The Hiding Place - Corrie ten Boom

Just a few hours ago, I finished one of the most phenomenal books in existence, in my opinion. The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. The Hiding Place is the account of Corrie and her sister Betsie during WWII as she joins Holland's underground, assisting and hiding Jews, even in her own house. However, she is found out and she, her sister, her father, her other sister, and her brother in law are taken to prison. There, everyone is released except for Corrie, Betsie (the sister), and her Father. Corrie and Betsie are faced with horrific challenges and trials, plagued with the unimaginable. Yet they still remain human, filled with the Love of Christ as God assists them and strengthens them in this time of need. Again and again, God's tender mercies shine through and allow them to study the Bible without it being reported, spreading the word and love of God throughout the Camp, the message that God's love runs true.

Below are a few of my favorite quotes that struck a chord within me. I hope you too will ponder them and perhaps write them down somewhere, so that in times of need you too may feel the love and hope of Christ.

• “This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.” 

• “Do you know what hurts so very much? It's love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain. There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill that love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.”  

• “In darkness God's truth shines most clear.”  

• “Even as the angry vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him....Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness....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.”

• “Dear Jesus...how foolish of me to have called for human help when You are here.”

• “If God has shown us bad times ahead, it's enough for me that He knows about them. That's why He sometimes shows us things, you know - to tell us that this too is in His hands.”  

• “Love is larger than the walls which shut it in.”  

• “Perhaps only when human effort had done it's best and failed, would God's power alone be free to work.”  

• “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 into your heart and find the strength you need-just in time.”  

• “All through the short afternoon they kept coming, the people who counted themselves Father's friends. Young and old, poor and rich, scholarly gentlemen and illiterate servant girls—only to Father did it seem that they were all alike. That was Father's secret: not that he overlooked the differences in people; that he didn't know they were there.”  

• "No pit is so deep that God is not deeper still”  

• "No hate, Corrie, no hate."

• “If the Gospels were truly the pattern of God’s activity, then defeat was only the beginning.”  

• “One day as Father and I were returning from our walk we found the Grote Markt cordoned off by a double ring of police and soldiers. A truck was parked in front of the fish mart; into the back were climbing men, women, and children, all wearing the yellow star. . . .
  
  "Father! Those poor people!" I cried. . . .
  
  "Those poor people," Father echoed. But to my surprise I saw that he was looking at the solders now forming into ranks to march away. "I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God's eye.”  

• “Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength - carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”

• “Books do not age as you and I do. They will speak still when you and I are gone, to generations we will never see. Yes, the books must survive.”  

• “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.”

• “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."
  
  I could not see father's face, only the erect carriage of his shoulders and the halo of white hair above them. But I heard his answer.
  
  "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 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.”

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

• “Whatever in our life is hardest to bear, love can transform into beauty.”

Savannah