The Hiding Place

by Corrie ten Boom

A full ten years ago, way back in 1927, Willem had written in his doctoral thesis, done in Germany, that a terrible evil was taking root in that land. Right at the university, he said, seeds were being planted of a contempt for human life such as the world had never seen. The few who had read his paper had laughed.

There were answers to this and all my hard questions—for now I was content to leave them in my father’s keeping.

It was strange that a society which hid the facts of sex from children made no effort to shield them from death.

And our wise Father in heaven knows when we’re going to need things, too. Don’t run out ahead of Him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need—just in time.”

When a boy asked for a lock of her hair—the standard method in those days of declaring passion—she would pull a few strands from the ancient gray carpet in our bedroom, tie them with a sentimental blue ribbon, and make me the messenger. The carpet was quite threadbare by now, the school full of broken hearts.

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

“How can we bring anything to God? What does He care for our little tricks and trinkets?”

“Dear Jesus, I thank You that we must come with empty hands. I thank You that You have done all—all—on the cross, and that all we need in life or death is to be sure of this.”

Afraid he would say, “There’ll be someone else soon,” and that forever afterward this untruth would lie between us. For in some deep part of me I knew already that there would not—soon or ever—be anyone else.

We can kill the love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too.

“God loves Karel—even more than you do—and if you ask Him, He will give you His love for this man, a love nothing can prevent, nothing destroy. Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way.”

It had been an isolated moment, a gift to us from God, His own very special wedding present.

And then, incredibly, Betsie began to pray for the Germans, up there in the planes, caught in the fist of the giant evil loose in Germany.

“Oh Lord,” I whispered, “listen to Betsie, not me, because I cannot pray for those men at all.”

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!”

There Corrie learned that her own release had been part of a clerical error; one week later all women her age were taken to the gas chamber.

“This is what our lives look like, from our limited viewpoint.” Then, with a flourish, Corrie shook open the cloth and turned it around to display a magnificent crown embroidered in red, purple, and gold. “But when we turn over the threads of our lives to God, this is what He sees!”