Leonardo da Vinci created the world-famous painting „The Last Supper“. It shows Jesus with his disciples at the Last Supper. When Leonardo painted this picture, he had an argument with another artist. He became bitter and wanted revenge. He painted the face of Judas as the face of this other artist. He wanted to brand him by depicting him as a traitor to Jesus.

When Leonardo wanted to paint the face of Jesus a little later, he was strangely unable to make any progress. Something seemed to be hindering his best efforts. Eventually it occurred to him that this might be connected to his revenge on the other artist. Do you know what he did?

He painted over the face of Judas and began to paint the face of Jesus again. This time he succeeded so well that generations have marvelled at the painting ever since.

This is a lesson for us. As long as we „paint Judas faces“ with unpleasant feelings or anger or bitterness, the Spirit of God cannot really introduce us to Jesus. However, our relationship with him determines our life. (1 John 5:12)

I have written to you in detail about how we can obtain forgiveness for ourselves.¹ So today we want to look at the problem of how, when and why we can and should forgive others. Surprisingly, this has good effects for both of us. More on this later.

Jesus' teaching on obtaining forgiveness and granting forgiveness

„Then Peter turned to Jesus and asked him, »Lord, if my brother or sister is guilty against me, how many times must I forgive them? Seven times?« Jesus replied: »No, not seven times, but seventy times seven!« Jesus continued: »Realise what it means that God has begun to establish his reign! He is acting like the king who wanted to settle accounts with the stewards of his goods. Right at the beginning, a man was brought to him who owed him a million [the amount of £10,000 is equivalent to €6,000,000]. As he was unable to pay, the lord ordered him to sell his wife, children and all his possessions and use the proceeds to pay off the debt. But the debtor prostrated himself before him and pleaded: ‚Be patient with me! I want to pay you back everything. The Lord took pity on him, released him and cancelled the entire debt.

Just outside, this man met a colleague who owed him a small amount [the amount of 10 silver pennies equals €10]. He grabbed him by the throat, choked him and said: ‚Give me back what you owe me! The debtor fell to his knees and begged: ‘Be patient with me! I want to give it back to you! But his creditor wouldn't hear of it and had him thrown into prison until he had paid the debt. When his other colleagues saw this, they couldn't believe it. They ran to their master and told him what had happened. He sent for the man and said, ‚What a wicked man you are! I have cancelled all your debt because you asked me to. Couldn't you have had mercy on your colleague, just as I had mercy on you? Then, full of anger, he handed him over to the torturers to be punished until he had repaid the whole debt. This is how my Father in heaven will treat you if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.‘ (Matthew 18:21-35 GNB)

¹ Article: “How can I receive God's love and forgiveness? - How do I receive forgiveness? How can my guilt problem be solved?”

Can my guilt, which has been forgiven me, fall back on me?
If so, why?

This parable of Jesus is about receiving forgiveness for ourselves and granting forgiveness to others.

There was a man who owed millions. The king had cancelled this huge debt. Now this man, who had been shown this generous favour, refuses to forgive a small debt to one of his debtors. Here was a man who had received immeasurable forgiveness, but he was not prepared to grant just a little forgiveness to another. The ratio was almost one in a million.

The magnanimous king depicted in this example is God. God cancels an immeasurable debt for those who entrust themselves to his grace. It is about the guilt of my whole life. Because of this enormous forgiveness, the Lord expects us to forgive our debtors their much smaller debts.

Jesus shows us that our debt to God is a million times greater than any debt that a fellow human being can have towards us. What you and I owe to God is a million times greater than what a fellow human being owes us. What did the king do to that hard-hearted man?

Because he didn't forgive the other person's small debt, he was asked to pay the millions again. And because he couldn't pay them, he was finished. The ratio of one to a million shows that we are actually very big fools if we don't forgive others, because our loss is infinitely greater than that of the other person.

„This is how my Father in heaven will treat you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.“ (Matth. 18,35 GNT)

What Jesus says here applies to each and every one of us. There is no exception. It applies to you and me.

Experience: A burden came back

An elderly woman had found contact with us. She was in great need. She had been to a fortune teller many years ago. As a result, she suffered from a compulsion to curse. We showed her the way to Jesus. She confessed to God all the sins of her life that she remembered. We then prayed for her deliverance. She was set free immediately. But some time later, the burden returned. What had happened? She had met a woman on the street who had once done something bad to her. She didn't want to forgive her. She would rather perish than forgive. So Satan was able to defeat her. Her burden returned. We prayed that she would be willing to forgive. After two weeks, she did. The Lord set her free again and from then on she remained free.

