The Door She Didn't Have to Open

In December 1942, Corrie ten Boom's father Casper answered a knock at their door in Haarlem, Netherlands. A frightened Jewish woman stood on the step, asking if they could hide her. The ten Boom family owned a watch shop — they were not soldiers, not politicians, not resistance fighters. They were ordinary Christians who read scripture around the breakfast table each morning. Casper didn't hesitate. "In this house," he said, "God's people are always welcome."

Over the next two years, the ten Boom home concealed roughly eight hundred Jews through a hidden room behind a false wall in Corrie's bedroom. Every knock at the door could have been the Gestapo. Every meal shared with strangers carried the scent of death. Corrie knew the penalty. She had counted the cost the way a watchmaker counts teeth on a gear — precisely, without illusion.

When Esther declared, "If I perish, I perish," she was not being reckless. She had fasted three days. She had gathered her people in prayer. She walked into the throne room with her eyes wide open, knowing the law permitted the king to kill her on sight. Her courage was not the absence of fear but the presence of something heavier — the unbearable weight of silence when God has placed you at the only door that opens.

Some doors find us. The only question is whether we will walk through.