One of the speakers at church today (if only there could be a link to our own ward’s talks!) mentioned Corrie ten Boom, whom I had heard of before but this story I had not.
She and her family hid Jews in the Netherlands during WWII but were eventually caught and sent to a concentration camp. Her father, sister, and nephew died; Corrie was released by mistake and made her escape.
Having preached forgiveness as a moral imperative and a means of spiritual and even physical survival in the camps, she continued to do so after the War, speaking far and wide on the subject.
At the end of one of those talks, a man approached her.
I can’t even imagine. She knew exactly who he was: he had been one of the SS guards in that concentration camp.
He told her how grateful he was for what she had said–and he reached out his hand to shake hers.
Forgive him, she told herself. Practice what you just preached. Live it.
Her hand utterly refused to move.
Help me forgive him, she prayed hard.
But she knew exactly what he had done.
Finally, in agony, her inner cri de couer was, I cannot forgive him. Father, You must because I cannot–and with that her hand was suddenly freed and she reached hers out to his and in the moment they connected she described an electricity going through her to him.
And it healed him.
And it healed her.