"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....Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness....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"
About this Quote
The subtext is a quiet dismantling of modern self help forgiveness, the kind that treats healing as a personal achievement badge. Ten Boom admits failure in plain speech - "I cannot forgive him" - and that confession is the pivot. She reframes forgiveness less as emotional sincerity and more as borrowed power, almost like spiritual outsourcing: if love is commanded, love must also be supplied. It s a theology of dependency dressed as a survival strategy.
Context matters: Ten Boom, a Holocaust survivor who helped hide Jews, is writing from a world where "enemy" is not metaphor. That gives the passage its hard credibility. The intent isn t to shame trauma into compliance; it s to locate healing somewhere other than the wounded self. By shifting the hinge of the world s repair from "our goodness" to "His", she offers a psychologically bracing idea: you don t have to manufacture sanctity out of ash. You only have to stop pretending you can.
Quote Details
| Topic | Forgiveness |
|---|---|
| Source | The Hiding Place — Corrie ten Boom; passage from her memoir describing forgiveness of a former guard (commonly quoted from her account of forgiveness). |
| Cite | Cite this Quote |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Boom, Corrie Ten. (2026, January 14). 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....Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness....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. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/even-as-the-angry-vengeful-thoughts-boiled-172859/
Chicago Style
Boom, Corrie Ten. "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....Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness....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." FixQuotes. January 14, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/even-as-the-angry-vengeful-thoughts-boiled-172859/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"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....Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness....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." FixQuotes, 14 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/even-as-the-angry-vengeful-thoughts-boiled-172859/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.
