Corrie ten Boom's Hidden Refuge

In the winter of 1943, Corrie ten Boom's modest home in Haarlem, Holland, became something extraordinary. Behind a false wall in her bedroom, a cramped space no wider than a closet sheltered Jewish families fleeing Nazi persecution. Corrie understood that her home was not entirely her own — it belonged to a purpose far greater than her comfort.

She could have reasoned that self-preservation was permissible. No one would have blamed a middle-aged watchmaker for keeping her head down. But Corrie believed her very body and dwelling were instruments of the Living God. "Every experience God gives us," she later wrote, "every person He puts in our lives, is the perfect preparation for a future that only He can see."

She offered her physical safety, her home, her hands, and her health as a living sanctuary. When the Gestapo finally arrested her family in February 1944, they found the hiding place empty — every soul inside had survived. Corrie herself endured the horrors of Ravensbrück concentration camp, yet even there she turned her body into a vessel of worship, holding secret Bible studies and caring for the sick.

Paul told the Corinthians that their bodies were temples of the Holy Spirit — not their own, but bought at a price. Corrie ten Boom lived that truth with breathtaking literalness. She glorified God in her body not by protecting it, but by surrendering it completely to the One who purchased it.