A Clerical Error in Ravensbrück

On December 28, 1944, Corrie ten Boom sat on her thin mattress in Ravensbrück concentration camp, her body weakened by months of forced labor and near-starvation. She was fifty-two years old. Her sister Betsie had died in that same camp just twelve days earlier. Back in Holland, believers who had once gathered in the ten Boom watchshop were praying — fervently, persistently, desperately — for Corrie's release.

Then came the inexplicable. A guard called her name and handed her a certificate of discharge. A clerical error, the records would later suggest. Corrie walked through the gates of Ravensbrück and into the frozen December air, a free woman. Just days later, every woman her age in that camp was sent to the gas chambers.

She could barely comprehend it. The deliverance was so sudden, so improbable, that it felt like waking from a nightmare only to discover the morning was real.

Peter knew that same bewildering grace. Chained between two soldiers, sleeping the night before his likely execution, he felt the angel's strike on his side and thought he was dreaming. The chains fell. The iron gate swung open on its own. Only when the cold night air hit his face did he realize: the Lord had truly sent His angel and rescued him.