The Hiding Place

This is one of the most amazing true stories I have ever read! Corrie Ten Boom tells the story of her time spent in prison and concentration camps during World War II for helping in the anti-Nazi underground. She was arrested along with her sister Betsie and she tells of how they learned of the power of Christ's love in the midst of intense hatred and suffering. Christ's love shines from the book and there were so many quotes that I underlined! I will share a few that especially affected me.

Her father talking to her:
And our wise Father knows exactly 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.

They would read the Bible to the other prisoners in the concentration camp and the love of Christ spread among the women there:
The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer more beautiful burned the word of God.

One of the most powerful parts of the book is seeing her sister Betsie show love and pray for the very guards who are persecuting them:
"Betsie, what can we do for these people? Afterward I mean. Can't we make a home for them and care for them and love them?"
"Corrie, I pray every day that we will be allowed to do this! To show them that love is greater!"
And it wasn't until I was fathering twigs later in the morning that I realized that I had been thinking of the feeble-minded, and Betsie of their persecutors.

And then finally at the end of the book, once the war is over, Corrie is faced with talking with one of the former guards at her concentration camp who came to hear her speak. It such a powerful scene:
He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. "How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein." he said. "To think that, as you say, He has washed my wins away!"
His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
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.
I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth of charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness.
As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.
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.