Life Matters - November 23, 2022
“Giving thanks always for all things” (Eph. 5:20) surely is a matter of perspective. And whenever that perspective is crossing my mind the picture of a little Dutch lady from the 1940s enters my mind and adds dimension to the big picture of being thankful for all things. Corrie ten Boom was a single lady, as was her sister Betsie. Both ladies lived with their father in the Dutch city of Haarlem, in Holland, when the Nazis took over in 1940. World War II was ramping up, as were the crematories the Nazis had set up in concentration camps for the extermination of those they deemed unfit to be a part of the new kingdom—“The Third Reich”—they fantasized themselves to be the architects and organizers of. They fantasized of a superior Aryan race and eugenics being the pathway to get there. By breeding out undesirable hereditary traits and by gassing, then cremating, the still living “undesirables,” the Nazis hoped to help the “evolutionary process” move along faster to produce the Aryan race of people needed to occupy the lands that their “blitzkrieg” (lightening war) would clear to make way for this “superior” race of people. True to the tenets of Evolution as a “science,” the Nazis believed in “survival of the fittest” and had targeted one ethnic group in particular as not fit enough to survive. The Jews. There followed the coldest, the most efficiently brutal, genocide attempt the world has ever known, as upwards of six million Jews were systematically gassed in the killing chambers and then cremated.
During that time, the ten Boom family was apprehended for the “illegal” activity of aiding Jews to hide and escape from their ungodly tormentors, who should have been their protectors. The government, led by Adolph Hitler, had turned against its own law-abiding citizens, the Jews, in a genocidal attempt to eradicate them. And may have succeeded without the compassionate help of godly citizens like the ten Booms and many others. Upon being arrested, the two ten Boom sisters were sent to Scheveningen, Vught and eventually Ravensbruck, while their father, whom they never saw nor heard from again, died ten days after being swallowed up in the sinister maw of Nazism. Corrie describes the Ravensbruck prison as a place of hunger, tormenting cold, cruel guards, crowded barracks full of women like herself battling cold, hunger, and dirty conditions without proper cleaning supplies, all while attempting a low profile to avoid a confrontation with constantly unhappy guards. And the lice. They were always battling the lice. Corrie fell to complaining to the Lord about her lot in life. After all, she had been stuck in here for doing the Lord’s work. But she didn’t sense God hearing her prayer. She had managed to smuggle her “verboten” (forbidden) Bible into these ungodly conditions and in their newly assigned barracks at Ravensbruck there were fleas infesting everything. As she began to complain to Betsie about the fleas, Betsie reminded her about their Bible reading that morning, from 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you,” and they endeavored to begin thanking God for everything.
It was hard, but she began thanking God for the things she could muster some gratefulness for. Betsie was the first to thank God for the fleas and Corrie interrupted her, “Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.” Betsie replied, “‘Give thanks in all circumstances.’ It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.” And so they gave thanks for the fleas, but Corrie was sure Betsie was wrong. With their one Bible they began a nightly Bible Study for themselves and the spiritually hungry group of women crowded into this one big room. As they continued in the grace of God, thankfulness became a part of who they were, and peace reigned in their barracks. They began to notice that the guards were leaving them alone during the nightly Bible study. As a matter of fact, no guards ever came into their barracks. Eventually they learned, through a guard being very vocal about refusing to enter, that all guards were refusing to enter the room they were in. Because of the fleas! The women who thanked God by faith were now thanking God by sight and an increase in their faith! God was their protector. This time with fleas!
That, my friends, is my 2022 Life Matters Thanksgiving message to us all. Let us thank God for the bountiful harvest, for family, friends, good times together, for healthy laughter that does good like medicine, for reminders of God’s grace and mercy, for His “long-suffering to us-ward,” (II Peter 3:9) for Jesus who “speaketh better things than that of Abel.” (Hebrews 12:24)
In everything give thanks!
Life Matters!