Book Review: The Hiding Place

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's probably been almost 20 years since I first read this gem, and it remains one of the most powerful accounts of transformative, gospel-centred love I have ever encountered. Corrie's life is a testament to how the light of Christ really can and does penetrate even the deepest darkness. The wisdom found here has been formative in my own life and walk with God. One of my "desert island" books, so I give this beautiful memoir my highest recommendation. 5 shining stars!

View all my reviews

Favourite Quotes:

“We commented to Corrie about the practicalness of the things she recalled, how her memories seemed to throw a spotlight on problems and decisions we faced here and now. 'But,' she said, 'this is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for a future that only He can see.'”  -p.12 (Preface)


"And so seated next to my father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked, 'Father, what is sexsin?'  He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case from the rack over our heads, and set it on the floor.  'Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?' he said.  I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning.  'It's too heavy,' I said.  'Yes,' he said. 'And it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger, you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.'  And I was satisfied. More than satisfied -- wonderfully at peace. There were answers to this and all my hard questions -- for now I was content to leave them in my father's keeping." -p.42

“Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way.” -p.60

“Mama's love had always been the kind that acted itself out with soup pot and sewing basket. But now that these things were taken away, the love seemed as whole as before. She sat in her chair at the window and loved us. She loved the people she saw in the street-- and beyond: her love took in the city, the land of Holland, the world. And so I learned that love is larger than the walls which shut it in. ” -p.64

“There are no 'if's' in God's world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety - Oh Corrie, let us pray that we may always know it!” -p.84

“My job was simply to follow His leading one step at a time, holding every decision up to Him in prayer.” -p.99

“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.” -p.248

On Beauty

It probably makes no sense to use hashtags in a blog (captions for my previous photo update notwithstanding), but for this week's #tbt I thought it would be fitting to share a piece I wrote for a student blog about a year and a half ago. This post still has a lot of personal resonance for me as I have continued to reflect on and sometimes wrestle with considerations of beauty and body image and what it means to be a Fat Person living in a skinny-obsessed society (but that's really a post for another day). 

I remember feeling a sense of release when I first committed these thoughts to paper, but there have admittedly been many times since then when I have not felt that same freedom from a worldly preoccupation with my physical appearance and the (self) criticism of "not ____ enough." While I still have work to do here, I hope the following words are an encouragement to you! And if you'd like to read something written by someone much wiser than I am, I recommend this great article.

Much love to you all,

K xx

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Beauty

There are a lot of competing messages out there about beauty. Pass by any magazine rack at a checkout counter and they will be there, splashed across the glossy pages in all their designed-to-make-you-feel-inadequate, unrealistically-air-brushed glory. The media has no shortage of opportunities to remind us that if you're not young and sexy with flawless skin, voluminous lashes, and whatever bust-waist-hip ratio is currently considered desirable, life is barely worth living. Haven't we all internalized at least some aspects of this worldview? The Bible teaches us that “beauty is fleeting” (Prov. 31:30), but that doesn’t stop us from vainly struggling against that inevitability with special anti-aging serums, face creams, hair dye, and, in more extreme cases, elective plastic surgeries.

Doesn’t the world’s obsession with outer beauty feed our inner “comparison dragon” so that we get caught up from time to time (or maybe all the time?) in comparing ourselves to other women, usually those with a particular attribute we dislike in ourselves and covet in someone else? I can’t speak for you, but I know that is certainly true for me. Of course this blatantly flies in the face of godly wisdom which instructs us a) not to covet (Exodus 20:17), and b) that our beauty should come from our “inner sel[ves], the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit" (1 Peter 3:3-4). But I guess Vogue and MTV didn't get the memo on that and I must have missed that lesson in Sunday School...

On the other hand, in the #bodypositive/we are all beautiful/anti-airbrushing camp, a different segment of society preaches that we deserve to feel beautiful and that we should focus on loving ourselves. On the surface such messages about loving your body no matter whether or not it conforms to society’s current (fickle) standards of beauty sounds like a much-needed antidote. However, to be blunt, this message is simply not true either. The Bible has a lot to say about what we all deserve and, sorry ladies, it's not to feel and be treated like goddesses. Check out Romans 1:18-32, Romans 2:5-11, Ephesians2:3, and Matthew 13:40-42 if you don't believe me. And there's a word for what happens when you make self-love your highest aim; it starts (appropriately enough) with "I" and ends with "dolatry."

By the way, in case any of this makes it sounds like I have all this body image/self-esteem stuff worked out and don't have any insecurities of my own, let me just say this: I am a fat woman living at a time when the "obesity epidemic" is currently considered the scourge of North America. I have plenty of baggage when it comes to body image. Girl, you don't have to tell me that times are tough! But I am here to tell you that it doesn't have to be these two extremes.

We don't have to choose between self-love and self-loathing. Christ has provided us with a better way, a narrow path, and it leads directly to Himself. We need to get our eyes off the scale and fix our eyes on the One who died for us. If we are covered in His blood it has removed our weight of sin, which is the only weight that really matters. We have to stop staring at ourselves in the mirror and cataloguing our so-called flaws and spend more time fixing or eyes on the Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth.

