The Hiding Place Behind the Hiding Place

During the Nazi occupation of Holland, Corrie ten Boom and her family built a secret room behind a false wall in their Haarlem home — a hiding place for Jews fleeing persecution. On February 28, 1944, the Gestapo raided the Bejé, the ten Boom family watch shop. Corrie and her sister Betsie were arrested and eventually transported to Ravensbrück concentration camp.

In that place of unspeakable cruelty, Betsie whispered something remarkable to her sister: "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still." Even as their bodies wasted and the barracks reeked of death, the two sisters gathered women each evening around a smuggled Bible — a Bible that guards never once confiscated, despite searching other prisoners thoroughly.

Corrie survived. Betsie did not. But both women discovered what the psalmist proclaimed centuries earlier — that the Most High is not merely a theological concept but a dwelling place. Their physical hiding place was found. But the shelter of the Almighty held firm.

Psalm 91 never promises that those who trust God will avoid the raid, the camp, or the suffering. It promises something far deeper: "I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him." Corrie ten Boom spent a lifetime testifying that the truest hiding place was never behind a false wall. It was beneath the shadow of the Almighty, where no Gestapo could reach.