Corrie Ten Boom
Corrie ten Boom and her family were Christians who were active in social work in their home town of Haarlem, the Netherlands. During the Nazi occupation, they chose to act out their faith through peaceful resistance to the Nazis by active participation in the Dutch underground. They were hiding, feeding and transporting Jews and underground members hunted by the Gestapo out of the country. It is estimated they were able to save the lives of 800 Jews, in addition to protecting underground workers.
On Feb. 28, 1944, they were betrayed and Corrie and several relatives were arrested. The four Jews and two underground workers in the house at the time of the arrest were not located by the Nazis and were extricated by the underground 47 hours after they fled to the tiny hiding place (located in Corrie's room).
The ten Boom family members were separated and transferred to concentration camps. Corrie was allowed to stay with her precious sister, Betsy. Corrie's father (Casper), her sister (Betsy) and one grandchild (Kik) perished. Corrie was released in December of 1944.
These acts of heroism and sacrifice became the foundation for Corrie ten Boom's global writing and speaking career which began after she was released.
Ten Boom has received numerous awards for her writing and speaking. Notably, she was honored by the State of Israel for her work in aid of the Jewish people by being invited to plant a tree in the famous Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles, at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, near Jerusalem. She was also knighted by the Queen of the Netherlands in recognition of her work during the war, and a museum in the Dutch city of Haarlem is dedicated to her and her family.
“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.”
“And for all these people alike, the key to healing turned out to be the same. Each had a hurt he had to forgive.”
“Some knowledge is too heavy...you cannot bear it...your Father will carry it until you are able.”
“And our wise Father in heaven knows when we're going to need things too. Don't run out ahead of Him.”
“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....In the Bible I learn that God values us not for our strenght or our brains but simply because He has made us.”
“Dear Jesus...how foolish of me to have called for human help when You are here.”
“Perhaps only when human effort had done it's best and failed, would God's power alone be free to work.”
“How often it is a small, almost unconscious event that makes a turning point.”
“There are no 'if's' in God's world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety - let us pray that we may always know it!”
“If God has shown us bad times ahead, it's enough for me that He knows about them. That's why He sometimes shows us things, you know - to tell us that this too is in His hands.”
“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. ”
“This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.”
“What wings are to a bird, and sails to a ship, so is prayer to the soul.”
“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
“Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.”
“Trying to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.”
“The tree on the mountain takes whatever the weather brings. If it has any choice at all, it is in putting down roots as deeply as possible."---Each New Day”
“Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way . . . God can give us the perfect way.”
“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
“Happiness isn't something that depends on our surroundings...It's something we make inside ourselves.”
“If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God you'll be at rest.”
“Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.”
“It is not my ability, but my response to God’s ability, that counts.”
“There is no panic in Heaven! God has no problems, only plans.”
“Mama's love had always been the kind that acted itself out with soup pot and sewing basket. But now that these things were taken away, the love seemed as whole as before. She sat in her chair at the window and loved us. She loved the people she saw in the street-- and beyond: her love took in the city, the land of Holland, the world. And so I learned that love is larger than the walls which shut it in. ”
“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”
“Child, you have to learn to see things in the right proportions. Learn to see great things great and small things small.”