"His will is our hiding place" (con't)

Corrie Ten Boom's story also captivated me for another reason. Two years ago I was given the opportunity to visit Ravensbrück, the final concentration camp in Germany where her and her sister, Betsy, were imprisoned. I was looking back through some of my pictures as I was reading and I found it interesting to be able to envision in my mind her setting even more than just through her written descriptions. I remember during the tour finding it hard to fathom the reality that had taken place on that location only 50 years ago. The sun was shining far too brightly that day to fit the mood which hangs over the camp....

I included below some of the pictures from that tour (please excuse the photography - I'm more of a tourist than an artist when it comes to picture taking :)).

SS Headquarters at Ravensbruck

        Father sat down on the edge of the narrow bed.
"Corrie," he began gently, "when you and I go to Amsterdam - when do I give you your ticket?"
I sniffed a few times, considering this.
       "Why, just before we get on the train."
       "Exactly, 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 in your heart and find the strength you need - just in time."

SS living quarters, on the outskirts of the camp

       Tante Jans put her hand over her eyes and began to cry. "Empty, empty!" she choked at last through her tears. "How can we bring anything to God? What does He care for our little tricks and trinkets?"
...she lowered her hands and with tears still coursing down her face whispered, "Dear Jesus, 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."

Looking into the main entrance of Ravensbruck

       "Oh, my dears, I am sorry for all Dutchmen now who do not know the power of God. For we will be beaten. But He will not."

The sleeping barracks were torn down but each tree marks where one once stood.

       Betsie put a finger on my mouth. "Don't say it, Corrie! There are no 'if's' in God's world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety - O Corrie, let us pray that we may always know it!"

Some of the remaining working/factory barracks

       "Those poor people," Father echoed. But to my surprise I saw that he was looking at the soldiers.... "I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God's eye."

A memorial to the prisoners.

       Love. How did one show it? How could God Himself show truth and love at the same time in a world like this?
       By dying. The answer stood out for me sharper and chiller than it ever had before that night: the shape of a Cross etched on the history of the world.

The "bunker" where prisoners underwent interrogation, solitary confinement, and discipline.

       "Would you be willing to take a Jewish mother and her baby into your home?"
       For a moment I saw compassion and frear struggle in his face. Then he straightened. "No. Definitely not. We could lose our lives for that Jewish child!"
       Unseen by either of us, Father had appeared in the doorway. "Give the child to me, Corrie," he said...
"You say we could lose our lives for this child. I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family."

Located in the "bunker".

       "That old man!" he cried. "Did he have to be arrested? You, old man!"
       Willem led Father up to the desk. The Gestapo chief leaned forward. "I'd like to send you home, old fellow," he said. "I'll take your word that you won't cause any more trouble."
       "If I go home today," he said evenly and clearly, "tomorrow I will open my door again to any man in need who knocks."

The crematorium (Ravensbruck had their own gas chambers for the final year of operation)

        "The truth, Sir," I said swallowing, "is that God's viewpoint is sometimes different from ours - so different that we could not even guess at it unless He had given us a Book which tells us such things."

A picture of a picture in the museum at Ravensbruck.

      "Thank You," Betsie went on serenely, "for the fleas and for --"
       The fleas! This was too much. "Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea."
       " '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." (pg. 199)...
       "You know we've never understood why we ahd so much freedom in the big room," she said, "Well ---I've found out."..."She wouldn't step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?"
       "Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice: "because of the fleas! That's what she said, 'That place is crawling with fleas!'"
       My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie's bowed head, remembereed her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for.

"His will is our hiding place"

Corrie Ten Boom, 1915

A friend recently lent me the book, "The Hiding Place". It is one of those biographies that I've been wanting to get to for a number of years now but had not found the opportunity to pick it up. The history surrounding World War II has always fascinated me, and specifically the stories coming out of the events of the holocaust. Perhaps it is because for me, as a believer, it is more than just a history of some horrible things done to a particular group of people; it has a deeper root in an understanding of Satan's desire to thwart the work and promises of the Lord and of the Lord's prevailing power and gracious intervention throughout it all. As we look at the whole of this historical account some may ask, God's gracious intervention? What are you talking about? Are you saying God was intervening and all this still happened? Yes, God was very present and very involved. Corrie Ten Boom's story is just one small proof of His gracious involvement.

When reading biographies I find I often come away with another hero who has reached a reserved pedestal in my mind. I found Corrie's story much different. In it she shared about the circumstances she found herself in, but not without sharing about what the Lord had taught her through each and every one of them. She wrote of her work in the underground in Holland where many Jews came through the doors and found hope and a refuge in her family home, but not without writing about how the Lord very specifically preserved that work. And she talked of her time of imprisonment, but not without talking about how the Lord continually sustained her and, yes, even blessed her there. It is not that she wasn't a great woman, she just wasn't a great woman apart from the work of the Lord in and through her; and on every page of the book she seemed to be acknowledging that. The glory of God resounds in her story.

It caused me to think, when I tell my story who gets the pedestal? The Lord or myself?