An unexpected visit

Studying European history one summer when I was in college, I had the privilege to participate in a seminar group.  One morning, our agenda included a visit to a rather ordinary watch shop, small and ancient with creaky floors and narrow winding stairs.  I had no idea who we were visiting, nor the significance of this old house, brimming with stories.

At one landing, a living room was situated, illuminated by a large bay window on the street side and decorated with well-worn old furniture.  Over by the window sat an old woman, her silver hair braided into ring around the top of her head, like one of my great aunts used to wear.  I stood in the back of the room, and literally, this ancient woman radiated with joy and love.  I was captivated.  And although that was decades ago, I still remember distinctly what she said to this group of college-age students.  I was still a teenager.

"You, all of you are so young.  Don't wait until you are old like me to be used by God," she said in heavily-accented English.

I had just met Corrie Ten Boom.

That summer, I read her own incredible story in The Hiding Place, and thereafter, about every year or so.  It is that good.

This chronicle of faithfulness will take your breath away.  Don't just put it on a list to read when you get around to it.  Put it in your hands, just one chapter a day.

"Childhood scenes rushed back at me out of the night, strangely close and urgent.  Today I know that such memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.  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."

--Corrie Ten Boom
The Hiding Place
page 15

God redeems the past into the future.
God transforms the ordinary
                 into the extraordinary.
God equips in incredible ways
      to be used mightily by Him.


As for you,
you meant evil against me,
but God meant it
                 for good,
to bring it about
that many people
    should be kept alive,
as they are today.

                 Genesis 50.20