i read the hiding place & here’s my thoughts

Corrie Ten Boom was in her fifties when her life took a crazy turn: her homeland is being invaded by Germans, and they’re terrorizing her Jewish friends.

God lays on her heart a crazy idea: make her home a safe house for Jews, under the auspices of a clock shop.

She is successful for a while, but then she’s ratted out and taken into solitary confinement, and eventually a concentration camp.

How can anybody survive something so terrible, mentally or physically? Will Corrie lose her faith?

My Rating

Five out of five stars!! Whoa. Whoa. How can you say anything less.

A One-Sentence Summary

I am ashamed of myself for complaining about literally anything.

More Short Summaries

Giving thanks for fleas

Clocks

Miracles

Sisters

THE RESISTANCE

Singleness

History

Initial Thoughts

Honestly I’d never heard of Corrie Ten Boom before. This past Thanksgiving, I went on a trip and my mom’s friend suggested I read The Hiding Place when she saw me reading The Librarian of Auschwitz.

She was so sweet and gave me a copy when I moved to LA, and I only now finished it.

Side note: The Hiding Place was literally hiding from me for a week. It was on the passenger side of my car and I never go over there, obviously. BUT I FOUND IT! We’re all good.

As I was reading this, I was also reading Live Not by Lies by Rod Dreher (another great book), but a lot of the themes matched up, like:

• In hard times, we can’t just cut ourselves off from people. We still have to choose to build community and trust people, because if we don’t we dehumanize ourselves.
• Our culture has made the idea of suffering and being uncomfortable into a negative thing. The Bible says we will suffer—we will. It’s not supposed to shock us or make us run away.
• We are to love our enemies, even the worst of people. We can’t just fight against something and hate things, we must fight for something and love (that’s much stronger).
• Give thanks in ALL circumstances. Literally all (Corrie and her sister gave thanks for the fleas, and later realized that the fleas were what kept the Nazis out of their quarters so they could hold Bible studies and talk freely).
• A lot of what God calls us to do is well nigh impossible for humans, and that’s okay, because He wants us to invite Him into our life and ask Him for His power. Corrie couldn’t love her captors; she couldn’t stand being squashed in train cars with other dirty humans; she couldn’t see the good in the midst of so much evil. She often threw up prayers begging God to give her grace, thanks, humility, and love. And He did.

So . . .

All in all, I think every Christian should read this book. I personally am fascinated by books about World War II, so that was an added bonus. But the spiritual content was exceptional.

The ending brought me to tears (and I was in the DMV line, so . . .). I started looking up interviews with Corrie, and I could’ve kept watching. You could just see the light in her eyes. Something so, so terrible had clearly brought her to this almost supernatural joy in the presence of God.

Please please please add this to your TBR!! It’s one of those books I wish I could read every day so I can constantly remember the truths.