the hiding place

this book was amazing and changed my life! i know a lot of people read it during high school english. somehow that class passed me by, i ended up having to read lord of the flies 3 times! whatever. anyway, this book takes place in denmark, in the 1940's during the rule of the nazis. it is the true story of corrie ten boom and she is the narrator throughout the book.

corrie is a 30 something lady living with her father and sister, betsie, who runs the home and helps with the watch shop that is connected to their house. as the nazis continue to harm corrie's fellow villagers and they begin to "disappear" suspiciously, corrie finds herself helping jewish friends and eventually hiding them in a secret room in their home. she is set up and turned in, along with the rest of her family. after solitary confinement and continual mistreatment, she and betsie eventually end up in a german concentration camp for women.

what amazed me was betsie's outlook on life. she continued to be grateful for all of the small blessings that were in her life and share her love of God and the bible with others to give them hope to keep going and survive the nightmare they were in. there was one specific incident was when betsie prayed for the "bedbugs" that were driving them insane. corrie couldn't believe that she had done this and basically thought her sister had lost her mind. well a few days later, while all the women were gathered around the "forbidden" bible, a guard was going to come in and they were going to get in trouble. guess what stopped her from coming in? the bed bugs! corrie was amazed at her betsie's faith and soon her outlook began to match her sister's.

the fact that corrie survived this horrible ordeal and then began to travel around speaking about faith, blessings and the pure love of God inspired me. she and her sister were such an example to me and made me re-evaluate the blessings in my life.

the first 1/3 of the book is pretty slow but overall i absolutely loved it. i would recommend it to anyone!!