The Hiding Place

by Corrie ten Boom

Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for a future that only He can see.”

I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do.

Happiness isn’t something that depends on our surroundings, Corrie. It’s something we make inside ourselves.”

Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way.”

There are no ‘ifs’ in God’s world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety—Oh Corrie, let us pray that we may always know it!”

Was this what God wanted in times like these? How should a Christian act when evil was in power?

Perhaps only when human effort had done its best and failed, would God’s power alone be free to work.

Corrie, if people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love! We must find the way, you and I, no matter how long it takes. . . .”

I saw a gray uniform and a visored hat; Betsie saw a wounded human being.

Give thanks in all circumstances,’” she quoted. “It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.”

And even if it wasn’t right—it wasn’t so very wrong, was it? Not wrong like sadism and murder and the other monstrous evils we saw in Ravensbruck every day. Oh, this was the great ploy of Satan in that kingdom of his: to display such blatant evil that one could almost believe one’s own secret sins didn’t matter.

And so I struggled on with worship and teaching that had ceased to be real. Until one drizzly raw afternoon when just enough light came through the window to read by, I came to Paul’s account of his “thorn in the flesh.” Three times, he said, he had begged God to take away his weakness, whatever it was. And each time God had said, Rely on Me. At last Paul concluded—the words seemed to leap from the page—that his very weakness was something to give thanks for. Because now Paul knew that none of the wonders and miracles that followed his ministry could be due to his own virtues. It was all Christ’s strength, never Paul’s.

The real sin lay in thinking that any power to help and transform came from me. Of course it was not my wholeness, but Christ’s that made the difference.

We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still.

There are no “ifs” in God’s kingdom. I could hear her soft voice saying it. His timing is perfect. His will is our hiding place. Lord Jesus, keep me in Your will! Don’t let me go mad by poking about outside it.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.