Women of Valor: Corrie ten Boom

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Before Her Calling:

Corrie ten Boom, known today as one of the “most remarkable evangelists of her time,”[1] was a Dutch woman used mightily for God, who, during WWII, launched a significant underground resistance to protect Jews in Holland, lived and ministered through the horrors of the German concentration camps, and later traveled the world sharing about the love of Jesus. While her story consisted of remarkable impact, Corrie began her life as a watchmaker’s daughter in the town of Haarlem, Holland, and lived an ordinary and obscure life until she was in her 50’s. Born in Holland in 1892, the first half-century of Corrie’s life was anything but exceptional. The faith of her family and the depth of their life in God was the only nod to the events that lay ahead.

 Her Competence:

Corrie ten Boom was not overtly skilled and, according to the world’s standards, had little to offer beyond her ability in her trade. She described herself as relatively unattractive, and came from simple means. She did not marry, nor did she have children. In fact, she lived with her family as a self-proclaimed “spinster” in her childhood home up into her 50s and beyond. Even in the years when she began to build an underground resistance, she noted her absolute dependence on God and not on her own ability or knowledge: “I knew I was not clever or subtle or sophisticated; if (her home) was becoming a meeting place for need and supply, it was through some strategy far higher than mine.”[2]

According to her own assessment, Corrie could have been easily dismissed as unremarkable and commonplace. Yet, when you look deeper into her story, her inner life with God and her dependence on His wisdom was anything but. While her earthly life may have seemed unexceptional, from an early age, she tapped into the eternal kingdom where “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). Corrie lived her life in the strength and ability of Christ, not merely on human strength or ability. 

Her Call:

Corrie’s call from God began when she gave her life to Jesus at the age of five. The deep inner life she cultivated in God later sustained her through devastating loss and horrific conditions during her imprisonment at the hand of the Nazis. This inner life initially developed over years and years prior, learning and growing in God. A lifestyle of faith and obedience was building in Corrie a fortitude that significantly prepared her for what was to come.

When the evils of Naziism began to have an impact on her world and particularly upon the Jewish people within her sphere of influence, her call from God was further reflected in the emergence of her understanding of what was taking place and her subsequent response. In the early years of the war, upon realizing the dire situation of a local Jewish family and the danger they faced, Corrie responds with a prayer of consecration to the Lord: “Lord Jesus, I offer myself for Your people. In any way. Any place. Any time.”[3] The call of God was already within her. All she had to do was simply respond in surrender.

Corrie’s call was simple obedience to Jesus. This call of the Lord followed her into every circumstance where she was placed. In the early days of WWII, obedience meant doing what she could for those who came across her path and to serve God by taking care of His people. Over time, the call meant her home was being used as a secret safe haven as she and her family ran an intricate “underground” to counter injustices and protect innocent people from a devastating fate. 

After her arrest and imprisonment in 1944, the call on Corrie’s life continued - to simply trust Jesus in every circumstance and bring His light and His Word to the places where she dwelled. It meant keeping a clean heart before God and surrendering bitterness and hate when it would have been easier to carry them. It meant forgiving, loving, and surrendering her fate to her Savior during terrible suffering and absolute unknowns. The call was the same we are all given in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” 

Corrie was imprisoned for ten months, from late February 1944 until the end of December that same year. During this time, she lost her father and her sister, who both died during their imprisonment. Corrie was released (due to a clerical error) just one week before the women of her age were sent to the gas chambers. God’s call was not yet complete in her life. 

Even after her release, at a time when it would have been easy to choose personal comfort, Corrie further emphasized a posture of surrender in her reflections of this season: “My life had been given back as a gift…for a purpose. I was no longer my own…I knew that God would soon be sending me out as a tramp for the Lord.”[4] And sent out she was.  After the war and after her release, the call meant following the leading of the Holy Spirit to travel and speak about the love of Jesus: in America, back to Germany to care for those devastated by the war, across Africa, Latin America, and even into the Iron Curtain. God opened doors in miraculous ways, forging a path for Corrie to fulfill the call He had given her. 

