Hide it under a bushel?No!
In yesterday’s sermon I shared some of the story of Corrie ten Boom, a watchmaker living in Holland during the German Occupation of WWII. Corrie and her family were an instrumental part of the Dutch Underground which successfully spirited thousands of Jewish people to safety. Eventually, she and her family were arrested. Her father and sister died while they were imprisoned. I used Corrie’s story as an example of our identity as Christians to be salt of the earth and light of the world. After worship several folks said, “You didn’t finish the story! What happened to Corrie ten Boom?”
After being held at a political camp called Scheveningen, she and her sister, Betsie, were relocated with many others to Ravensbrück. It was there that Betsie died from illness. Before her death, Betsie and Corrie had ministered to many of the women in their barracks. Betsie had a vision that after the war she and Corrie would open a home for those deeply wounded from the war—for Betsie this included the soldiers and camp staff who had committed all the terrible atrocities of the Holocaust. She envisioned a mansion with large windows, a grand staircase, and sprawling grounds where those living there could tend the gardens. Just twelve days after Betsie’s death, just before Christmas in 1944, Corrie was released from Ravensbrück. As it turns out, ten Boom’s release was a clerical error; all the other prisoners of her age group were sent to the gas chambers the following week.
Corrie made her way back home and began telling people what she and Betsie had learned, particularly about God during their imprisonment. She described Betsie’s vision for a home in Holland where people could recuperate. After one such talk, Corrie was approached by Mrs. Bierens de Haan who lived in a wealthy neighborhood in Corrie’s hometown of Haarlem. She was invited to visit the woman’s large estate, with a 56-room mansion that was just as Betsie had described. This became a place of refuge for those who returned to Holland and needed a safe place to heal from their trauma. A few years later, Corrie returned to Germany. One day a relief organization worker came up to her to ask her for help with a rehabilitation home in Germany. The gentleman told her that they already had a place where it could begin, a former concentration camp at Darmstadt. As Corrie walked through the camp, she no longer saw misery or fear but a place that, once again, Betsie had described—a place with window boxes and lots of brightly colored paint and a garden with flowers coming up in the spring. The camp opened in the spring of 1946.
Corrie ten Boom died on April 15, 1983—her 91st birthday, after dedicating her entire life to spreading the truth of God’s love.
Corrie’s story is an incredible testament to God’s continued movement in the world. Corrie and her family were guided by God’s will and did not lose sight of their faith even in the darkest of times. After her release, she could have returned to her little home and reopened her family watch shop…but God had other plans for her. Corrie continued to minister to humanities most traumatized and broken individuals. She modeled forgiveness and witnessed to God’s grace for all people.
You can read Corrie’s story in her book, A Hiding Place (we have a copy in the church library).