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| Corrie ten Boom ❦ Righteous Among the Nations ❦ |
You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word.
❦ Psalm119:114 ❦
In 1942, after the Germans had invaded her native Holland, Corrie ten Boom and her family began to hide Jews in secret rooms above their watchmaker's shop. They called this hidden apartment the hiding place. In 1944, they were arrested by the Nazis, and her father died shortly thereafter. All were subsequently released, except for Corrie and her sister Betsy. But despite the
arrests, the Jews they'd protected were never found.
arrests, the Jews they'd protected were never found.
Corrie and Betsy were sent from prison to a concentration camp in the Netherlands and eventually to one in Germany, where they held worship services with a smuggled Bible. Just before Betsy died, she said to her sister, "There's no pit so deep that God is not deeper still." Corrie survived and was released due to a clerical error two weeks later. Those left behind were sent to the gas chambers.
After the war, Corrie opened a center that housed and provided for both concentration camp survivors and Nazi collaborators who now found themselves unable to find jobs. Corrie also traveled back to Germany where she forgave those who had been cruel to her and her sister. She died in California on her 91st birthday. Among the many honors she received in her life, none was greater than the State of Israel naming her one of the Righteous Among the Nations.
May her life inspire me not only to hide myself in God in the day of trouble, but to take the hope I find in God and use it to venture forth in the world once my faith has been renewed.
May her life inspire me not only to hide myself in God in the day of trouble, but to take the hope I find in God and use it to venture forth in the world once my faith has been renewed.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you will be our hiding place whatever happens. Amen.
❦ Corrie ten Boom ❦
