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纳粹党占据荷兰时（1940-1945），我母亲是一个年轻人。那时，邻居的房子被炮弹击中，住在那家的一个女孩被炸死了；对面那条街上有年幼孩童的一户犹太人被带走了，他们一家全部在大屠杀中死去。

母亲当时是十六岁，她常常被打发骑自行车到城外的一个农场买牛奶。有一次，一个德国士兵命令她在检查站停下来，这时她发觉与她对望的是一双张惶失措的眼睛，他是一个被逼入伍的十六岁男孩。她说：“当我看见他是多么年轻和多么惊慌时，这是我有生以来第一次稍许体验到爱你的仇敌的意思。”

尽管我从来都不需要在那种环境中生活，我却憎恨过别人，希望他们遇上厄运，耶稣吩咐我要爱我的敌人，而我也觉得很难做得到。

我留意到，当我憎恨人时，我往往会感到骄傲和自以为是，我发觉自己这时会有这种想法：“他们竟然做了或说了这些可恶的事情，我是永远不会这样做的；他们是低人一等的。”我也知道，这种心态违背了耶稣所说关于爱神和爱邻舍的教导。

承认我自己的心态是何等丑恶，并不会自动导致我去爱我的仇敌，然而，它却帮助我开始治死这罪；我开始看到，我是多么罪恶，我实在需要赦免。

My mother was a teenager during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands (1940-45). A girl next door died when a bomb hit her home. A Jewish family with young children across the street were taken away, and they all died in the Holocaust.

At 16, my mother was often sent out on a bike to get milk at a farm outside their city. On one trip, she was stopped by a German soldier at a checkpoint, and she realized she was looking into the eyes of a scared 16-year-old boy forced into service. She said, “When I saw how young and how scared he was, I learned for the first time in my life just a little of what it means to love your enemies.”

Though I have never had to live in those kinds of conditions, I have experienced hating others and wishing them ill, and I’ve struggled with Jesus’ command to love my enemies.

I’ve noticed that when I hate others, I easily feel proud and self-righteous. I find myself thinking, “They have done or said these horrible things, and I would never do that. They are inferior.” I’ve also learned that this kind of attitude undermines all of Jesus’ teaching about loving God and neighbor.

Recognizing the ugliness of my own attitude doesn’t automatically lead me to love my enemies, but it begins to put that sinfulness to death. I begin to realize that I too am sinful and in need of forgiveness.