The Book That Suffering Wrote

In February 1944, Nazi soldiers raided a narrow house on Barteljorisstraat in Haarlem, Netherlands, arresting the ten Boom family for hiding Jews. Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsie were eventually transported to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. Betsie died there on December 16, 1944. Corrie was released twelve days later due to what she later described as a clerical error — one week before all women her age in the camp were killed.

For twenty-seven years, Corrie carried those memories. She traveled to more than sixty countries, telling anyone who would listen what her dying sister had whispered in the barracks: "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still."

In 1971, working with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, Corrie published The Hiding Place. The book has since reached millions of readers, becoming one of the most treasured Christian testimonies of the twentieth century. The darkest chapter of her life became the very story God used to strengthen the faith of people she would never meet.

Romans 8:28 does not promise that all things are good. Ravensbrück was not good. Betsie's death was not good. But the verse promises that God works all things together for good for those who love Him. Corrie's suffering was not wasted — it was woven into a testimony that has outlived her by decades. When you cannot see what God is doing in your pain, remember: He may be writing a chapter that someone else desperately needs to read.