If this woman had remained in the sin of unforgiveness, she would not only have been left with the burden that caused her great hardship every day, but she would also have faced additional difficulties of various kinds and lost her eternal life. The marvellous thing is that we can let God give us the power to forgive. Jesus is the victor. He also wants to give us victory.

It is Jesus' commandment: „But when you pray, forgive your fellow men if you have anything against them, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.“ (Mark 11:25 GNT)

God forgives us our enormous guilt. He tells us: „I have forgiven all your guilt; it has disappeared like the mist before the sun. Turn to me, for I will set you free.“ (Is. 44,22 GNT)

By not forgiving, we risk losing our own forgiveness, which we have received or expect from God. We also ruin our character. Not forgiving can have one or more of the following effects on ourselves:

• undefined fear
• depressive moods
• a feeling of listlessness
• Loss of initiative
• Hate
• aggressive behaviour
• Insomnia
• Headaches, migraines
• Stomach ulcers
• Loneliness
• Contact difficulties

You can compare not forgiving with storing toxic waste. At some point, the barrels rust through and the poison spreads. It's the same with not forgiving. It insidiously destroys our lives. We should forgive because not forgiving impairs our fellowship with one another, perhaps even destroys it. Genuine fellowship with God and genuine fellowship with people are closely connected. (1 John 4:20) If I withhold my forgiveness from someone, I simultaneously jeopardise my fellowship with the person concerned and with God.

One crucial thing

Am I only expected to forgive if someone comes and confesses? What if no one repents and confesses?

„If your brother has done wrong, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. Even if he trespasses against you seven times a day, forgive him when he comes and says, “I am sorry. (Lk 17:3.4 GNT)

When someone comes and confesses, it goes without saying that God expects our forgiveness. „Rebuke him!“  means „to bring to justice with care“. And - this word of Jesus shows: We should accept the word of others. We should take his word for it. Wouldn't we say after the third time at the latest: I don't believe a word you say?

The other case: „And when you stand and pray, forgive if you something against someone that your Father in heaven also may forgive you your trespasses.“ (Mark 11:25 LU)

This is about the Forgiven before God if no one comes and repents and confesses. The Lord also expects this. It even depends on whether we ourselves receive forgiveness. However, there may still be a need for dialogue. The point of such a dialogue is to open the other person's eyes to their wrong ways and to persuade them to repent.

We see a little later that Jesus and also Stephen practised forgiveness before God.

The great scope of forgiveness before God

The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth:

„Whom you forgive, I also forgive. If I had anything to forgive, I did it long ago for your sake before Christ. For we know all too well Satan's intentions and how he wants to bring us down. But he shall not succeed.“ (2 Cor 2:10, 11 Hfa)

Satan wants to bring us down by not forgiving us. We want to avoid this at all costs.

The apostle Paul describes forgiveness without anyone coming to confess anything as „forgiveness before Christ“. We can also call it that: Forgiveness before God.

The word was coined by the Austrian poet Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach:

We should always forgive.
To the repentant for his own sake,
the reulose for our sake.

In the valuable book „Thoughts from the Mount of Beatitudes“ it says: „Those who are not prepared to forgive block the channel through which God's mercy flows to them. We must not give in to the idea that we may withhold our forgiveness from the offender as long as he has not confessed his fault.“ ²

² E.G. White, Thoughts from the Mount of Beatitudes (Advent-Verlag Hamburg) p.127

God is love (1 John 4:8 LU). One consequence of his love is kindness, mercy and patience. Psalm 103, which is called ‚The Song of God's Mercy‘, says in verses 8-13 GNT:

„The Lord is full of kindness and mercy, full of boundless love and patience. He does not constantly accuse and does not hold grudges forever. He does not punish us even though we deserve it, he does not make us pay for our wrongs. As immeasurably great as the heavens are, so great is God's goodness to his own. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our guilt from us. The Lord loves all who honour him as a father loves his children.“

We can clearly see here that forgiveness has its basis in the selfless love of God. „Let the wicked forsake his way, and the transgressor his thoughts, and turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for with him is much forgiveness“. (Isa. 55:7 LU)

With this promise, we can ask for and receive the power of forgiveness from the infinite treasure of our God. God gives it to us.

