Reality Check

Okay, in my last post I said I would return to the subject of the Anne Franke and Corrie Ten Boom house visits. Everyone has heard of the Diary of Anne Franke. - The story of a young jewish girl and her family and how they hid for 3 years from the nazis. The Anne Franke house was about a block and 1/2 from the bed and breakfast where we stayed in Amsterdam. We got up early one morning and strolled along the prisengraat (canal) to the house which is now a museum. It is an empty house with photos, excerpts from the diary, historical items (like a yellow star the jews were forced to wear). The tour starts in what was the business on the main floor and moves you through to the sections where the family and friend hid. Those who helped to keep them hidden and fed (which was itself an amazing feat!) had to keep the secret not only from the nazis, but from other people who worked in the business on the main floors. All day long from (;00 until the buisness closed and workers went home they had to be completely silent. Anne tells of seeing other jews they knew dragged from their homes on the other side of the canal while ann and her family were already in hiding and feeling guilty because she did and could do nothing for them. Ultimately, they were caught and sent to the camps and only Anne's father survived.

Corri Ten Boom's story is not as well-known..but in many ways more amazing to me. Corrie's family were devout christians. They were always generous to others - even when they had little themselves. They sort of slipped into the dutch resistance - as people they knew began coming to them for help when the nazis invaded the Netherlands. Corrie's role grew until she was essentially the leader of the dutch resistance in their town (Haarlem). They added a brick wall in the back of an upstairs room leaving a small space (about the size of a closet) that could be entered by crawling through an opening at the back, bottom shelf of a closet. Over time they hid dozens (if not hundreds) of jews and resistance members for varying periods of time. They were eventually betrayed and sent to the camps. Corrie's father (who was in his eighties) and her sister died in the camps. Corrie survived - to share God's love and forgiveness and salvation for many years afterwards. The tour guide was a woman who had been a young child in Haarlem during the war and listening to her talk of the bombing, the restrictions, and the food shortages was really -something.

We think of WWII as history - long gone. But there and across Europe, whose history is so much longer than ours - and who experienced everything on their home soil - the war is recent history. It's still fresh and painful.

Standing in Corrie's house, seeing pictures of her and many of those she helped to save, hearing her story of God's outpouring on her...was so moving and humbling. After returning home I read Corrie's account of this time in her life in her book "The Hiding Place". And I couldn't help but think about how small my faith is, how much I limit God's action in my life. And I wonder when times like those return - as I believe they will - who will God work through then? Who will let him light the way, pour forth his love, reflect his redemption? And if it is me - will I do as she did - and learn to say, "God I can't - but you can - so send your strength, your love, your forgiveness, through me - and by so doing - learn to love and forgive as she did?