Forgiveness stories -- Corrie Ten Boom

A very dramatic forgiveness story from Corrie Ten Boom's book The Hiding Place. She was a Dutch woman who was arrested by the Nazis during World War II for hiding Jews. She and her sister were in a concentration camp together, her sister died and then she was released. Two years after the war she is touring Germany speaking on how God forgives. One day she meets one of her guards from the concentration camp.

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.

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.

I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand.  I could not.  I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity.  And so again I breathed a silent prayer.  Jesus, I cannot forgive him.  Give me Your forgiveness.

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.

I appreciate her conclusion:

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. 

Forgiveness stories -- Robert E. Lee

One of my personal heroes of the Civil War is Robert E. Lee. Not because of what he did during the war, but for what he did afterwards. After surrendering to Grant, he wondered what to do with the rest of his life, and actively discouraged people from attempting to continue the struggle for southern independence as guerrillas in the wilderness. A former governor of Virginia was angry with his son when his son took the oath of loyalty to the United States, but when the son replied that General Lee recommended it, the father withdrew his objection.

Lee was offered the job of president of  Washington college (currently named Washington  and Lee University) in Virginia. After Ulysses Grant was elected President, one of the students made some public remarks insulting Grant. Lee summoned the student to his office and said if he didn't withdraw his comments about the President of the United States, "either you or I will leave this university."  I can easily imagine a different speech. "You think you have a problem with Ulysses Grant? I had to surrender to him!"

Even during the war Lee showed signs of a forgiving spirit. At the end of the battle of Gettysburg, a wounded Union soldier saw Lee riding nearby, and shouted (to taunt Lee) "Long live the Union!" Lee got off his horse, went to the man and wished him a full recovery from his wounds. The man wrote that the compassion in Lee's eyes made quite an impression on him.

Perhaps the most dramatic story of Lee's forgiving spirit is a story we aren't quite sure really happened, or if it happened, how to interpret it. The story is that in 1865, between the time of his surrender to Grant and his taking the job at Washington College, he was in church one Sunday. The congregation was shocked when a black man came forward to take communion at the end of the service. Blacks were expected to take communion in the balcony, not at the front altar. The minister hesitated, Lee went forward, and the congregation were relieved, thinking he'd put this black in his place. But instead Lee knelt beside the black man, and the minister was obliged to continue serving communion, accepting the black man's presence at the main altar.
This story is it is missing from the four volume biography of Lee written by Douglas Southall Freeman, a famous Virginian historian. It is also missing from Robert E. Lee Jr's memoir of his father's life. The oldest source for it was written in the early 1900's, 40 years after it happened. In that version, Lee's action wasn't interpreted as welcoming the black man to the front altar, it was depicted as a superior white gentleman ignoring and shunning the black man who didn't know his place.

Forgiveness stories

I have a warm spot in my heart for stories of people who forgave others. Here are three that impress me.

Peggy Covell
In the 1930s an American missionary family working in Japan decided to move to the Philippines because Japan felt dangerous for westerners. Their daughter Peggy moved back to the US for college, then World War II broke out and Japan invaded the Philippines. The Covells withdrew into the interior but the Japanese found them almost two years later, and executed them as suspected American spies. Peggy heard the news and struggled with bitterness, but realized her mom and dad in their last hours probably prayed to forgive their executioners. How could she do any less?

She volunteered at a prison camp for Japanese prisoners, befriended the prisoners and did many kindnesses for them. When they asked why she was kind to them, she told how her parents had been killed and she wanted to show love, not seek revenge.

Jacob DeShazer
Jacob DeShazer was in the US Army Air Corps and volunteered for the Doolittle raid on Tokyo in 1942. His plane crash landed in Japan and he was captured. His anger against the Japanese grew during his time in prison, until he was given a Bible, read it, and gave his life to Christ. He promised God he'd come back to Japan as a missionary after the war if he survived. In 1949 he was back in Japan distributing tracts about how he'd learned to forgive during the war.

Mitsuo Fuchida
The Japanese naval pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor lived through the war, then wondered what to do with the rest of his life. A friend of his had been prisoner in the US and known Peggy Covell, and in 1948 he saw DeShazer's pamphlet about forgiving his captors. He began to read the Bible, and saw Jesus' words "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they do" as the inspiration that had moved both Covell and DeShazer. He became a Christian, served as an evangelist, and became good friends with DeShazer.