My first prayer experience with reference to promises in the Bible

It happened in my early days as a pastor. I had been away on business for a few days. When I got home, I looked through the post. Among them was a letter from my superior in Munich. Enclosed was a copy of a letter that a brother from my congregation in Regensburg had written to him. He had told him that I hadn't done something. I knew immediately that this was a mistake, because I had taken care of the matter. My first thought the next morning was: Why did my brother write to Munich instead of contacting me here? I didn't want to be angry with him, but after a while I realised that I had bad feelings towards him. So I prayed the following prayer:

How did it end? After the prayer, I went to work. When I thought about this request about an hour later, I clearly knew all the details. But it no longer burdened me inwardly at all. During the Bible discussion in the next service, I was able to let it slip in quite imperceptibly that I had consciously dealt with this matter. The brother came to me during the break and wanted to apologise. I said to him: „I know what you're trying to tell me. Everything is all right again.“ We shook hands. When I said goodbye to him at the end of the service, we looked into each other's eyes for a moment longer. We had both become happy again.

A few years ago, I read a book that made a big impression on me: ³ I would like to report on this:

³ Catherine Marshall, „Step by Step“, Friedrich Bahn Verlag, Chapter 3; out of print. It is no longer in print.

Why were his prayers not answered?

A retired missionary to Africa was a guest of Katharina and Leonhard. He told them: „You told me that a series of unanswered prayers was causing you problems. I have found out in my life that the basic attitude of forgiveness is a condition for my prayers to be answered.“

He continued: „A few years ago, I went through a phase where my prayers lacked all strength, so I prayed: “Lord, I don't have enough faith. Give me more faith. But then I realised that it wasn't my faith, but my reservations and reproaches, my prejudices against a whole lot of people. This was the problem why my prayers were not answered."

I think we all agree that not forgiving means having something against someone. Jesus said: „But when you pray, you should forgive your fellow human beings, if you have something against them, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.“ (Mk. 11, 25 GNT) Jesus' mission is to forgive.

Who is „someone“? What is „something“?

Someone! That can only mean: Anyone, anyone, without exception. And what does something mean? It means anything, no matter what; everything, whatever it may be; everything, without exception. Forgive me if you have something against someone.

If I feel that I have been wronged, then I should forgive the other person. It may be that it was actually wrong or that I just feel it was. The other person may not even see it as an injustice. Maybe it wasn't wrong, but I see it that way. It may even be that I tell the other person that I forgive them and they say to me: I don't know what you have to forgive me for.

Jesus asks us to forgive all individual injustices and all wrongs done to us. There is a dangerous plea in the Lord's Prayer:

„Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive all have, who have become guilty of us.“ (Mt 6:12 GNB)

The epilogue to this in the Lord's Prayer reads: „If you forgive others for what they have done to you, your Father in heaven will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses.“ (Mt 6:14.15 GNB)

Ralph Luther says: „Our debtors are not only those who have expressly offended us, but all people who owe us something in terms of understanding, consideration, helpfulness, gratitude, friendship or whatever else. It is up to us to cancel their debt.”⁴

⁴ New Testament Dictionary, p. 264/65, keyword „Vergebung (unter Menschen)

„... if you stand and pray, forgive.“ (Mark 11:25 LU) According to this word of Jesus, we should forgive in our next prayer, but what do we do if we lack the willingness to do so? Then we can pray for the willingness and the strength to do so. God is ready to help us. The adjacent prayer could read something like this:

(May I recommend: When you pray these prayers, pray out loud. This helps us to concentrate much better. We do not need to include the text in brackets in our prayers).

Jesus and Stephen „forgave before God“

Jesus practised this himself. He prayed on the cross without anyone apologising to him in the slightest: Father, forgive them! They do not know what they are doing.“ (Luk 23:34 GNT). To this day, none of us has suffered such a terrible injustice as our Lord Jesus. Jesus immediately forgave personally and also interceded.

Stephen also practised this when he was stoned to death: „Then he [Stephen] knelt down and cried out loudly: Lord, do not punish them for this sin!“ (Acts 7:59 GNT) That means: Lord, I forgive them and please forgive them too!

