Give Thanks

I have no real reason why this popped into my head tonight, but it did. When I was 12 or 13 I read The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom for the first time and I've read it a few times since. In fact I think it's probably a good time for me to read it again, if you've never read it you should. I would have to say it is my favorite book, and it has definitely been the most impactful book in my life, second to the bible. There's an incident that Corrie recalls while she and her sister had just been relocated to Ravensbruck the notorious women's concentration camp in Germany. (As a side-note: I grabbed my copy of The Hiding Place to find the passage I wanted to share and guess where I turned? To the precise page I needed, wow. To me that's confirmation God wants me to share this.) The women are forced to sleep in multi-leveled bunk bed so close together they could hardly move and just as they were getting settled in their spots Corrie gets bit by fleas and scrambles down from the beds to where there's a little light. Here is the conversation that follows:

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... I wailed. "Betsie, how can we live in such a place!"
"Show us. Show us how." It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more, the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie.
" Corrie!" she said excitedly. "He's given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!"
I glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch. "It was First Thessalonians," I said. We were on our third complete reading of the New Testament since leaving Scheveningen. In the feeble light, I turned the pages. "Here it is: 'Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all...'" It seemed written expressly to Ravensbruck.
"Go on," said Betsie. "That wasn't all."
"Oh yes: '...to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus -"
"That's it Corrie! That's His answer. 'Give thanks in all circumstances!' That's what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new baracks!"
I stared at her, then around me at the dark, foul-aired room.
"Such as?" I said.
"Such as being assigned here together."
I bit my lip. "Oh, yes, Lord Jesus!"
"Such as what you're holding in your hands."
I looked down at the Bible. "Yes,! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all the women, here in this room, who will meet You in these pages."
"Yes," said Betsie. "Thank You for the very crowding here. Since we're packed so close, that many more will hear!" She looked at me expectantly. "Corrie!" she prodded.
"Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed, suffocating crowds."
"Thank You," Betsie went on serenly, "for the fleas and for --"
The fleas! This was too much. "Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea."
"'Give thanks in all circumstances,'" she quoted. "It doesn't say, 'in pleasant circumstances.' Fleas are part of this place where God has put us."
And so we stood between piers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.

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We all have fleas in our life, things we feel God has no purpose for, things we feel we're completely justified in being ungrateful for even bitter towards. Corrie even mentions that not even God can make her grateful for such a horrid thing as fleas. But just as her sister spoke to her God wants us to be thankful for all things, not just the things that we reason in our minds worthy of thanksgiving, but all things. I'm going to be very vulnerable right now and say I don't always want to thank God for my singleness or my loneliness, though I can see the benefit of it at times. I have to hold out that God sees the road ahead. He knows what's coming and nothing is in vain with Him. His ways are not our ways, they're so much better! There's more to Corrie and Betsie's story, here's the part that just leaves me speechless. You see Corrie and Betsie would read the little New Testament (that miraculously stayed hidden from every guard at every concentration camp they were sent to) in the evening when everyone was forced into their sleeping quarters. Amazingly the guards never stopped them or came near to see what all the women were huddled around doing. It got to be such a big gathering of women listening to what they were reading that they could hear women translating the text from Dutch to German, French, Russian, Polish, Czech and still no guards to stop them. Later on Betsie figures out why, and here it is:


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"You know we've never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room," she said. "Well--I've found out."
That afternoon, she said, there'd been confusion in her knitting group about sock sizes and they'd asked the supervisor to come and settle it.
"But she wouldn't. She wouldn't step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?"
Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice: "Because of the fleas! That's what she said, 'The place is crawling with fleas!'"
My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie's bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for.

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What can be said but that God knows and He sees and everything, even the fleas, can be used for His purposes. Give thanks to God for all things and wait to see Him use the fleas in your life. It may take a while, but His greatest works have been done through our greatest trials giving Him great glory and you His great strength. Tina C.