The Hiding Place

You are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory.

Psalm 32:7

As a young woman I read the book The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom—the Dutch woman who survived German concentration camps during World War II.

Corrie’s true life story in The Hiding Place and the movie by the same title gripped my heart: how she and her sister, Betsie, were sent to the Nazi death camp for helping the Jews, how the Lord sustained them by his Spirit through months of profound horror. Betsie’s forgiveness of her tormentors and killers in the midst of dying. Corrie’s courageous tramp across the world following the war to share the ocean of God’s love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

I never met Corrie ten Boom, but she is truly one of my spiritual mothers. When I see her in heaven, I will thank her because my faith has been strengthened by her words and life. From her I learned about forgiving my enemies, rolling my burdens upon the Lord, and how God can use my weaknesses. One of the most profound lessons is how she experienced God as her hiding place over and over: protecting her Bible when she and the other prisoners were strip-searched and everything was taken from them; causing a “clerical error” that resulted in her release one week before all the other women prisoners her age were killed in the gas chambers.

We may not experience the horrors of a death camp, but all of us who trust our lives to Christ are “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). As we walk through raging storms and the valley of death, the Lord will be our hiding place, just as he was for Corrie ten Boom.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for giving us security in the midst of insecurity, peace in the terrifying storms of life, and a hiding place in your safe and loving arms. Amen.

If we are hidden with Jesus in God, then peace remains. We are not afraid, even if the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea (Ps. 46:2). Even if it is night, we can experience the promise that “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty” (Ps. 91:1). Hallelujah, what a sure security!

Corrie Ten Boom(1892–1983), Dutch author, speaker, and concentration camp survivor