Read more:
Peggy Covell:  http://www.potsdam-naz.org/sermons/covell.htm
Jacob DeShazer: http://jacobdeshazer.com/
Mitsuo Fuchida: http://www.biblebelievers.com/fuchida1.html

Parable of the foolish farmer

Matthew 13:3-8, Mark 4:4-8, Luke 8:4-9
Why waste seed on the path, on the shallow soil, on the weed choked soil? But God does. He doesn't worry about running out of seed, he wants to maximize the harvest. 


I think the real point is what kind of soil are we? Do we receive the Word and let it grow in our hearts?

The Savior and Private Ryan

It's been years since I watched Saving Private Ryan, but the end bugs me. Captain Miller (Tom Hanks' character) says to Private Ryan as he dies, "Earn this!" Then it flashes forward to Ryan as an old man asking his wife if he was a good man, then crying at Miller's grave.

My question is, did Ryan cry at Millers grave because he remembered with gratitude that Miller had laid down his life to save him? Or was he crushed by the burden of those last words? Would anything he ever did be good enough (unless he laid down his life for someone else) to deserve what Miller had done?

When Jesus laid down his life for us, he never said "Earn this!" He said, "Remember me, remember this, until I come again." Maybe the difference sounds subtle, but I think it is huge. We can never earn the gift Jesus gave us, we shouldn't even think of trying. But we can remember all our lives that Jesus laid down his life for us, and now wants to give us his life to live through us.

Remembering God

Now I remember what I had learned, that you look on me with compassion, not just for the great crises but in the ordinary awkwardness of life. Life, this intricate gift of yours that I often get wrong, pursue a momentary comfort or distraction rather than embrace and ask for your grace in this day, these circumstances you've given.

Forgive me when I doubt that prayer works when I look at life and see so much you haven't fixed yet, as if fixing was all you do. Remind me of those moments when I've known the peace of your presence standing with me in the unfixed mess; when I've said "I don't know why I should feel OK in this, because its so obviously not OK, but you're here with me, and the OKness of your presence is greater than the nonOKness of this circumstance.

Meditating on the Lord's Prayer -- complete

Our Father who is in heaven,
the Holy One, the Father of all Fathers, There, in heaven, You are intangible, yet not distant. Master of that unseen realm where our happiness will be complete, where the current hints of goodness in our hearts will be fulfilled and made whole, our contradictory desires reconciled, and the current ravages of evil in our hearts will be cleansed and removed.

May your Name be holy
Your name is holy, I cannot make it holy, but may I understand how holy it is, may I set myself to living out the awareness of Your holiness. May I remember that as often as you grant me success and keep me from failure, my success or my failure does not really add or detract from your wondrous nature or the glories of your plans.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
May your agenda, your mystery of reconciling all peoples in Christ go forward today. May there be a measurable step in that direction this day. May your intricate plan to overrule the powers and practices of this world advance and spread. May the secret of the eternal Word lovingly written on each heart, no matter how weak or lowly or despised, advance until the awareness of You fills the world as the waters fill the sea.

Give us this day our daily bread
Today I have new needs. Give me today what I need today. Grant me wisdom to see that I need you again today. Grant me understanding when you supply my needs but not my wants.

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us
Remind me my worst enemy is not my fellow human, but my own heart marching to the old music of autonomy and the refusal to admit dependence. I yet believe the old old story that all will be well if I could have what I want. Remind me that the one I call enemy is as loved by You as I am, and that if I understood his circumstances, I might understand what he does. Grant me the wisdom to see where I'm not any better than he.

Lead  us not into temptation
The publicity of this seen world would draw me in still if I did not pay careful attention. Give me the clarity of a mind longing for that unseen realm, already tasting the life of the world to come

But deliver us from evil
I am not yet strong enough to bear much adversity as I await your deliverance, grant that I not be overcome. But as I have reminded You of my weakness, remind me of Your strength in my weakness.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever
Once there, in that realm, the torments and difficulties of this world will be like a bad dream that I start forgetting as soon as I wake up