on me. If you’ve never read it, it’s a book about Corrie Ten Boom, a Christian woman who harbored Jews with her family in WW2. It's one of those amazing books that I need to read like every week to keep myself in check. she and her sister were sent to a concentration camp, and the book outlines her experiences there along with her sister Betsy. Corrie Ten Boom’s writing really showed me an understanding of God’s love for us and let me feel his forgiveness in a new way.
Over the past few months, I have often thought about The Hiding Place, and in the middle of doing random tasks or during the work day, I would remember something from the book, a scene or a phrase. I didn’t realize that God was preparing me to face something about myself that I didn't want to face. Funny how He just does that....isn't it?
We’ve all been hurt by someone. A spouse, a parent, sibling, friend, maybe even someone we don’t even know. Some of us have been hurt in small ways by people over a long period of time, or in big ways by a person once or twice. But we’ve all experienced it, being shamed, betrayed, and hurt by another. Certainly none of us have experience this to the extent of Corrie ten Boom, but it’s easy to think that we’ve forgiven those who’ve hurt us. Then, we come in contact with them, and perhaps forgiveness is not as easy as we thought. I recently ran into someone who had hurt me in the past, and caused me a lot of pain.
For a while, I would have severe anxiety whenever I thought about him and what he had done to me, but eventually, over time, I grew to take pride in the fact that I’d "worked through" the painful experience without being bitter, forgiving him for what he’d done. But as I sat in my usual coffee shop reading on a recent Saturday morning, I glanced up to see this person who had hurt me so badly, for the first time in years, and I quickly looked back down. My heart started beating quickly, my face burned, but my heart was cold.
“It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck…and suddenly it was all there- the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain blanched face.”*
I wanted to run out of the shop. “Surely, after everything he did to me, he won’t talk to me. Surely, he’ll just leave me alone and go on his merry way. Of course, he won’t have the nerve to sit at my table and look me in the face after what he did.” Sounds forgiving, right?
“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”*
I felt the presence near me, and I looked up to stare into the smiling face of the person that I least wanted to see in this world. It was at that moment that I realized I could have gone my whole life without seeing that face again, and in fact, that’s what I had been wishing for all along. As long as this person was out of my life and out of my site, it was easy to be "forgiving". The smiling face nonchalantly pulled up a chair and had a seat at my table as if nothing had ever happened. Like we were old friends.
“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 the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.”*
Anger was boiling inside of me, but we sat and talked for a while, and I could only feel the strong urge for the conversation to be over, for this person to once again be gone from my life, along with the hurtful reminder of a very dark time.
“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....Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness....”*
I wanted to hear an apology…an explanation…something to give me the feeling of release, but instead, God kept giving me Corrie ten Boom.
“I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth of charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer.”*
We sat and talked for a while, and I felt very strongly that I should invite this person to church.
“God, this is just unacceptable! How can you expect me to do this!" Then, again there was Corrie.
“Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give your forgiveness.”*
I invited him person to my church. Invited him back into my life.
“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.”*
This invitation was quickly followed by a panic. What if he actually comes to my church and starts coming regularly?? What if I have to see this person every single Sunday for the rest of my life? God, how could I do this?
Then, Corrie reminded me of what she discovered through her experiences:
“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.”*
Praise God for His forgiveness and grace...and praise God that his grace is so large and vast and deep and generous and strong, that it loves for us when our humanity fails.
*Ten, Boom Corrie., John L.
Sherrill, and Elizabeth Sherrill. The Hiding Place. Washington
Depot, CT: Chosen, 1971. Print.
