Thoughts From Corrie ten Boom

Dear Friends,

In light of Holocaust Remembrance Day last week, January 27th, I thought I would take the time today to post some “thoughts” or quotes from Corrie ten Boom, whose name was made known worldwide through the book and movie that followed, called, “The Hiding Place.” It was released my second year in college (when I was 18, and 5 years before I came to faith in Christ). I was so taken in by her heroism and willingness to risk life and limb, doing what was against the law in occupied Holland at the time, and hiding Jewish people from the Nazis.

Even as an unbeliever she and her family were quite an inspiration to me, risking the wrath of the Nazi’s for breaking the law to not only hide Jewish people in a secret room in their house, but helping them escape the country, and thereby saving many lives. She, along with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, were two of my earliest heroes of the Christian faith. People who not only had faith but sought to live it out in their lives – despite what it cost them.


Corrie’s godly father Casper died in Scheveningen Prison ten days after their arrest on February 28, 1944. Her sister Betsie ten Boom (a bit more frail than Corrie) died in the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp on December 16, 1944. Her older brother Willem ten Boom died soon after the war from tuberculosis of the spine, a disease he contracted while imprisoned for being part of the Dutch Resistance. Christiaan (Kik) ten Boom (a nephew) was sent to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, from which he never returned. It is assumed he was killed and buried at the camp. Below are 22 quotes from her books and speaking engagements around the world after surviving Ravensbrück. Considering what she endured, I am challenged by each one.  

"You can never learn that Christ is all you need, until Christ is all you have."

“Do you know what hurts so very much? It's love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain. There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill that love so that it stops hurting. But then, of course, part of us dies too. Or we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.”

“I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work he will give us to do.”

A few days before Betsie died in the camp while sleeping next to her sister, she asked Corrie: “Are you awake, Corrie?” “Yes, Betsie you awakened me.” “I had to. I need to tell you what God has said to me… Corrie, there is so much bitterness. We must tell them that the Holy Spirit will fill their hearts with God’s love… We will travel the world bringing the gospel to all – our friends as well as our enemies.” “To all the world?” asked Corrie, “That will take much money.” “Yes,” said Betsie, “but God will provide. We must do nothing else but bring the gospel, and He will take care of us. After all, He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. If we need the money, we will just ask the Father to sell a few of His cows.” “What a privilege,” said Corrie, “to travel the world and be used by the Lord Jesus.” (Excerpt from Corrie’s book, ‘Tramp for the Lord.’)

“If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. But if you look at Christ, you’ll be at rest.”

“If the devil cannot make us bad, he will make us busy.”

"Worry is like a rocking chair: it keeps you moving but doesn't get you anywhere… Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.”

“You will find it is necessary to let things go, simply for the reason that they are too heavy to keep carrying around.”

“God takes our sins – the past, present, and future – dumps them in the sea and then puts up a sign that says, ‘NO FISHING ALLOWED.’”  

“Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it will hurt when God pries your fingers open.”

“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”

After speaking in the city of Munich in 1947, Corrie was approached by one of the cruelest guards at Ravensbrück. He had become a Christian and walked forward holding out his hand and asking her to forgive him. Despite her initial paralyzing anger, and the memories of his cruelty, she prayed for the strength to take his hand and forgive him. Yet, in all honesty she confesses, “Even as the angry vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man. Was I going to ask for more? “Lord Jesus,” I prayed, “forgive me and help me to forgive him… Jesus, I cannot forgive him… Give me your forgiveness.” And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness, any more than on our goodness, that the world's healing hinges, but on his. When he tells us to love our enemies, he gives along with the command, the love itself.” As Corrie shook his hand, she said she felt a tangible and supernatural warmth and love go through her, showing her that forgiveness is a choice of obedience, rather than first needing to wait for a feeling.

“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?”

“What wings are to a bird, and sails to a ship, so is prayer to the soul.”

“The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.”

"If God sends us on stony paths, he provides strong shoes.

“Trying to do the Lord’s work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.”  

"Faith sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible."

“When I try, I fail. When I trust, he succeeds.”

“God never measures the mind… He always puts His tape measure around the HEART.”

“Now I know from my experience that Jesus’ light is stronger than the biggest darkness.”

“What a sad mistake we sometimes make when we think that God only cares about Christians.”

What more could I even add? Nothing. So I won't.

With You in the Service of the Gospel, Pastor Jeff