{"id":2564,"date":"2017-07-10T11:05:43","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T11:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theprodigalpig.com\/?p=2564"},"modified":"2017-06-28T13:49:28","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T13:49:28","slug":"will-you-forgive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.theprodigalpig.com\/?p=2564","title":{"rendered":"Will You Forgive?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Me:\u00a0 What is all that yelling about?<\/p>\n

Prodigal:\u00a0 He’s as useful as a fork at a supper of soup.<\/p>\n

Me:\u00a0 Well, lower your voice and calm down.\u00a0 What ever this is all about just separate, spend some time praying and maybe God will show you how your heart should be.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is from Corrie ten Boom<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was in a church in Munich that I saw him—a balding, heavy-set man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands.\u00a0 People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken and moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear.\u00a0 The year was 1947, and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.<\/p>\n

This was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture.\u00a0 Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown.\u00a0 “When we confess our sins,”\u00a0 I said, “God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever.\u00a0 And even though I cannot find a Scripture for it, I believe God then places a sign out there that says, “No Fishing Allowed.”<\/p>\n

The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe.\u00a0 There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947.\u00a0 People stood up in silence, collected their wraps in silence, left the room in silence.<\/p>\n

And that’s when I saw him working his way forward against the others.\u00a0 One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush:\u00a0 the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man.\u00a0 I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin.\u00a0 Betsie, how thin you were!<\/p>\n

The place was Ravensbruck, and the man who was making his way forward had been a guard–one of the cruelest guards.<\/p>\n

Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out:\u00a0 “A fine message, Fraulein! How good it is to know that ,as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!”<\/p>\n

And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand.\u00a0 He would not remember me, of course—how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?<\/p>\n

But I remember him and the leather crop swinging from his belt.\u00a0 I was face-to-face with one of my captors, and my blood seemed to freeze.<\/p>\n

“You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,” he was saying.\u00a0 “I was a guard there.”\u00a0 No, he did not remember me.<\/p>\n

“But since that time,” he went on, “I have become a Christian.\u00a0 I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well.\u00a0 Fraulein”–again the hand came out–“will you forgive me?”<\/p>\n

And I stood there–I whose sins had again and again needed to be forgiven–and could not forgive.\u00a0 Betsie had died in that place–could he erase her slow, terrible death simply by the asking?<\/p>\n

It could not have been many seconds that he stood there–hand held out–but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.<\/p>\n

For I had to do it–I knew that.\u00a0 The message that God forgives has a prior condition:\u00a0 that we forgive those who have injured us.\u00a0 “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,”\u00a0 Jesus says, “neither will your Father in Heaven forgive your trespasses.”<\/p>\n

I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience.\u00a0 Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality.\u00a0 Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were also able to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars.\u00a0 Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids.\u00a0 It was as simple and horrible as that.<\/p>\n

And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart.\u00a0 But forgiveness is not an emotion–I knew that, too.\u00a0 Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.\u00a0 Jesus, help me!\u00a0 I prayed silently.\u00a0 I can lift my hand.\u00a0 I can do that much.\u00a0 You supply the feeling.<\/p>\n

So, woodenly and mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me.\u00a0 And as I did, an incredible thing took place.\u00a0 The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, and sprang into our joined hands.\u00a0 And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.<\/p>\n

“I forgive you, brother!” I cried.\u00a0 “With all my heart.”<\/p>\n

For a long moment, we grasped each other’s hands–the former guard and the former prisoner.\u00a0 I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.\u00a0 But even so,\u00a0 I realized it was not my love.\u00a0 I had tried and did not have the power of the Holy Spirit as recorded in Romans 5:5<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Romans 5:5<\/p>\n

Because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jennifer Van Allen<\/p>\n

www.theprodigalpig.com<\/p>\n

www.faithincounseling.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Me:\u00a0 Well, lower your voice and calm down.\u00a0 What ever this is all about just separate, spend some time praying and maybe God will show you how your heart should be.   This is from Corrie … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWill You Forgive? - The Prodigal Pig<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theprodigalpig.com\/?p=2564\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Will You Forgive? - The Prodigal Pig\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Me:\u00a0 What is all that yelling about? 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