Faith, Hope and Love - Corrie Ten BoomНамуна

Love

“Keep on loving each other as brothers”. - Hebrews13:1

Ravensbruck 1944. A young Dutch woman is in the hospital barracks, giving up hope. Where there remains no courage to live, the body gives up. Though it is absolutely forbidden to go into the hospital barracks, Corrie and four other Dutch women try to go as close as possible to the young woman to encourage her, motivated by compassion and love. They know which window she lies behind. When they arrive, the shutters are closed. So, they pray that someone will open the shutters. One of the guards walks by and opens them. But then the window is locked and they cannot open it from the outside. They pray again and a Polish nurse opens the window from inside. Now Corrie walks to the window and starts to encourage the young woman. Again, the guard walks by and slaps Corrie hard on her back. Corrie goes back to the four other women, and they pray that no one will walk by anymore. Then Corrie continues to comfort and encourage this young sick woman and reminds her of the fact that Christ is Victor and that He is always with her.

Thirty years before, Corrie’s father had given her the key to love and compassion. At that time, Corrie was crying her eyes out, because the young man, whom she loved dearly, unexpectedly came to her house and introduced his new fiancée to her, which tore down all her dreams and hopes to share her future life with him. Her father, after a while, climbed up to her bedroom, sat next to her and waited until she calmed down a bit and said: “Corrie, love is the strongest force in the world. When love is hold back, we can do two things: we can either silence and kill love so that no one can hurt us anymore or we can ask God to open other ways to share our love. If we cannot share love in the normal, human way then God can teach us to love in His perfect way and pour out His love in our hearts”.

To reflect upon
God is Love. Again and again, He can find ways through which we can love our neighbor. “We love because he first loved us”. (1 John 4:19)

Prayer
Father, people at times can hurt us so deeply, especially the people we love so much. It can destroy our love and we can become so bitter. Thank You, that You will come with comfort and compassion, to heal us and create new and refreshing ways through which we can share Your love with others.

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Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983) Faith, Hope, Love

During the Second World War Corrie ten Boom and her family worked in the resistance in the Netherlands. They helped about 800 people. Many of them were Jews. Corrie was betrayed and spent 10 months in imprisonment in Scheveningen and in two concentration camps, Vught and Ravensbruck. After the war she travelled all over the world to talk about God’s love, forgiveness and grace. Corrie came from a Bible-believing family. The Bible, God’s written word, took a central place in their lives. Through it, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Living Word, spoke to them. They read the Bible daily and knew many Bible verses by heart.

Dientje Wiersma is a tour guide at the Corrie ten Boom house in Haarlem in the Netherlands. She wrote this ‘Faith, Hope and Love’ Reader’s plan. She took Bible verses that were very important to the family through the generations and wrote about the importance and applications of these Bible verses in the lives of the family Ten Boom.

A question, reflection and prayer in the end might help you to see the significance and application of these verses in your own life as well, at the beginning of the new year.

Do you want to know more about Corrie ten Boom? Go to www.corrietenboom.com