As I was searching for a real-life story for my blog series “Looking for Sunshine,” I came across that of Corrie Ten Boom. She was born April 15,1892 in Haarlem in the Netherlands. And died April 15,1983 on her 91^st birthday in Placentia, California in the U.S.A.

 Corrie’s tenacity and resolve helped scores of Jewish people escape from the Nazis during the time of the Holocaust of World War II, even at the cost of being held in the Scheveningen Prison and the Nazi Herzogenbusch Concentration Camp, both in her motherland. And subsequently, before being released on December 31, 1944, she was held captive in Germany at the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. A Christian of deep faith and practice, she had trained in her father’s shop to be a watchmaker but discovered her first higher calling hiding Jews in the family’s home.

Later she travelled over the world to more than sixty countries as a public speaker and advocate for valuing the lives of all God’s children. Her public speaking engagements had far-reaching effects like rays of sunshine breaking through darkness.

Corrie Ten Boom authored many books. Her best known, THE HIDING PLACE, was published in 1971 and made into a movie by the same name in 1975. A sequel film RETURN TO THE HIDING PLACE was released in 2011 in the United Kingdom; and released in the USA in 2013.

She is quoted to have said, “When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”  May her words speak to you today.

Spreading Light by Practicing Respect for All People
Connie Carlisle Polley, 2024
ConnieCarlislePolley.com
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