As we start off another year, it’s about time for another book review! This time it is a classic… although I admit to never reading it before now! The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom is now in print for its 35th anniversary! Can you believe it?! Obviously a time tested biography, Ten Boom’s heroic story will live on for many more years. I was graciously donated tickets to go and see the “film version” of a play depicting the story before I actually delved in to the book, and despite what I warn my children, the movie version actually helped me “put a face” to the beloved characters. There are a lot of names. There’s a dash of Dutch references and historical ideas that need to get all sorted out in your reading of the book, so the film helped me, personally, with the history and politics (which I’m not so good at!)

Let’s start from the beginning. In case you have not heard about Ms. Ten Boom, she is a real life concentration camp survivor who, along with her father, sister and other family members, hid Jewish victims of war in a secret room in her Holland home. They were a vital part of World War II’s secret underground. The book reads like an adventure novel: twisting and turning, flashing back to Corrie’s childhood love interest and family matters growing up, then inching its way into her harrowing tale of death and abuse in Germany’s concentration camps for “untold criminal offenses”. All the mean while maintaining the family’s unwavering faith in God and His love for all humanity.

I recently changed the living room curtains in our old farmhouse from a modern print, to lace. The family hates them. ”They look like old lady’s nightgowns” they say. Perfectly suited to a century home where old ladies lived, I think. 

I picture Ms. Corrie Ten Boom when I think of that old lady. Not that she was old when her story begins to unfold. The timeline in the book tells me Corrie becomes the first licensed woman watchmaker in 1924. It’s about this time that the book describes her sister, Betsie, taking over the “housekeeping” and her love of tulips and lace and all things pretty and feminine. Perhaps Betsie would have appreciated my light and airy curtains that make everything “a little brighter”.

And so the tale of Corrie and her “sickly” sister shines with the faith of their father. Practiced and wise watchmaker, Caspar, who invests in his children through the scriptures with readings and worship each day around the family table. The love for humanity oozes out of the memoir. Still, Corrie is honest about her doubts, her fears, and her lack of fashion sense. A girl after my own heart, Corrie. A girl after my own heart.

I don’t want to give away too much of the story, but the resounding theme of God’s miraculous way shining through in a period of human history that was so dark, is definitely the focus of the story. Like the Hiding Place in the upper room itself, God’s unwavering omnipresence is always there… even when we don’t think it is. The book begins with Corrie’s war journey, but ends with her evangelistic journey, as she begins to share her faith with others. She tells her story and shares her faith as a testament to her family’s legacy. The ending is gut wrenching, and I couldn’t help but think how evil our world has become. Yet, God is bigger still.

I shouldn’t have, but I marveled at how much Corrie “got away with”: a hidden Bible, a smuggled sweater, how many hidden actual people in a secret room?! Was she allowed to “lie” in order to hide a bigger truth? It, again, reminds me God is bigger. And He’s in charge. What’s a world war to the Creator of the universe? Mere humans with an evil agenda? God’s got that, too. I like how one reviewer put it: ”…The Hiding Place, repackaged for a new generation of readers, continues to declare that God’s love will overcome, heal, and restore.” And He does it in secret ways that make us wonder “How did that happen?”

And so the biography, some thirty five plus years old now, is one still so relevant for today’s society. A society still filled with hate and destruction, but managed by a still faithful and all-knowing God. I’m encouraged by stories like these. I am reminded of the past in tangible things like the watchmaker’s watch, or my lace curtains. I am strengthened and encouraged for the future, because I know, like Corrie, her sister, Betsie, and those she saved, that God’s love is evident, even if it’s hidden in a hiding place.

I hope you, too, can be encouraged through stories like this classic. And go with peace this week, my beloved, knowing God still sees us in the Hiding Place.