The Story of Corrie Ten Boom

THIS WEEK I'm doing a bonus blog post because I heard about something last week that I didn't include this past Sunday. At Youth Group on Wednesday last week Pastor Ryan told us a story about a woman named Corrie Ten Boom, whose Dutch family helped hundreds of Jews to survive the Holocaust. I'm going to tell you the story because it is an amazing example of Christians forgiving our enemies as Christ commanded, something which is often very hard to do.

During the Second World War Corrie's father decided that whatever the cost, he and his family would help Jews to escape persecution and execution by Nazis. Teamed up with a group called the Dutch Underground, also devoted to the same purpose, they set up a special, well-concealed room behind a wall in their house, specifically in Corrie's room. They had as many as thirty Jews living in their house at a time. They would run drills with an alarm where all of the hiding Jews had to quickly clean up their plates and leave no traces, disappearing behind this wall until told it was safe. The family would house and feed Jewish families until they could make provisions for them to find safety.

One day they were betrayed by a member of the Dutch Underground. Corrie was upstairs sick in bed, dreaming that she was hearing the alarm, when Nazis came and invaded her house in search of Jews. She awakened and became aware of the threat, and proceeded to help the Jews get into their secret hiding place. The Jews were just barely sealed into their room and she had just barely returned to her bed when the Nazis entered her room and began to interrogate her about their location, beating her and demanding she reveal where they had gone.

Corrie and her family would not lie about where the Jews had gone, and they would not reveal their location. They kept silent. So the Nazis sent them away to a concentration camp, where Corrie's father and two brothers both died.
The conditions in the camp were horrendous. There was very little food, people stacked themselves in great numbers into single beds to sleep, and the women's quarters were infested with lice.

Despite this, Corrie and her sister used a (miraculously smuggled) Bible to share the gospel with the women in the camp. They had Bible study groups which went uninterrupted by the Nazis, probably because they didn't want lice! So even that pain became a blessing. Very many women were led to Christ.

Before long Corrie's sister also died. By a complete mistake made in the records Corrie was released from the concentration camp. This turned out to be an astonishing miracle because she soon found out that all of the women she had been living with had been killed at about the time she was being freed. God provided for her, and Corrie lived on to share her miraculous story in many places all over Europe.

The story continued. Once the Holocaust was over, the Dutch who had persecuted the Jews, instead of helping them like Corrie's family had, were being persecuted. Now, Corrie hosted these people and witnessed to them as she had the Jews. She forgave their crimes and helped those who were being persecuted. One day, after again telling her story and preaching about forgiveness and mercy, Corrie met a man whom she remembered from the concentration camp. He was responsible for a tremendous amount of suffering and death, and here he was listening to her sermon, professing his sheer amazement that she was able to forgive the people who killed her family and even preach to them about the forgiveness of sins. He was now a believer in Christ. He extended his hand to shake hers.

But she physically could not bring herself to shake his hand. She looked at him and remembered seeing him watching people suffer and die, and she begged Jesus in that moment to enable her to forgive this man. She tried again to raise her hand but she couldn't, so she prayed again. Now she found the strength to raise her arm and shake the man's hand.

The moment she did that, amazing and sincere love began to flow through her soul. God empowered her to love this man as He loves him, enough to forgive him and greet him, enough to let his sins fly away.

Isn't that amazing? Throughout Corrie's story we see undeniable evidence that God was with her, and that He had a use for her even during her suffering. Corrie honored God in both peaceful times and unhappy times. She obeyed Jesus in a way that I hope and pray we all could learn to obey Him. She helped whoever needed help, whether innocent or guilty. She witnessed despite the threat of death. She forgave her greatest enemy in an act which was as hard as moving a mountain. It was only possible because God was strengthening her and protecting her. He did that because she was obedient to Him whatever the cost to her.

This amazing story of forgiveness and obedience makes me hope to one day have the devotion Corrie had. If God, in His perfection and holiness, is willing to forgive us, then we should be willing to forgive anyone who hurts us, no matter what the offence. I've experienced how hard it is to forgive someone after being hurt, but I've learned that with forgiveness comes joy which far outweighs the hurt brought about by a lack of mercy. That joy is felt not only by the forgiven and the forgiver, but also by God, who is very pleased when we forgive others. And as we can see from the way He answered Corrie's prayer, if we ask Him He will actually fill our hearts with enough love to love others enough to forgive them.

Matthew 6:14-15, the words of Jesus: "[14]For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. [15] But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."