Corrie ten Boom, Her Story
He shell feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom... .
Isaiah 40:11
13. A Place to Be
EVERYONE NEEDS A place to be. One of the great joys of heaven is that it is a place, a prepared place. I am thankful that there I will have a special house that is reserved just for me.
When I was born, Father and Mother were living on the Korte Prinsegracht, a typical Amsterdam canal. I was born prematurely and my skin was blue. Uncle Hendrik, Tante Jans's husband, looked at me and exclaimed, "I hope the Lord will quickly take this poor little creature to His home in heaven."
But my parents and Tante Anna did not agree with him. They surrounded me with love and care. However, since there were no incubators in those early days, I cried much from the cold. Tante Anna, knowing I missed the warmth of the special place under my mother's heart from which I had come, rolled me in her apron and tied me against her stomach. There | was warm and quiet.
Many years later I was in a primitive house in Africa. The bathtub was made from an old oil drum that had been sawed in half. Missionaries lived there and they invited me in to eat with them. Walking into the kitchen, I saw an African woman with the white missionary child strapped tightly to her back.
"Hey, how nice she has your baby on her back," I said to the missionary mother. The white mother smiled and said, "The baby was so fearful this morning. All she would do was cry. When the African cook came to the house she took one look at the baby and said, 'Ah, Missee, give me the baby. I will keep her quiet.' So she strapped her on her back and the baby has slept all morning while the cook has been busy around the kitchen."
I could understand that feeling of having a place—of belonging. I was often afraid
Here are some pictures taken while
TRAMPING FOR THE LORD
An early photo taken with my own camera and developed by myself.
Below: At the former concentration camp Darmstadt after the war.
I received an Indian garland in
Delhi.
In North Borneo vith a small missionary plane. Right: In East Germany.
Rane No Se Remeron
With missionary children in Africa. Below: In South Africa with Mr. Rowland, a former coworker of Andrew Murray's.
Conny (left) and I bid farewell to Dr. Gwen Shepherd in Argentina.
Below: In a pedicab in
Formosa.
On the leprosy island at Ruanda.
With Brother Andrew in Viet Nam.
In Viet Nam with Tsan, who called me "double old grandmother."
Tokyo. ve Po es oe
Ellen and I with Mrs. Billy Graham in North Carolina. Below: In Bermuda.
TRAMP FOR THE LORD 253 as a small child. Sleeping beside my sister, Nollie, who was a year and a half older than me, I begged to be able to hold her hand at night. She refused, and instead gave me the hem of her nightgown. By and by she did not even like me holding on to that, but told me to hold on to the hem of my doll's nightgown.
Then, when I was five years old, the Lord Jesus became a great reality to me. My mother told me how He loved little children and was even willing to live in my heart if lasked Him in. I did, and a feeling of peace and security took the place of the fear
I had so often felt. From then on I could go to sleep at night and not be afraid.
As a child I prayed a nursery rhyme: Ik ga slapen, ik ben moe; 'k Sluit mijn oogjes beiden toe. Heere, houd ook deze nacht Weder over mij de wacht.
(I'm going to sleep, I am tired;
I close both my little eyes. Lord, watch over me again The whole night long.)
In all these years that I have been a "tramp for the Lord," I have often been afraid. But in those moments I have always reached up and touched the hem of Jesus' garment. He has never failed to wrap me close to Him. Yet, I still long for that time when I shall have a mansion in heaven.
Here on earth, at the age of seventy-seven, for the first time I found a place of my own—a beautiful apartment in Baarn, Holland. Even though I am seldom there (for I intend to keep on traveling until I die in harness), it is still a place to hang up my pictures on the walls and put the few sticks of furniture that I have saved from my days in the Beje. Yet, even with this "home" here on earth, I still long most of all for my heavenly mansion.
When I was a child, Tante Jans composed a children's song. I remember two lines:
'k zou zoo graag eens komen, Heiland,
In dat heerlijk Vaderhuis.
(I should just like to come, Saviour,
In that beautiful Father-house.)
Asa child, however, I always got the words mixed up when I sang the song. Instead of singing, "to come," I would sing "to peek." The older people laughed at my mistake but I thought they were very stupid. With all my heart I meant what I was singing. As a little child I did not want to go to heaven, I just wanted to peek for a moment. Now, though, that my days have grown long, I no longer sing as I did as a child. Now my greatest desire is to come for all eternity into the beautiful Father-house.