Time to ponder: Corrie Ten boon

Increased faith  is gained by reading biographies.

The Hiding Place, written by Corrie Ten boon is one such biography.  This is a hard, but unforgettable read.  The suffering was great, but the testimony of God’s faithfulness shines bright in the darkness:

“You will never know that Christ is all you need until Christ is all you have,” Corrie Ten boon.

In The Hiding Place, Corrie writes of her family’s  capture by the Nazi’s. Taken abruptly from their home, they became prisoners for hiding Jewish friends during World War II.

I share a portion of her story here in hopes to increase faith for our own days here and now.

Corrie writes of a time confined into a cell of solitary confinement with endless amounts of time, stripped of everything. However, before confinement, Corrie gave credit to God, who was present in a nurse, who only had seconds but asked Corrie,

“Quick! Is there any way I can help you?”

Corrie’s quick response, “Yes, Oh yes. A Bible! Could you get me a Bible? And a needle and thread. And a toothbrush. And soap!”

Well, later Corrie did receive 2 small precious bars of soap and not an entire Bible, but little books of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

“I stepped inside. The door clanged behind me. The bolt was slammed shut . . . six steps long, two wide, a single cot at the back.

I must not let my thoughts run wildly; I must be very mature and very practical. Six steps. Sit down on the cot. This one reeked even worse than the other: he straw seemed to be fermenting. I reached for the blanket: someone had been sick on it. I thrust it away . . . at that moment the light bulb in the ceiling went out.

The cell was bitter cold, wind hammered against the wall. In the morning my fever was worse.”

But God was with her, and she had received the gospels, the Good News. Here is what she writes:

As my health returned, I was able to use my eyes longer. I had been sustaining myself from my Scriptures a verse at a time; now like a starving man I gulped entire gospels at a reading, seeing whole magnificent drama of salvation.

And as I did, an incredible thought pricked the back of my neck. Was it possible that this—all of this that seemed so wasteful and so needless—this war, Scheveningen prison, this very cell, none of it was unforeseen or accidental?

Could it be part of the pattern first revealed in the Gospels? Hadn’t Jesus been defeated as utterly and unarguably as our little group and our small plans had been?

But . . . if the Gospels were truly the pattern of God’s activity, then defeat was only the beginning. I would look around at the bare little cell and wonder what conceivable victory could come from a place like this.” (The Hiding Place, pg.139).

Four months later, Corrie had a trial with a Lieutenant Rahms. With his true National Socialistic mentality, he remarked about Corrie’s family’s humanitarian efforts,  “What a waste of time and energy! “If you want converts, surely one normal person is worth all the half-wits in the world!”

After reading the gospels for four months and keeping company with a few ants that came to eat crumbs through a crack in her cell, here is Corries response to a Nazi Lieutenant: “The truth , Sir, . . . 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.”

Did you know that instead of getting into more trouble, the following morning this Nazi Lieutenant himself unlocked her cell door and escorted her to her hearing.

She writes Lieutenant Rahms words, “I could not sleep last night, thinking about that Book where you have read such different ideas. What else does it say in there?”

“On my closed eyelids the sun glimmered and blazed, “It says,’ I began slowly, ‘that a Light has come into this world, so that we need no longer walk in the dark.’ Is there darkness in your life, Lieutenant?”

There was a very long silence.

“There is great darkness,” he said at last. “I cannot bear the work I do here.”

The Hiding Place uncovers many great testimonies of light in great darkness.

“When the train goes through a tunnel and the world gets dark, do you jump out? Of course not! You sit still and trust the engineer to get you through . . .” Corrie Ten boon.

Taking a glimpse of this story invigorates faith in me today.  I hope you Agree.

Four other quotes among many in Quotes of Corrie Ten boon are:

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.”
Today I know that such memories are the key not to the past, but to the future. 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.
And our wise Father in heaven knows when we’re going to need things too. Don’t run out ahead of him.”
Love is larger than the walls which shut it in.”
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.”
Let us ask the Lord that He may give us His forgiveness and His Agape love.
“Help us Lord Jesus, we can’t do these things without You.
In Jesus name, we pray,
Amen

Author: Toni Rypkema

I'm a believer in Jesus. Because of this, I am married to a wonderful husband and the mom of a large family. For those who have battled cancer, or any other tragedy or disease, you might understand, I had a choice to get better or bitter. I chose to give thanks to Jesus for my every breath. For that reason alone, wanting to proclaim His goodness, do I write - Toni

2 thoughts on “Time to ponder: Corrie Ten boon”

  1. Amen.
    Thank you Toni for once again bringing such a good word to me
    Such an encouragement to hear the words of Corrie Ten Boom. Reminds me of a report Elijah did on her when he was in younger grades of school.
    Please pray for both my children that they would read their bibles & come back into the fold at ccob with Peter & I.
    I don’t know about calling them prodigals because they still believe but are not really having much of a walk right now.
    Praise God as I am doing so well and have been able to get back into Ministry. Been doing greeters again for a few months and last night went to my first pro Life Ministry meeting and will be involved when they get their stork bus. Possibly I will be one of the drivers🤓💞➕📖

    1. Amen Linda! I am so happy to hear such wonderful reports! I will pray. I know the feeling. Love you Linda.

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