Bible translations used:
GNÜ The Good News and GNB Good News Bible, German Bible Society and Kath. Bibelwerk e.V., Stuttgart
LU Luther translation 1972, Austrian Bible Society
Hfa Hope for all, Fontis-Brunnen-Basel
KÜ Kürzinger translation, Pattloch-Verlag, Aschaffenburg

After the missionary's visit, Katharina and Leonhard began systematically dismantling and cancelling their something against the many Jemands. How did they do this? Every morning, they took half an hour separately to write down their reproaches, accusations and reservations about others. Afterwards, they met for a prayer meeting in which they forgave their fellow human beings.

They had recognised that the past must be openly confessed and cleared away, as far as this is possible, if one wants to live in full freedom. The glorious freedom of God's children is also linked to forgiveness: It makes us free to forgive. The forgiveness received from Christ proves itself in the granting of forgiveness to my neighbour.

They started as far back in the past as they could remember. Every morning, they worked through a different period of their lives. They dug up people and situations that were hidden deep in their subconscious. They went through their childhood, indeed their whole life. They brought all their anger before God and under his forgiveness. When they came to the present, they realised that they had a disturbed relationship with some people, which was disguised under certain excuses:

• It doesn't suit me.
• I think I'm allergic to that one.
• Oh, I don't know, there's always an unpleasant sizzle between us.
• I better get out of the way

They realised that this did not exist in Jesus' eyes. So they decided to release these people inwardly, so to speak, whether they liked their ways or not. Perhaps you could put it this way: they forgave them for being different from what they wanted them to be. Katharina and Leonhard discovered that this clearing out clears the way for them to love people. „If the Son of God makes you free, then you are free indeed.“ (Joh. 8,36 GNÜ)

Have we already let ourselves be set free from reservations, accusations, anger, prejudice, from unforgiveness in any form? Jesus sets us free to forgive and to love. Those who do not forgive are themselves bound. He must constantly think of the other person.

Forgiveness sets us free. I think, in a way, it also frees the person I have forgiven. The other person somehow senses that the atmosphere has been cleared or changed.

Can my ‚forgiveness before God‘ have an effect on the other person?

The old missionary to Africa had become convinced that his forgiveness would lead to concrete effects of God in the lives of the people we had forgiven. At the beginning, Katharina and Leonhard had little faith that their confessions and prayers would bring about positive changes in the lives of the people concerned. It seemed too simple that the process of forgiving and withdrawing accusations should have such an impact.

You have done it thoroughly. And that's certainly a good thing. I've done it too. They forgave all the somethings against all the someones. In doing so, they realised that the easiest ways are the most sustainable when we follow Jesus' instructions. There is no better and easier way than Jesus' instructions.

My forgiveness can even bring about repentance in the other person whom I have forgiven.

Linda's behaviour

When Katharina married Leonhard - they were both widowed - she had a 12-year-old stepdaughter: Linda. There were many problems over the years (from Katharina's point of view). She thought Linda was a moody girl. Katharina prayed and endeavoured to love the girl. Things went well for a while, then came another crisis.

Katharina forgives Linda before God

It was precisely at this time that they realised how to forgive. Katharina was very depressed about Linda. She spent a whole morning writing down all her reservations and accusations against Linda - right back to when she joined the family - and taking them back. There was a list with three full pages.

Linda was visiting her grandmother at the time. Neither Katharina nor Leonhard informed Linda that they had prayed about this. A few weeks after these confessions came the turning point in Linda's life. Linda had come home.

Linda converts

She tells the following story: „One particular moment has left an indelible impression on me. I was still standing with one foot on the bathroom tiles and the other in the shower. At that moment, it struck me like a bolt of lightning that „One foot in - the other foot out“ was an exact reflection of my life. I had been on the verge of giving my life to God on several occasions. But somehow I didn't. I was living in marked contradiction to him. I felt that this was the moment of decision - for HIM or against HIM. Now I had to make a decision. There was no avoiding it now. As I stood there, I carefully weighed up what it would cost me to take God's side. I realised that I would have to give up some things in my life. But I was tired of living in two worlds and choosing neither. I was at the end of my rope and reached for His peace. I took a deep breath and then said out loud, „Lord, I choose You.“

Difficulties and challenges

The following day brought hours of difficult dialogue. There were honest admissions in the family circle. For Linda, it was a farewell to years of hostility and guilt. For her parents, it was the realisation of mistakes, false fears and a lack of understanding. A short time later, Linda was baptised.

