Corrie ten Boom's Table Was Always Set for One More

In the years before the Nazi occupation of Holland, Corrie ten Boom's father Caspar kept an open home above their small watchmaking shop on Barteljorisstraat 19 in Haarlem. The ten Boom family had a tradition they called "the extra plate." Every evening, an additional place setting appeared at their table — not for a specific guest, but for whoever God might send.

Refugees, traveling ministers, lonely neighbors, and Jewish families all found themselves seated at that table, sharing herring and potatoes and unhurried conversation. When the occupation came in 1940, that habit of hospitality became something far more dangerous. The ten Booms built a hidden room behind Corrie's bedroom wall and sheltered an estimated 800 Jews and resistance workers over the following years. The family paid dearly — Caspar died ten days after their arrest in 1944, and Corrie's sister Betsie perished in Ravensbruck concentration camp.

Yet even inside that camp, Betsie whispered to Corrie, "We must tell people what we have learned here. We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still."

The writer of Hebrews urges us: let brotherly love continue, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, and remember those who are in prison. The ten Booms did not wake up one morning and decide to become heroes. They simply kept setting that extra plate, year after ordinary year, until faithfulness in small hospitality became faithfulness unto death. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever, sustained them through it all.