The obedience she walked in was truly the power behind her impact as she walked in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. In her book Tramp for the Lord, she quotes F.B. Meyer, who sums it up beautifully: “God does not fill with His Holy Spirit those who believe in the fullness of the Spirit or those who desire Him, but those who obey him.”[5]

Her Character:

Corrie’s character was being shaped from her early days in her family home. Having given her heart to Jesus when she was but a child, she continued to grow in her faith and learned to be obedient to the Word of God in every aspect of her life.

One of the stories that best represents this surrender and early training in the things of the Lord happened in her early 20s when Corrie suffered a devastating romantic heartbreak. Rather than responding with human wisdom, Corrie’s father pointed her higher with a challenge requiring divine intervention. He challenged Corrie to offer up the love she felt for this man to God, that He might transform that love into something greater and give it a conduit to flow once again. So Corrie did just that. She offered up her broken, human love to God and asked him to give her His love for the man, a love “nothing can prevent, nothing destroy.”[6]

That prayer of surrender, offered in faith, came to full fruition years later when her lost love and his bride came to her remembrance. It was at this moment Corrie found herself wholeheartedly praying for the blessing of this couple without the slightest trace of hurt. She accurately noted that this was a “prayer…that could not have sprung unaided from Corrie ten Boom.”[7] The mighty impact of agape love was being cultivated deeply in her heart in a way that could only emanate from the power of God.

In her memoir, Corrie reflects on this mighty surrender, speaking of the night her father initially challenged her with those words: 

I did not know…that he had given me more than the key to this hard moment. I did not know that he had put into my hands the secret that would open far darker rooms than this - places where there was not, on a human level, anything to love at all.[8]

This was a pattern for Corrie, the ability to receive correction and be discipled by the Lord Jesus and His Word; a pattern of repentance and obedience. Corrie kept an open heart before the Lord because she trusted the one in whom she put her absolute trust: “Obedience is easy when you know you are being guided by a God who never makes mistakes.”[9]

Additionally, Corrie knew the secret of drawing from deeper wells than her own. Her strength would fail. Her character would never be enough. Her faith would falter. Even in her 80s, she reflected on this truth: “I wish I could say that after a long and fruitful life…I had learned to forgive all my enemies. I wish I could say that merciful and charitable thoughts just naturally flowed from me and on to others. But they don’t. If there is one thing I’ve learned since I’ve passed my eightieth birthday, it’s that I can’t store up good feelings and behavior– but only draw them fresh from God each day.”[10]We never grow beyond our need for the work of Jesus within us.

Even from these early years, with absolutely no way of knowing what paths she would later walk, Corrie was being shaped by her Maker through seasons of human heartache in common, everyday circumstances. The Lord, indeed was preparing her character for later tribulations, that she might be able to endure and overcome evil with His perfect love even when that evil was surrounding her from all sides. 

Her Courage:

True courage stems from absolute faith in a mighty God. Likewise, Corrie ten Boom’s courage sprung from her faith in God and the promises found in His Word. The truth of who God is and the promises afforded to every believer scaffolded her from every side, as she had hidden His Word deep within her heart. It was so much so that Corrie’s faith in her God would emerge stronger than her human fear. Corrie said it best: “Faith is like radar which sees through the fog the reality of things at a distance the human eye cannot see.”[11] Corrie had courage because she could see beyond the present circumstance to a God who held her no matter what came her way.

We see divine courage displayed in Corrie’s life through the years of running the underground resistance and certainly while facing cruelty within the concentration camp; there she shamelessly shared the gospel for fellow prisoners and led prayer meetings when being caught for such actions would mean certain death. 