Forgive if you have something against someone

Katharina and Leonhard had been worried because their prayers had not been answered for a while. The amazing thing was that in the time before that, when their prayers had been answered, the „somethings“ had also been there, and yet they had experienced answers to their prayers. This shows that it is possible that some of your prayers will be answered. Maybe you just mean that they have been answered. „God sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45) and is kind to the ungrateful“ (Luke 6:35). Perhaps some apparent answers are not an answer to your prayers at all, but an act of God's mercy.

I wish you and I an unclouded, living relationship with our Lord and constant answers to prayer. What can we recognise by our willingness to forgive? By our willingness to forgive, we can recognise for ourselves whether and to what degree we are connected to Jesus.

I am convinced that God is pleased with every person who forgives another. However, anyone who wants to walk this path with certainty and with lasting results would do well to consider the following points.

1. Am I a born-again Christian? (John 3:1-21; 1 John 5:13) It is important to live in a real relationship with God so that he can hear my prayer.
2. I have to make sure that there is no sin in my life that has yet to be confessed, i.e. that all my own sins are forgiven. Here we will probably have to confess to God, among other things, that we were angry with our brother and perhaps that we did not forgive him immediately. We can pray here with the promise from 1 John 1:9: If we confess, he will forgive us.
3. Having received forgiveness for my guilt does not necessarily mean that I am also free from my anger, resentment and unpleasant feelings. In return, we can ask for deliverance with Jesus' promise: „If the Son of God makes you free, then you are free indeed.“ (Joh. 8,36 GNÜ) And through the following wonderful promise of God, we can know that we already possess what we have prayed for, if we have prayed according to God's will: „And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.“ (1 John 5:14 LU) „And let us know that he hears us when we ask him [according to his will], then we also know that we are already in possession of what we have asked for.“ (1 John 5:15 KÜ). ⁵
4. I can claim God's power of forgiveness for myself. We will often not be able to forgive on our own. Here we can know: „With God there is much forgiveness.“ (Isa. 55:7 LU) Forgiveness is God's commandment. „Forgive, if you have anything against anyone.“ (Mark 11:25 LU) „Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive everyone who trespasses against us.“ (Matth. 6,12 GNT)Claim in faith - through a prayer with promises - God's forgiving power for your forgiveness and then believe that you already have what you have asked for. (1 John 5:14,15) After the Lord has commanded forgiveness, it is also possible to do it immediately and completely with His help. God commands nothing that we cannot do with his help. Forgiveness remains forever if I remain in Christ. If I do not remain in Christ, the story may one day come up again like the famous camel that eats the grass. It is said that when the grass has grown over a matter, one day a camel will surely come and eat it up again.those who say: I cannot forgive, should ask themselves whether they want to forgive at all. My mum used to say: „If you say: I can't, you don't want to.“ But maybe you couldn't forgive because you didn't know how to forgive with God's help.
5. May I say to the Lord that I hereby forgive my brother everything, what he has done or is supposed to have done to me or others. It's good to call a spade a spade.
6. Pray for the one you have forgiven, that the Lord may bless him and help him.
7. Ask for God's love in a prayer of promise so that you can love the person concerned with all your heart.
8. Should you nor any difficulty If you have problems with forgiveness, then seek out a person you trust for a counselling session.
9. It may be that we have forgiven in the prayer of faith, but that our feelings are not yet following. What can we do? We should not repeat the whole process now, but thank God that we were able to forgive with his help. We should then continue to give thanks until our feelings return.

⁵ It is very valuable if we learn to pray with the promises of God. It can be read in the brochure „Steps to personal revival“ in chapter 4

Forgiveness is a matter of prayer. It is not a matter of time. It is not a matter of years. It is not a matter of letting grass grow over it. Nor is it a matter of trying to forgive. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we should try to do something that God has commanded, but we should do it - and in the case of forgiveness, it is clearly about forgiving immediately.

(If someone is not yet in the faith, it is good to pray the preceding paragraph beforehand. May I recommend praying out loud. We do not need to mention the Bible passages in the prayer).

