"Triumphant Faith"
Because her family had provided a safe shelter for Jewish refugees, Corrie ten Boom was captured and forced to endure horrendous atrocities in a Nazi concentration camp. Following her sister's death in Ravensbruck she writes, "A great loneliness filled my heart. Alone! Alone in Ravensbruck! No more of those wonderfully encouraging conversations, no longer that lively spirit and that childlike faith to buoy me up! But suddenly a sense of peace came over me; yes, more than that, a feeling of sheer joy... "I went to the washroom, where the dead were laid out. There I saw eleven bodies lying on the floor. People who wanted to wash had to step over them. The 'regime' had no respect for the dead. "I fled from the room. A few minutes later I returned and then saw the face of Betsie, full of peace, and happy as a child. She looked incredibly young. It was a bit of heaven in the midst of the surrounding hell. I saw how blessed she was and thought of her present state of happiness. Joy flooded my soul and remained there, triumphant over the grief of my loss...
"How dark and burdensome days can be! My soul was the battleground of a struggle between light and darkness. Would joy for Betsie's release, or grief for my own loss, win the battle? I prayed:
"Teach me, Lord to bear the burden,
In this dark and weary day.
Let me not complain to others
Of a hard and lonely way.
Every storm to Thee is subject,
Storms of earth, or mind and heart.
Only to Thy will submitting
Can to me Thy peace impart."
-Selected
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