The Hiding Place

But . . . if the Gospels were truly the pattern of God’s activity, then defeat was only the beginning. I would look around at the bare little cell and wonder what conceivable victory could come from a place like this.

The real sin I had been committing was not that of inching toward the center of a platoon because I was cold. The real sin lay in thinking that any power to help and transform came from me. Of course it was not my wholeness, but Christ’s that made the difference.

“These young women. That girl back at the bunkers. Corrie, if people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love! We must find the way, you and I, no matter how long it takes. . . .”

The circle of white cotton told me that when we’re feeling poorest—when we’ve lost a friend, when a dream has failed, when we seem to have nothing left in the world to make life beautiful—that’s when God says, You’re richer than you think.

When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.

I felt the Bible bumping between my shoulder blades. God’s good news. Was it to this world that He had spoken it?

“God loves Karel—even more than you do—and if you ask Him, He will give you His love for this man, a love nothing can prevent, nothing destroy. Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way.”

Mama’s eyes never left the sky. What to us was a trip through the country, to her was a feast of clouds and light and infinite blue distances.

And it was at that moment, as I stepped into the alley, that I knew what it was I was looking for. It was Betsie. It was Betsie I had missed every moment of every day since I ran to the hospital window and found that she had left Ravensbruck forever. It was Betsie I had thought to find back here in Haarlem, here in the watch shop and in the home sh