The Hiding Place
“I will never forget the first time I read
The Hiding Place
. My heart was riveted by the fact that the love of God is the greatest power of them all. Today the truth remains the same, and I pray we are challenged and inspired again by Corrie ten Boom's powerful story of faith, triumph, and unconditional love.”
Darlene Zschech, worship leader
and songwriter
“One of the most remarkable stories of one of the most remarkable women I've known. I recommend it most enthusiastically.”
Chuck Colson, founder and chairman,
Prison Fellowship
“
The Hiding Place
is a classic that begs revisiting. Corrie ten Boom lived the deeper life with God, exchanging love and forgiveness for hatred and cruelty, trusting God in the midst of fear, horror, and uncertainty. This gripping story of love in action will challenge and inspire you!”
Joyce Meyer, best-selling author
and Bible teacher
“Ten Boom's classic is even more relevant to the present hour than at the time of its writing. Not only do we need to be inspired afresh by the courage manifested by her family, but we are at another watershed moment in the history of global anti-Semitism, and we need a strong reminder of God's timeless covenant with His ancient people and of our obligation as believers to stand with them as Corrie's family did in their generation.”
Jack W. Hayford, president, International
Foursquare Church; chancellor,
The King's College and Seminary
“
The Hiding Place
is the heart-wrenching, powerfully inspiring story of the triumph of God's love and forgiveness in the heart of Nazi concentration camp survivor Corrie ten Boom. Beautifully penned by Elizabeth and John Sherrill, it will always sit on the top shelf of Christian classics.”
Peter Marshall, author,
The Light and the
Glory
and
From Sea to Shining Sea
“A groundbreaking book that shines a clear light on one of the darkest moments of history.”
Philip Yancey, author of
What's So Amazing About Grace?
and
The Jesus I Never Knew
“In Corrie ten Boom, self was visibly crucified, and her sacrifices and genuine mercies demonstrated themselves to the convictions of men in every nation and tongue. Her disinterest in the spirit of this age convinced even the heathen. She truly manifested the spirit of Christianity.”
David Wilkerson, founding pastor,
Times Square Church;
founder, Teen Challenge
“Corrie ten Boom's spiritual beauty echoes throughout the story of
The
Hiding Place
. Valor, determination, and integrity manifest themselves in her inspiring life and in her courageous actions. She is one of the few who can be described as a true hero.”
David Selby, international director,
Derek Prince Ministries
Corrie with an early edition of
The Hiding Place
.
The
HIDING
PLACE
35
TH
ANNIVERSARY
EDITION
CORRIE TEN BOOM
with
ELIZABETH & JOHN SHERRILL
© 1971 and 1984 by Corrie ten Boom
and Elizabeth and John Sherrill
© 2006 by Elizabeth and John Sherrill
Published by Chosen Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
chosenbooks.com
E-book edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansâfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingâwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 73-172389
ISBN 978-1-4412-3288-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Scripture is taken from the King James Version of the Bible. The ten Boom family read the Bible in Dutch, and later, when Corrie and Betsie read it aloud in Bible studies, they translated it for their audience. The KJV is, therefore, an approximate translation.
Material contained in “Since Then” is reprinted with permission from
Guideposts
magazine. Copyright © 1983 by Guideposts Associates, Inc., Carmel, NY 10512.
Contents
1. The One Hundredth Birthday Party
I
t was the strangest of times.
We wore tie-dyed shirts, listened to Jimi Hendrix, and watched the Vietnam War over TV dinners. Well, not everybody did that. I was not into shirts that made me dizzy, I hated psychedelic music, and I turned the channel whenever the war came on. I had more important things on my mind. Like surviving.
The year 1971 marked four years in a wheelchair for me. Although my diving accident was in the past, the quadriplegia was not. I was still a little shaky living with total and permanent paralysis, plus I was still struggling to understand how God was going to use it for my good. It did not help that the world around me was unraveling at the seams.
Somewhere in the mayhem, a friend gave me a copy of
The Hiding
Place
. The back cover explained that it was about the life of Corrie ten Boom, a survivor of Nazi death camps. I was intrigued. As I said, I was into surviving. Perhaps this gutsy, gray-haired woman wearing a coat like the old raccoon thing in my mother's closet would have something to say to me.
