Corrie ten Boom & Nazi Guard

Years after her experience in a Nazi Germany concentration camp, Corrie ten Boom found herself standing face to face with one of the most cruel and heartless German guards she had ever met in the camps.  This man had humiliated and degraded both her and her sister, jeering at them and visually "raping" them as they stood in the delousing shower.

Now he stood before her with an outstretched hand, asking, "Will you forgive me?"

Corrie said, "I stood there with coldness clutching at my heart, but I know that the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.  I prayed, "Jesus, help me!"  Woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me and I experienced an incredible thing.  The current started in my shoulder, raced down into my arm and sprang
into our clutched hands.  Then this warm reconciliation seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.  'I forgive you, brother,' I cried with my whole heart.  For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard, the former prisoner.  I have never known the love of God so intensely as I did in that moment!"

When we forgive we set a prisoner free -- ourselves.

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