“Happiness isn’t something that depends on our surroundings…it’s something we make inside ourselves.”  Corrie Ten Boom

The temps are rising and the garden work has escalated, but a week ago, I took a day off from my phone and I sat.  I actually  unplugged from everything and began reading  “The Hiding Place” by Corrie Ten Boom.  I finished it in four days and it wrecked me; in a good way, although the exposure was not comfortable to sit with. Each chapter brought me to tears, reminding me of all I’ve been given, how fortunate I am as well as how selfish I can be.

This was a very heavy book.  Even my most traumatic experience don’t touch the level of abuse, evil and heinous acts she and her sister were forced to endure for four years of their lives.  It was beyond reprehensible. Corrie survived, but millions did not.  Her legacy was one of service: to Jews as well as to the German soldiers.

Let’s Begin…

The book begins as their family is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the shop and life is joyous.  Long before the Ten Booms were prisoners, they owned a watch repair shop.   Their home was a very welcome place for strangers to wander in and as the years went by, they housed and helped orphans and others.  Corrie worked in the shop and Betsie reveled in the gift of serving her family and those who would come for a meal.  Three aunts also lived with them and they seriously spiced up their lives in such an interesting and humorous way.

But life changed.

“And while Haarlem and the rest of Holland strolled and bowed and swept its steps, the neighbor on our east geared for war.  We knew what was happening–there was no way to keep from knowing.  Often in the evening, turning the dial on the radio, we would pick up a voice from Germany.  The voice did not talk, or even shout.  It screamed.  Oddly, it was even-tempered Betsie who reacted most strongly, hurtling from her chair and flinging herself at the radio to shut off the sound.”

The War Came

England, France, and Germany were at war. The Prime Minister of Holland spoke that there would be no war.  Holland’s neutrality would be respected.  Five hours after that announcement, Holland was bombed.  That night, Corrie sat upright in bed.  She’d heard an explosion and rushed down to Betsie’s bed where she was already sitting up.  Together they said it aloud: “War.”  For hours, they knelt down and prayed for their country, for the injured and for the Queen. Only later, when she went back to bed, did she discover a piece of shrapnel in her bed.  God had His hand on their lives.  From that point forward, each choice they made to protect and move the Jews meant a risk to their own lives.

The Ten Booms lived a simple life.  They worked hard, read their Bible morning and evening, even with Jews who came over. Their routine was borne from a mindset that whomever God brought their way, they would love.  In 1939,  Father hired a young German watch repairman, Otto.  Otto had been taught by Hitler to treat the elderly with disrespect and eventually it manifested towards a Jew, Christofells.  He forced the elderly man into the side of a building and ground his face into the bricks.  Mr. Ten Boom tried to reason with him as he let him go; sadly Otto didn’t answer.  He left the shop with utter contempt towards these ‘Jew lovers.’ This was the first person Mr. Ten Boom had ever fired in over sixty years of running his business.

God Used Them

The details of what happened to them are too intense to share here. There are remarkable miracles, answers to prayer, pain, suffering.  I choose to leave that part out.

My heart was very moved by this section of the story:

“Betsie was always very clear about the answer for her and me.  We were to have a house, a large one–much larger than the Beje–to which people who had been damaged by concentration-camp life would come until they felt ready to live again in the normal world.

“It’s such a beautiful house, Corrie!  The floors are all inlaid wood, with statues set in the walls and a broad staircase sweeping down.  And gardens!  Gardens all around it where they can plant flowers.  It will do them such good, Corrie, to care for flowers!”

I would stare at Betsie in amazement as she talked about these things.  She spoke always as though she were describing things that she saw–as if that wide, winding staircase and those bright gardens were the reality, this cramped and filthy barracks the dream.”

Through all their trials, Betsie remained committed to telling others about Jesus.  Sadly, Betsie died in the camp, nevertheless her vision about a home for hurting people never left Corrie’s mind.

I want to meet these sisters one day.  Betsie believed God and He did, in fact, give Corrie a home, just the way Betsie envisioned it. Betsie showed me, in very real ways, what forgiveness looks like.  Corrie kept living, sharing with everyone about the love and care of God in an evil world.

In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed the overall truths in this book.  I want God to continue to reveal selfishness in me and to change me.  I want forgiveness to flow and for hurting people to experience the love of Jesus in their lives.

May you be inspired to read ‘The Hiding Place.’