Corrie ten Boom

"When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer." Corrie ten Boom

When I read that quote, so many memories came to mind. While I was still in high school, I found a book of photographs taken by both Germans and Allies of the concentration camps. Movies I’ve seen since cannot portray the skeletal people who meet our soldiers after their captors fled. To deny the Holocaust is also to deny the reality of those photos and the life of Corrie ten Boom.

I would recommend her book, “The Hiding Place,” to anyone who wished to read of a Christian life in action.

I remember seeing her on television and reading of her in magazines and newspapers. The Corrie ten Boom House Foundation maintains a website with her history, photos of exhibits and a bookshop. The home that held the hiding place is now the museum in Haarlem that allows us to step back and time and see her daily life.

Corrie lived her love of Christ all of her life, but at age 53 began to tell that story around the world for the next thirty-three years. With her book and the movie of her life still available, her story of forgiveness continues to bless lives. The ripples will continue.

We are so blessed in our lives today. There is no reason to hide our neighbors to keep them safe. We are also faced with the question, Why did God allow such evil to touch the life of one so dedicated to Him? A dear friend’s daughter is facing a fearful trial today. I’m certain her family is asking, Why doesn’t God protect those who love Him?

He does. His word says so.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. [Romans 8:28 KJV]

That verse follows one earlier that confirms this world causes pain.

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. [Romans 8:22 KJV]

But that “until now” wasn’t the end of pain, it was the beginning of hope.

And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. [Romans 8:23-25 KJV]

So, while the pain of this imperfect will, filled with imperfect people, continues to hope for the future, we pray for God’s will to be accomplished.

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. [Romans 8:26-27 KJV]

And, give thanks for Godly examples set before us who love Him through painful trials of faith.