MEDITATION:
Written by Pete Greig, a contemporary church planter, author and co-founder of the 24-7 Prayer Movement. This is an excerpt from his book “How to Pray.”
Corrie ten Boom’s family helped Dutch Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during the Second World War. They were eventually caught, and Corrie was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp with her sister Betsie, who later died there. Corrie endured unimaginable horrors, yet her life was marked by an unshakable trust in her heavenly Father and was punctuated by prayer. She seems to have lived in an almost continual conversation with God, asking and trusting in her heavenly Father for everything. “If a care is too small to be turned into a prayer,” she said, it is too small to be made into a burden.”
Several years after the war, Corrie ten Boom was speaking about her experiences in Munich, when one of her former S.S. guards approached her at the end of the church service. As Corrie ten Boom tells the story in her book The Hiding Place: “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…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 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. 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.
PRAYER:
Written by Cheryce Rampersad, a contemporary Christian author and blogger.
Father, bless me with the wonderful power of forgiveness, give me the grace to unconditionally forgive those who have done me wrong. Fill my heart with love toward my fellowman. Let kindness be my first nature. Let peace consume my thoughts and tranquility overtake my soul. Free me of all anger, bitterness, hate, and unforgiveness.
Pathways Press.com 