CORNELIA WAS BORN in 1892, the youngest daughter of a watchmaker. She and her family were members of the Dutch Reformed Church, and during World War II had a dangerous ministry of hiding Jews from the Nazis in a secret room in their home.

When an informant betrayed them, the entire family was arrested. The father died in prison, and Cornelia and her sister were sent to a concentration camp. Over time, she had to watch her beloved sister’s health deteriorate to the point of death. And miraculously, less than two weeks later, she was set free, even while other women were being sent to the gas chambers.

Her release had been a clerical error.

Corrie ten Boom went on to become a well-known evangelist and writer; her memoir, The Hiding Place, was later made into a movie. Understandably, given the trauma and loss she had experienced, she sometimes struggled to forgive the Nazis, even as she spread the gospel.

One night after the war, having preached to a German audience, a man approached her to say thank you for such a fine message on the forgiveness of sin. With a searing flash of memory she recognized him as one of the SS officers from her concentration camp. Images of her dying sister flooded her imagination. He did not recognize her, however, and extended his arm to shake her hand.

She stood frozen to the spot. She knew she could take his hand woodenly, without an ounce of forgiveness in her heart. But she also knew this would be the height of hypocrisy, given the message she had just preached.

So she prayed, and God did another miracle. She could feel the warmth of the Holy Spirit flowing down her arm to where their hands were clasped in friendship. She forgave him fully, wholeheartedly.

It’s an inspiring story of faith and forgiveness, one that you may already have heard. But it’s important that we include what happened after.

Her forgiveness toward the SS guard was honestly given, and in the moment, she felt the full freedom of it. But in later years, she would be hurt and betrayed by friends. She found herself laying awake at night, ruminating over the injustice.

Again, she prayed. And again. She wrestled nightly for two weeks until she was visited by a Lutheran pastor who told her what she needed to hear. Looking out the window, the pastor gestured toward a church with a bell tower. You have to pull a rope to ring the bell, he essentially told her. But even after you let go of the rope, the bell keeps swinging and ringing for a while, until it slows down and stops. That’s how it is with forgiveness and old grievances. We can make a decision to let go of the rope. But we can also expect to keep hearing the ringing for a while.

She still had other lessons to learn about forgiveness, other revelations of people toward whom she still harbored resentment and bitterness. But she was faithful in forgiving them too. And not surprisingly, in telling her story, she stands upon the words of the Lord’s Prayer:

And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors. (Matt 6:12)

THE PASTOR’S METAPHOR of the ringing bell is an apt one; he seemed to have an intuitive understanding of what today we would call the psychology of trauma. Our brains are already wired in a way that self-protectively remembers harmful or threatening events and tags them with negative emotions to help us steer clear of similar situations in the future. In the case of trauma, those associations are burned into our implicit memories; we can have a gut-churning reaction to something that’s happening right now and not even know why.

So when Jesus emphasizes the importance of forgiveness, even to the point of saying that God won’t forgive us unless we forgive others, it can be a hard sell. “Forgive and forget” is a nice slogan, but to people who have been abused, it can sound unrealistic, even unfair. Maybe, just maybe, I can forgive, if I really have to, they might think. But forget? Never. I can’t. I don’t want to.

How, then, do we take what Jesus says seriously? Let me make four suggestions.

First, we need to recognize that even if forgiveness is an act of will, it needs to be empowered by God. Here, we can follow Corrie ten Boom’s example. We may not have it in us to truly forgive someone who’s hurt us deeply, but God can do the miracle for those who desire it.

Second, we must also remember that even with such miraculous help, forgiveness is not one-and-done. The old hurts will continue to resurface, pushing us back toward anger, fear, and resentment. If we are choosing to forgive, we are choosing to continue to forgive, as many times as it takes, as long as it takes.

Third, as in the Lord’s Prayer, we must continue to lean humbly into the knowledge that we, too, are sinners. We have sinned against God; we have sinned against others. There may even be people who are harboring long-standing grudges against us, whether we’re aware of them or not. But as in Jesus’ parable of the unmerciful servant, can we truly say that we understand the mercy of God if we won’t show that mercy to others in turn?

And finally, pragmatically, let’s remember what Jesus said at the end of Matthew 5:

You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. (vss. 43-45)

We may not be able to forgive someone right in the moment. But we can commit to praying for them. That doesn’t mean, of course, angrily praying that God would convict or punish them. Can we pray for God’s blessing upon them? Can we pray compassionately for their needs? And if not, can we at least pray that God would help us pray that way?

A strange thing can happen when we do. We begin, sometimes in a moment, sometimes only little by little, to see the other person as God does: not as a horrific monster, but as a fallible, broken person who is deeply loved by God. Like us. Like all of humanity, created in God’s image.

Forgiveness, especially for our most important hurts, is a process, a journey. But we can be assured that God will love us through every step of it, if we will indeed take that first step.