Lately I've been trying to spend more time reading and less time wasting time. Books are one of the best ways to learn. Reading takes me out of this world for a moment and helps me step into another person's shoes. This life is all about learning from each other. What a better way to do that than by reading each other's words.
This story was incredible. I had a hard time believing it actually happened (which it did). Not only because of the firsthand account of the cruel actions of the Nazis in World War Two, but of the way this woman, Corrie ten Boom, and her family handled the reality of it with such resilience. Corrie tells the story of her family who ended up running so much of "the underground" work in Holland. They hid Jews in their own home, found places for Jews to stay, forged ration cards for food for all those they would help. They took so many risks to help other people, most of them complete strangers.
Eventually they were found out and taken as prisoners. Corrie's father is given the option to leave prison as long as he "won't cause any trouble." Instead of taking the freedom, he replies, "If I go home today, tomorrow I will open my door again to any man in need who knocks." He could have left, gone home, lived his life and been free. Instead, he told the truth and did what he felt was right.
Corrie tells of her experience in concentration camps. Her sister Betsie was her light in all that darkness. Betsie is an unbelievable example of love and forgiveness. One of the prime examples of this was one morning, during roll call, a guard beat a prisoner to death:
"Betsie", I whispered, "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 gathering up twigs later in the morning that I realized I had been thinking of the feeble-minded, and Bestie of their persecutors."
One of my favorite exerpts is:
"As the cold increased, so did the special temptation to think only of oneself. It took a thousand cunning forms. . . Selfishness had a life of its own. As I watched Mien's bag of yeast-compound disappear I began taking it from beneath the straw only after lights out when others would not see and ask for some. Wasn't Betsie's health more important? (You see, God, she can do so much for them! Remember the house after the war!)
And even if it wasn't right- it wasn't so very wrong was it? Not wrong like sadism and murder and the other monstrous evils we saw in Ravensbruck every day. Oh, this was the great ploy of Satan in that kingdom of his: to display such blatant evil that one could almost believe one's own secret sin didn't matter."
I had to read this part a couple times. I was a bit flabbergasted. I thought, "First of all, the yeast compound is hers. It was given to her and her alone. Second, she doesn't have to share, it's hers! When did not sharing become a crime?"
Then I remembered a scripture in the Bible. Matthew 25: 35-36 "For I was an hungered, and ye game me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me."
It's easier to give when you have an abundance of something.The true test of compassion comes when we have almost nothing to give.
This story teaches so many lesson. So many of passing no judgment, of selflessness, of compassion, of triumph, of faith, and ultimately of love.
Read it. You won't regret it.
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