The first chapter had me hooked. Although Corrie was from a different era, her life reached across the decades. World War II was far different from my own holocaust, but her ability to look straight into the terrifying jaws of a gas-chambered hell and walk out courageously into the sunshine of the other side wasâwell, just the story I needed to hear.
For years to come, when I would occasionally fall back into my own pit of fear or depression, the Spirit of God would tenderly bring to mind her well-known phrases: “There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still.” “Only heaven will reveal the top side of God's tapestry.” And, probably the most poignant and powerful of all, simply “Jesus is Victor.”
You can understand why, when I first met Corrie ten Boom, I was filled with glee. She grasped my shoulder firmly and announced in her thick Dutch accent, “Oh, Joni, it will be a grand day when we will dance together in heaven!” The image she painted of us skipping down streets of gold left me breathless. I could easily picture the scene of glory and gladness. It made me realize I
had
survived.
From then on, the years flew. Corrie continued to write books, travel to countless countries, and even oversee the film they made of
The Hiding Place.
But time was catching up with her, and after several strokes, her tired body finally gave out. When I attended her funeralâa quiet ceremony with testimonies and tulipsâI kept thinking of that moment we first met. I smiled to imagine that heaven was applauding and that Jesus was probably explaining to her His choice of strange, dark threads mixed among the gold in the tapestry of which she so often spoke.
That was 1983. The years have continued to march on and, sadly, things are no less crazy. What few seams are holding the planet together are strained and threadbare, like so many people wondering how to survive in a world that even dear Corrie would barely recognize.
I take that back. She
would
recognize it. And she would know exactly what to do in the face of new wars whispering of global holocausts that threaten the survival of all mankind: she would firmly yet gently point people to the Savior, reminding them that He is still Victor. She would remind us all of the old, old story that Jesus has conquered sin, no matter how ugly and pernicious it gets. And that soonâperhaps sooner than we thinkâHe will finally close the curtain on sin and suffering, hate and holocausts to welcome home His survivors.
One more thing. In the fall of 2004, as I was on a twenty-hour flight to India, the decades finally caught up with me. I was in great pain, sitting on quadriplegic bones that were thin and tired. To pass the hours, and to keep discomfort at bay, I started reading another Corrie book,
Life Lessons from the Hiding Place
. I got a lump in my throat as I read about her incredible passion to travel the world to share the Gospel of Christ.
At the age of 85, Corrie ten Boom was enduring
flights like this one . . . and if she could do it, by the grace of God, so
can I!
It was all the inspiration and encouragement I needed for the grueling journey. Once again Corrie ten Boom had spoken.
Corrie's story is as current and compelling as ever. This is why I am pleased and happy to commend to you, part of a new generation of readers, this special edition of
The Hiding Place.
It is for every person whose soul is threadbare and frazzled, and for every individual who must walk into the jaws of his or her own suffering. And if you have gotten this far, it is for
you
. Go a little further and you will discover what I did so long ago. . . .
If God's grace could sustain Corrie in that concentration camp, then His grace is sufficient for you. With His help you
can
survive. And, Corrie would say, you
will.
Joni Eareckson Tada
Joni and Friends
Fall 2005
I
n May 1968 I spent several days at a retreat center in Darmstadt, Germany. At a time when most Germans preferred not to think about the Holocaustâor even denied outright that it had happenedâa group of Lutheran women calling themselves the Sisters of Mary took on themselves the task of repentance for their nation. They assisted Jewish survivors, listened to their stories, and publicized the truth about the Nazi past.
While at the center, I attended an evening service featuring two speakers. The first was a man who had been a prisoner in a concentration camp. He had been brutalized and starved; his father and a brother had died in the camp. The man's face and body told the story more eloquently than his words: pain-haunted eyes, shaking hands that could not forget.
He was followed at the lectern by a white-haired woman, broad of frame and sensible of shoe, with a face that radiated love, peace, and joy. But the story that these two people related was the same! She, too, had been in a concentration camp, experienced the same savagery, suffered identical losses. The man's response was easy to understand. But hers?