You are my Hiding Place

If you visit on my blog page long enough, you will eventually hear the second song on my music player, You are my hiding place. *I switched my songs today for this post.

While this is not my favorite rendition of it (it was the only one I could find), this song touches my soul in a special way.

When I was a young teenage girl I saw the movie, The Hiding Place, for the first time.

I have always been a ferocious reader, with one of my many interests being world war II history. But I have to admit movies depicting that time can be a bit unsettling emotionally to me. I find myself wanting to weep almost uncontrollably that innocent people had to endure loss of loved ones (and maybe enough worse, considering the S.S.) for no legitimate reason. And there's nothing that I can do to turn back time and somehow have made a difference...

After watching this movie (and going through a box of Kleenex) I read the book it was based on.

If you've never read The Hiding Place, you really should consider doing so. While it is unsettling (it's hard to face the fact that such evil and cruelty could exist) it is also incredibly inspiring.

So I am going to give a brief synopsis here:

Corrie ten Boom, her sister, and their elderly father (who was a watchmaker) lived in Holland. When the Nazis invaded Holland in 1940, Corrie and her family allowed several Jewish friends to hide in their home. As the number of people they were hiding grew (and eventually included strangers), the Dutch underground arranged for a secret room to be built in their home.

A very interesting part of the story to me is the moral crisis that Corrie finds herself in at this point; she knew it was right to help the Jews, but struggled with the means used to accomplish it: forging, lying, bribery, etc. This was a time of rations, and many were struggling just to care for their own families.

Eventually, they are betrayed and arrested, then sent to a concentration camp. And that is when the nightmare begins for them; and yet that is also where their faith is tested and they refuse to turn their back on God. Of course, this part of the story is difficult to read, as there were so many terrible things done to those who went to the camps.

When Corrie ten Boom walked out of Ravensbruck, she walked out alone; the only one of her family left alive. And she walked out then ONLY because of a clerical error...but it wasn't an error at all; God knew how she would use this experience for His glory.

Corrie ten Boom dedicated the rest of her life to showing "that the love of Jesus is greater than the deepest pit into which humankind finds itself."

Here is a link to the Corrie ten Boom museum, including a picture of "the hiding place."