Psalm 139 tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful, did you hear that? The way God designed you is wonderful. Don't you go denigrating His creation by despising your body! Then, as if to reinforce this point, David repeats himself and immediately says, "your [God’s] works are wonderful, I know that full well." Like, "in case you missed it the first time, ladies, I want to be clear that the proper description for the way God made you is WONDERFUL, not 'needs airbrushing' or ‘could stand to lose a few pounds’."

Do you want to know why you really are beautiful? It's because you were personally designed (or "knit together") by a beautiful God, and He made you in His image.

That's it, right there. It's actually not about you at all, it's about the One who created you, who ordered your DNA, who made you wonderfully unique in order to image and reflect Himself. And not only that - it gets better! When that beautiful image was marred by the ugliness of sin, as it is for all of us since Adam's rebellion, God still regarded you as so precious that He sent His own Son to die for you so that you could be made beautiful again by the righteousness of Christ (Romans 5:6-11, Ephesians 1:4-8).

So the next time you catch a glimpse of yourself or are struggling with feeling less than beautiful, I hope you can remember what really makes you beautiful. The world's definition of beauty is ever-changing, but God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and His fingerprints are all over your beautiful self if you only have the eyes to see them. Less of us, more of Him. Less of me, oh Lord, and more of You. That’s where true beauty lies. ∎

Goodbye, Hello!

I'm back! And just in time for one final post of the year before 2013 arrives at midnight. It is really hard to comprehend that another whole year (another whole year!) has already come and gone. The older I get the more quickly times seems to pass, which makes me wonder what the passage of time will be like if I make it to a grandmotherly age... does it continue to feel like it's speeding up or at some point do the years start dragging? I suspect maybe it's different for every person, but as for this person (right now, anyways), she's just wondering where all the time went.

But no more on how times flies, since that topic is about as interesting as talking about the weather (speaking of which, SNOW!!!! ♥ On the ground! More than just a dusting! And it seems to be sticking around, huzzah!!). Instead, I will leave you with some inspiring words from Isaiah, a fitting note on which to end this year and begin a new one.

“This is what the LORD says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”  (Isaiah 43: 16, 18-19)

Happy New Year, my lovelies! I hope and pray that it is a blessed one for you all, full of joy and peace.

K xx

Happy "giving thanks" day!

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever."

1 Chronicles 16: 34

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! May our hearts overflow with gratitude for all we have been given.

xoxo,

K

Devotions: Thoughts from Day One

Further confirmation in support of my one and only resolution this year, from today's Bible readings:

"Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."  (Joshua 1: 8)

Interesting how success (or "prospering") is linked with meditation on God's Word in both Joshua 1 and the Psalm I shared yesterday. That kind of challenges common ideas of success that are more associated with working hard, making savvy financial decisions, snagging a great job, networking/meeting the right people, finding your life's greatest passion, or believing in yourself and your power to control your life. Or in my case, the temptation to measure success by how much others value and appreciate me, or how happy and content I feel.

Also noteworthy: both these passages include the phrase "meditate (on it) day and night." Almost makes you think that spending time reading and mulling over what God has said is a big deal, huh? :)

My One and Only

Like many others, I've been thinking about goals and resolutions as 2011 draws to a close and we begin another calendar year. I was actually hesitant to post about such things, as it seems like such a cliché to blog about resolutions on the eve of a new January. But then I realized that although I don't really get excited for New Year's or celebrate it in a big way, my favourite part of this post-Christmas holiday is that it is a natural time for us all to reflect on the past year and look ahead to the coming one.

During one of my sleepless nights this week (there have been a few, recently), I grabbed the journal on my nightstand and started making a list of my goals for 2012. There are a lot of them, mostly self-improvement related rather than adventures/activities I'd like to experience, but taken as a whole they make for a somewhat formidable task. Ever the optimist, I usually have a lengthy list of things to accomplish during the new year, the summer, my week off, the month before Christmas, etc. And while goals are healthy and can provide great motivation, sometimes they can be more daunting than helpful when they stack up like a pile of dirty dishes.

Thus, in the spirit of simplicity and to focus on what's really important, I have only one resolution this year. I will not let anything (aside from a true crisis/emergency) get in the way of spending intentional, daily quiet time with God. Too often I choose other things, less important things, over this necessary discipline, foolishly allowing the general busy-ness and seemingly "urgent" matters in life to crowd out what's truly essential. If I wouldn't go a day without eating and sleeping (that wouldn't be healthy!), why would I go a day without feeding and giving rest to my soul (also not healthy)?

To help me stick to this resolution, I'll be following Professor Grant Horner's Bible Reading System for each of January's 31 days. There's nothing extra-holy or super-spiritual about this plan over others, but since I usually just work through a book of the Bible at a time during my devos (reading a chapter or so per sitting) and have been doing so for years, I thought this emphasis on reading for quantity so you become familiar with the whole of Scripture would be a nice change of pace. We'll see how I feel after a month, but I've heard a whole lot of positive feedback from others who have tried this method so I'm hoping I will find it as beneficial as they have. For other options, including a very tempting choice which is chronologically organized, you can check out this list by Ligonier Ministries, which includes some of the most popular Bible reading plans.

Psalm 1: 1-3

Blessed is the man
   who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
   or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
   and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
   which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
   Whatever he does prospers.