Day 6: Loving when it's hard...

We don't always feel like loving.  We don't always want to love.  Sometimes we need to remember that really, without God's help, we can't truly love at all, especially in the way that we have been reading about so far.  But with God's help, our love can, and indeed already has, changed the world.  We just need to ask him to help us and then step out in faith.

Today's post is more reading than usual, but it is so worth reading.  The extract is taken from Tramp for the Lord, by Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch Christian who tells of her life and walk with God after the Second World War.  During the war Corrie and her sister Betsie (and other members of her family) were imprisoned in a concentration camp, but despite appalling conditions and cruel abuse by the German guards, they were both used wonderfully by God to tell the other prisoners about the love of Jesus.  Betsie died in the camp but Corrie survived and continued to tell others throughout the world of her experiences and God's amazing love...

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

It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favourite mental picture.  Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander's mind, I liked to think that that's where forgiven sins were thrown.  "When we confess our sins," I said, "God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever.  And though I cannot find a Scripture for it, I believe God then places a sign out there that says: NO FISHING ALLOWED."

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

The place was Ravensbruck and the man who was making his way forward had been a guard - one of the most cruel guards.

Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: "A fine message, Fraulein!  How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!"

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

But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt.  I was face-to-face with one of captors and my blood seemed to freeze.

"You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk," he was saying.  "I was a guard there."  No, he didn't remember me.  "But since that time," he went on, "I have become a Christian.  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.  Fraulein," - again the hand came out - "will you forgive me?"

And I stood there - I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven - and could not forgive.   Betsie had died in that place - could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

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.

For I had to do it - I knew that.  The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us.  "If you do not forgive men their trespasses," Jesus says, "neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses."

I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience.

... And I still stood there with a coldness clutchign my heart.  But forgiveness is not an emotion - I knew that too.  Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.  "Jesus, help me!" I prayed silently.  "I can lift my hand.  I can do that much.  You supply the feeling."

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

"I forgive you, brother!" I cried.  "With all my heart."

For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner.  I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.  But even so, I realised it was not my love.  I had tried, and did not have the power.  It was the power of the Holy Spirit as recorded in Romans 5:5: we feel this warm love everywhere within us because God has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

Today, you will probably not have to face anything like Corrie Ten Boom did, but you may well be faced with situations in which you don't "feel" loving and in which you need God's love to fill you in order to love like God does.  Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you now and rely on God's love within you as you Love 40 days.

For the kids:
If it is appropriate for you children, read the story, or abridge it to tell of a lady who had been very badly hurt by somebody who later met Jesus and realised how bad his choices had been.  He said sorry to the lady and asked her for forgiveneess but she didn't really want to forgive him because she had been so hurt.  Instead of saying no, or pretending, she asked God to help her forgive, and love the person who had been so hurtful.  And God set her free and filled her with love to give to the man, even though she didn't think this was possible.

Talk together about any examples of times that the children have found it difficult to love after somebody has hurt them - whether it is a big or small hurt - and pray with them that God would set them free and fill them with love to give away.