Forgiveness

Last night I saw a really moving play called the Hiding Place - based on Corrie ten Boom's book of the same name. It is all about how her Christian faith, and her belief in God helped her forgive a Nazi soldier who she had seen beating other women up in a concentration camp.

The book is set in Holland during the Second World War, Corrie and her family hid Jews and did some resistance work. Eventually she got arrested, put in prison (where she tried to convert the chief officer) and then sent to a concentration camp. After she got released, near the end of the war she went round Europe preaching about forgiveness. On one such occasion, a man came up to her, and told her he was a guard at that concentration camp, and has since become a Christian. He then asks her to forgive him. She prays that Jesus will help her to forgive him, and says that she will shake his hand. As she shakes his hands, she is suddenly able to forgive him.

It got me thinking - if she can forgive him for that, how is it that I find it hard to forgive people that do lesser things?