Corrie ten Boom – Model of Forgiveness

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven… For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? … Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.                                 (Matthew 5:44-48)

Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.                                             Corrie ten Boom

Corrie ten Boom was born and raised in Holland. She was a middle-aged woman when World War II started. If you are familiar with history you will remember that the Germans quickly took control of Holland.

The Nazis were persecuting the Jews wherever they had control and this included Holland. Corrie’s family decided to help the Jews though it was against the law. They put their lives at risk for doing this. I would recommend either the book The Hiding Place (published 1971) or the movie of the same name (released 1975) for you to get the whole remarkable story of the courage of Corrie ten Boom and her family.

The ten Boom’s got involved with the Dutch underground to help people escape from the Nazi’s. They built a secret room in their house – The Hiding Place – and hid Jews there when the Nazi’s came around for a search. The ten Boom’s were very successful and saved the lives of many people. One day in 1944 they were betrayed.

Corrie was in bed when four Jewish refugees and two underground workers suddenly came into the room and began to squeeze themselves into the hiding place. The German soldiers did not happen to come up the stairs until after they were safely hidden. Corrie was ordered to go downstairs. She would say nothing to the German soldiers. (Later Corrie would find out that the refugees escaped detection and got away safely.)

Corrie, her father, Casper ten Boom, and her sister, Betsie, were all arrested. Casper ten Boom was old and ill and he died only a few days after imprisonment. Corrie and Betsie were in several prisons and eventually sent to the formidable Ravensbruck concentration camp. The guards there were very cruel. Corrie and Betsie witnessed the torture and deaths of some of the ninety-six thousand women who were put to death at just this one concentration camp.

The sisters trusted God even in their violent surroundings. They started small Bible studies for the women and tried to comfort their fellow sufferers whenever they could. Their steadfast faith in God helped many of the other women try harder to survive.

Late in December 1944 Betsie grew so ill that the guards took her to the hospital on a stretcher. Corrie bent over to speak to her sister for the last time on this earth. Betsie encouraged Corrie, “We shall go everywhere telling people that there is no place on earth so dark that God’s love cannot shine into it. They will believe us, because we have been here in Ravensbruck.”

Betsie died shortly afterwards, only a few days before Christmas. Corrie was lonely, but she was also glad that Betsie would no longer be suffering the torture of the cruel guards.

Betsie had told Corrie that they would be free before the New Year. Amazingly she was correct, but not the way Corrie had thought. Betsie was with the Lord, free from pain. Corrie was released miraculously on December 31, 1944.

It seems that a clerical error of some sort had occurred and Corrie was discharged erroneously. Truly God had blessed her because only a week later women in Corrie’s age group were exterminated.

In the New Year, 1945 Corrie arrived home and tried to get back to her life. Her home had become a refuge for children. She taught them and other young people. She spoke at many meetings telling of her imprisonment and God’s goodness.

Soon the war was finally over and everyone in her town, Haarlem, was dancing for joy. Corrie was free now to do anything she wanted to do.

She felt that God was placing a special call on her. She wanted to fulfill hers and Betsie’s dream of telling others about God’s love. Corrie began to travel around the world preaching about God’s forgiveness and the need for reconciliation. She also built homes for concentration camp survivors. She built one at Bloemendaal, turning Betsie’s dream into a reality.

Corrie had a chance to put her own principles of forgiveness and reconciliation into action when she came face to face with one of her former guards from Ravensbruck.

In 1947, Corrie had been speaking at a church when a man came up to her to tell her that he had accepted Christ as his savior. He thanked Corrie for her message and said that he was grateful that his sins had been forgiven. He now extended his hand to Corrie and asked her for her forgiveness.

This man had been one of the especially wicked guards. Corrie and Betsie had been ordered to strip naked to be inspected by this man. There was no need for this practice other than to humiliate the women. Now as Corrie faced this man memories of that humiliation came back. Visions of the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of women’s clothes on the floor, and the pain on her gentle sister’s face came to her mind. Corrie was boiling inside.

Corrie stiffened her back. When the man extended his hand she kept her own hand at her side. How could she forgive this man after all of the cruel things he had done? But she prayed, “Lord Jesus, forgive me and help me to forgive him.” Corrie tried to smile. She struggled to raise her hand but found it impossible. She prayed again for Jesus to help her. She remembered that Christ had died for this man too. How could she ask for more?

Finally she took his hand and later recounted, ” …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. And so I discovered 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.”

“I forgive you with all my heart,” she said to the man and she meant it.

Corrie moved to America in 1977. In 1978 she was paralyzed by a stroke. Corrie went to be with the Lord on April 15, 1983 on her 91st birthday. Truly Corrie ten Boom’s story is a wonderful example of Christian faith and forgiveness.