I couple of days ago I put out my list of my favorite books that I read for the first time in 2016. I didn’t have a list in front of me of all of the books that I had read for the year, and was just going off the top of my head with the things that stuck out to me (this year I need to keep a record of the books that I read). There was on glaring omission to this book list: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom.
I apologize for the omission, but it truly belongs up in one of the top three books that I read this year. I just read it earlier in the year last year and didn’t remember it. So I’ll review it now.
“Thank God for the fleas.”
Whenever something bad happens in life, and I still want to try to be thankful, this is now the phrase I use. It has its origins in The Hiding Place; more on that later. I posted that on Facebook earlier this year and my mom was wondering why I posted it. No, we don’t have fleas in our house… but it reminds me to try to be thankful in all things.
Corrie Ten Boom grew up in a modest family in the Netherlands before World War II. The early part of this book describes her childhood, all the family members that lived with her, the love that got away, and how she helped out at her father’s watch shop, which was attached to their house. It was a simple life where she was taught to honor and love God.
When World War II started, the Ten Boom family went through hardships like everybody else, but they were more fortunate than the Jewish people, who started to disappear. Corrie and her family end up getting involved in an elaborate scheme where they hid Jews until they could be moved to a safer place. A few of the Jews that she helped couldn’t be moved for one reason or another, and they lived with the Ten Boom family. An architect built a space in their house where the extra guests in their house could be hidden.
This was a dangerous business, because if they were caught, they could be killed. They had to hold drills where they had to hide all of the evidence of what they were doing as quickly as possible.
One day, they were caught, and the Ten Boom family was rounded up and sent to jail. Some of her family members were released; eventually, it was just her and her sister, Betsy, who ended up in a concentration camp together.
What the two sisters had to go through was horrendous, but one of the most inspiring things about the book is how they kept their faith through all of this. The Ten Boom sisters managed to smuggle a Bible into their sleeping quarters at the concentration camp; Corrie was disgusted by the fleas in the room, but her sister Betsy reminded her to be thankful for all things; even the fleas. The two sisters began to hold Bible studies in the concentration camp; I’m sure that there are several people today who are in Heaven today because of those Bible studies. Later, Corrie learned that the only reason why the Nazi soldiers wouldn’t enter their sleeping quarters, which allowed them to hold their Bible studies, was because of the flea infestation. They didn’t want to go near the place and the fleas. So today, when I feel like something bad has happened and I want to be thankful, I try to “thank God for the fleas.”
I find Corrie’s forgiveness after the war to be amazing as well. Instead of becoming bitter and wanting revenge, she showed forgiveness to her former Nazi captors. It’s easy, in times where everybody else is doing wrong, to go on the wrong track and partake in evil. Yes, the Jews needed healing after the war, but so were the former Nazis that got involved in evil because they were just trying to survive. Corrie showed forgiveness to them as well, which completely awed me.
The book was easy to read, and it was required reading for my kids last year, after I found the book on sale on Amazon.com. It’s not a happy book (I cried at times), but it is a beautiful, inspiring book. If you haven’t read it yet, please put it on your list of must-read books for the new year.