ReDefine: Love

 

 

My favorite book, possibly of all time, is a book written by a spinster named Corrie ten Boom who lived in Holland during World War II. The Hiding Place tells the story of how she grew up in a Christian family, hid Jewish people in her home to protect them from the Nazis, endured Nazi concentration camps, and found Christ at work in the midst of it all. She was a very normal woman who would have lived and died unknown, had God not written her such an incredible story and opened doors for her to tell it. Her writing and speaking career came at an exorbitantly high cost.

 

Her story is a story of bravery. Her story is a story of sacrifice. Her story is a story of grace.
But as I read each page, what punctured through everything else was that her story is a story of remarkable love.

 

This week brought some challenges into my world. It was nothing extraordinary, just normal pain in a broken world. They were circumstances that challenged me to love when I really didn't want to.

 

The scene that remains most powerfully with me was a moment shared between Corrie and her father after Corrie's heart is broken by a man that she loved. In a book describing grotesque crimes against humanity, it was a normal, everyday hurt that spoke to me the loudest. Even after surviving the torturous circumstances of a concentration, Corrie still gave weight to the hurt that she experienced in a typical situation. That in itself is encouraging.

 

Her father's answer to her hurt was inspired. As she lay in her bed, she dreaded the pat answers that most people offer in such situations, but that isn't what she received from him. Instead, he gave her a gift that would enable her to love the man who broke her heart as well as the men who would break her body and her spirit.

 

 

(Thank you, Mr. ten Boom, for making every bit of my parental advice look pretty pathetic.)

 

The answer that Casper ten Boom offered to his daughter has been the same answer that God has offered me as I have struggled to love people who don't seem to care about me.

 

I don't need for the pain to disappear. I need another way to love them, a way that doesn't depend on them loving me in return. I need the kind of love that God has for me.

 

That's the kind of love that can get us through the everyday hurts of this life, and it's the kind of love that got Corrie through the torture of a concentration camp.

 

As Corrie and her sister Betsie, went through the humiliation of medical inspection, Corrie had a sudden realization. For the two unmarried, middle-aged women, being stripped of their clothing and marched through chilly hospital corridors in front of male guards was agony. That was when Corrie realized that Jesus had also been stripped of His clothing, jeered at by crowds of people.

 

She whispered to her sister,"'Betsie, they took His clothes too.'

 

Ahead of me I heard a little gasp. 'Oh, Corrie. And I never thanked Him.'" (The Hiding Place, page 195)

 

Imagine it! In the midst of dehumanizing pain, Corrie and Betsie discovered Christ's sacrificial love for them! Instead of being angry at God for allowing their pain, they were grateful to Christ for experiencing pain for their benefit. As I struggled with own, minor hurts this week, these truths slowly worked on me, giving me new perspective and reminding me of the power of the cross.

 

Is there any hurt that Christ hasn't experienced on our behalf? He was betrayed, beaten, stripped, humiliated, tortured, and killed, all for us. In the midst of our suffering, we can find Him there, waiting for us to join Him.

 

Is there anything more wonderful than knowing that every attempt to separate us from God's love can be used to bring us a deeper, more intimate understanding of His sacrificial love for us?

 

 

Reprogramming my thinking isn't as fast of a process as I would like. My first reaction to hurt wasn't, "Thank You, Lord for the privilege of knowing You better." Instead it was, "God, why would You do this now?"

 Lord, keep teaching me these lessons, no matter how great the cost. I believe that knowing You is worth suffering every loss. Help me to believe it more each day.

 

To order Corrie's book, The Hiding Place from Amazon, click here.