Forgive a Nazi?

Corrie Ten Boom was a woman from Holland who had to live through the Holocaust. Corrie and her sister were cruelly tortured and abused at the Nazi concentration camp called Ravensbruk. After the war, Corrie returned to Germany to proclaim God's love, forgiveness, and hope in Jesus Christ.

One night, she was speaking in a church basement and recognized someone who terrified her: the guard who abused Corrie and her sister the most. In civilian clothes now, he came up to her after her message, stuck out his arm, and asked her to forgive him.

Here is what she said happened next: "Still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion— knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. 'Jesus, help me!' I prayed silently. I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling.' And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place . . . I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then."