 But Corrie’s courage extended past those days in confinement. She showed exceptional courage as she was sent out, traveling the world as a single woman in her 50’s and beyond to share with others the goodness of God. Corrie’s travels remind me much of Abraham in the Bible, who was “called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). Corrie simply took the next step given her by the Lord, then continued to trust him each day for guidance and provision as she went. Not only that, but Corrie often was not warmly received. Upon her first visit to America, initially none wanted her to come speak. She was sometimes told that she should not have come, or that she should have remained in Holland. In the midst of such rejection, she fought hard to hold on to what she knew God had told her to do. And she continued this work for the next thirty-three years, well into her 80’s. 

Her Legacy:

While we can learn much from the life of Corrie ten Boom, one core legacy of her life is how she wholeheartedly lived her life as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. She never felt she was above the training and discipline that God works in the life of every believer who yields to it. She often spoke of this training from God as “the classroom of life. During their time in Ravensbruck, her sister Betsie said to her, “Corrie, your whole life has been a training for the work you are doing here in prison - and for the work you will do afterward.”[12] How true this was. 

Even in generations past, Corrie came from a line of faithfulness and dedication to God’s word. As far back as 1844 (almost 50 years before Corrie was born), Corrie’s grandfather was holding prayer meetings to pray for the Jewish People and also for the peace of Jerusalem. Who would have known that one hundred years later, God would use Corrie and her family to bring answers to these prayers and care directly for many Jews as part of the Dutch resistance?

Through her surrender and obedience, Corrie ushered in the transformative work of God in the lives of those she served. During her time in the resistance, it is estimated that as many as 800 people were saved as a result of their family’s efforts. During their ministry in the concentration camp, many fellow prisoners came to believe in Christ, some just hours before being put to death. Later, as Corrie traveled the world she continued to lead many to Christ. Even to this day, decades after her passing, Corrie’s story and example impacts us today.

“And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” (Daniel 12:3)

 Her Impact On Me:

While the lessons I’ve learned from the life of Corrie ten Boom are numerous, what has impacted me the most is the way she fully yielded her life to Jesus and His Word. She teaches us the joy of finding our greatest treasure in Christ. In this great exchange, Corrie shows us all how to live fully in God, surrendering our wills, our plans, and our preferences. What we receive in exchange is the fullness of His Spirit working in and through us as part of His redemptive plan for mankind. Just as in the parable of Jesus in Matthew 13:44, Corrie found the hidden treasure of Christ and His kingdom; and gave all she had to buy it. May we all do the same.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25)

Notes

Corrie ten Boom House. “The History of the ten Boom Family” https://www.corrietenboom.com/en/family-ten-boom

 Corrie Ten Boom. Tramp for the Lord. New York, Jove Books, 1974.

 Corrie Ten Boom, et al. The Hiding Place. Grand Rapids, Mi, Chosen Books, 2006.

 Dallas Baptist University. “Corrie ten Boom.” Online Archive of Corrie ten Boom. https://www.dbu.edu/corrie-ten-boom/her-story.html#:~:text=Prominent%20Times%20During%20Corrie's%20Life&text=Most%20were%20released%2C%20but%20four,speaking%20in%20sixty%2Dfour%20countries.

 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Corrie ten Boom.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/corrie-ten-boom#:~:text=In%20September%201944%2C%20the%20Nazis,until%20Betsie%20died%20that%20December.

[1]Corrie Ten Boom, Tramp for the Lord (New York: Jove Books, 1974).

[2] Corrie Ten Boom, Elizabeth Sherrill, and John L Sherrill, The Hiding Place (Grand Rapids, Mi: Chosen Books, 2006), p. 99.

[3]Ibid., p. 90.

[4] Corrie Ten Boom, Tramp for the Lord (New York: Jove Books, 1974), p. 26.

[5] Ibid., p. 44.

[6] Corrie Ten Boom, Elizabeth Sherrill, and John L Sherrill, The Hiding Place (Grand Rapids, Mi: Chosen Books, 2006), p. 60.

[7] Ibid., p. 65.

[8]  Ibid., p. 60.

[9]  Corrie Ten Boom, Tramp for the Lord (New York: Jove Books, 1974), p. 97.

[10] Ibid., p. 181.

[11] Ibid., p. 13.

[12]Ibid., p.11.