By adopting a positive attitude towards the guilty party, but a negative attitude towards the incident. The focus is on the incident, not on the person who did something to me.

Forgiveness can see the guilty party as an instrument in the hand of God. Perhaps God wanted to draw my attention to the needs and problems of the guilty party.

Forgiveness recognises that bitterness claims a right that we do not have. Bitterness is an unconscious means of taking revenge on someone who has done something to us.

Forgiveness recognises that the wrongdoer already feels the consequences of his actions.

Forgiveness can also show itself in our willingness to work in favour of the guilty party with God's help.

I think we can also recognise it by whether we can think peacefully about the person who has done or is supposed to have done wrong to us, and also by the fact that we are not compelled to tell what has actually or supposedly been done to us. If we keep retelling the old things, then I think that real forgiveness can hardly have happened.

But maybe the problem is that you wanted to forgive and couldn't do it on your own. We often need the help of our Lord to forgive. Jesus says: „For without me you can do nothing.“ (Joh. 15,5 GNÜ) and: „I can do all things through Christ, who gives me power and strength.“ (Phil. 4:13 Hfa) For this reason, it is good to ask our wonderful heavenly Father for forgiveness, as we have already explained.

Forgotten?

We often hear: I will forgive, but I will never forget him. I think that this point of view is overcome when we have prayed according to these explanations. I have experienced that after forgiving, I have remembered exactly what happened, but it no longer burdened me in any way, nor did it disturb my relationship with the person concerned. There have also been cases where I have prayed that our heavenly Father would erase my memory of the incident. He has done so. We have a wonderful God.

I would like to end with another experience in which the people involved were not yet followers of Jesus, except for Aunt Sybille. (The names have all been changed)

Aunt Sybille knew the experiences that Katharina and Leonhard had had when, with the help of God, they all forgave something against everyone else. So one day Sybille urged her sister Loretta to follow this path too. What was the situation? Loretta and her husband Tim had an only daughter. She was a pretty girl; I'll call her Helga now. After her 17th birthday, Helga underwent a threatening change in her character (from her parents' point of view). She became monosyllabic, moody and secretive. Her grades became poor. She smoked marijuana cigarettes and took narcotics. All the reminders didn't help. One day she disappeared. She was found in a big city. She had found a boyfriend there and was living with him.

Aunt Sybille invited the young people round for Christmas. They actually came. She greeted them lovingly and gave them great food. Then the young people asked where they should sleep. Aunt Sybille asked: „Are you married?“ They shook their heads. Then Aunt Sybille said, „I'll give you separate rooms.“ Helga shouted: „You're just as wrong as the others!“ and off she went with her boyfriend.

Some time later, Helga's parents - Loretta and Tim - came to visit Aunt Sybille. She endeavoured to get them to forgive Helga.

A few months later, Helga and her boyfriend moved near Aunt Sybille. They also got in touch with her. Eventually they decided to get married. Living together unmarried had seemed chic to them and had been fun. But they had few real friends. In addition, there was an inner dissatisfaction that they could not grasp. But they realised that marriage had a deeper meaning than they had assumed.

Helga's parents refused to come to the wedding ceremony. [Parents can also act unjustly and unlovingly towards their children. I hope that they asked the young couple for forgiveness during the reconciliation]. Loretta, the mother, would have loved to come, but she didn't want to do it without her husband. Completely desperate about her situation, Loretta decided to do what her sister Sybille had told her months ago.

In the same hour, while Helga was being married far away from home, her mother withdrew into the bedroom and did two things: she gave her life to Jesus and spent two hours writing down all her accusations and charges against Helga from the age of 17. She realised how many things she had accumulated against her daughter. She forgave her daughter before God. Loretta was relieved and happier than she had been all those years.

Now she urged her husband to forgive their daughter as well. He found it particularly hard to forgive Helga's boyfriend, who in his eyes had „seduced his little girl“.

Then came the memorable day when the young people were reconciled with their parents in Sybille's living room. Helga asked her father for forgiveness for his harsh words back then. She hugged her mum and cried. Then, to everyone's astonishment, she knelt down in front of her aunt and said: „Aunt Sybille, you were right when you wanted to put us in two separate rooms. The reason I got so angry was that I knew you were right. That's also the reason why we moved here. We felt that you were the only person we could trust. You stood up for something and we deeply wished we had what you had.“