The Watchmaker's Daughter and the Knock at the Door

In May 1942, a frightened woman knocked on the door of a small watchmaker's shop at 19 Barteljorisstraat in Haarlem, Netherlands. She was Jewish, desperate, and begging for a place to hide. Corrie ten Boom opened the door and hesitated. Sheltering Jews from the Nazi occupation meant risking her entire family's lives.

She turned to her eighty-four-year-old father, Casper — a man who had read Scripture aloud at the family table every morning for as long as anyone could remember. His answer came without wavering: they would help. It would be an honor, he said, to give his life for God's ancient people.

That knock was a call Corrie almost didn't recognize. It sounded like danger, like impossible risk, like a burden too heavy to bear. But her father, like old Eli in the temple at Shiloh, helped her hear what was really happening. God was speaking — through the desperate plea of a stranger at the door.

Over the next two years, the ten Boom family helped shelter an estimated eight hundred Jewish refugees through their underground network. The cost was devastating. Casper died just ten days after their arrest. Corrie survived Ravensbruck concentration camp and spent the rest of her life testifying to God's faithfulness.

God's voice doesn't always come as we expect. For Samuel, it sounded like an old priest calling his name in the night. For Corrie, it sounded like a knock she almost didn't answer. Both needed someone to say, "It is the Lord." Both learned to reply, "Speak, for your servant is listening."