The
winds of change are underway in the United States, and yet, for most of us,
life goes on each day as normal. The change is happening across most of society
– economic, social, educational, religious, national, and local. Like most
change, it began almost without notice, although the critical period was likely
the 1960s.
While
it’s easy to point to the Beatles, the sexual revolution, three assassinations,
the Great Society, college protests, the explosion of the drug culture, and
other headline-grabbing events as examples of the change, the fact is that not
all of what happened was bad. Some of it was good, and necessary, like the
civil rights movement. And for many people, perhaps most, the change didn’t
immediately affect them, but came only years and decades later.
So
it must have seemed in countries like Holland, Belgium, Poland, France, and the
United Kingdom in the 1930s. The world as it had been known had shifted
dramatically with World War I – whole empires had been swept away, new
countries carved from them, millions of people killed. And then came the Great
Depression, which Europe struggled with as much as the United States.
In
1937 on a quiet street in Haarlem in Holland, Ten Boom Watches celebrated its
100 anniversary in business. It was a joyful occasion for the Ten Boom family,
the neighborhood and the community. The business was something of a local
institution; the business had been started in 1837 by the father of Corrie Ten
Boom’s father, “the grand old man of Haarlem,” as he was known.
There
were flowers, lots of flowers, for this was Europe, after all, and Europe loves
flowers. And food. And visits by relatives and neighbors. This was life, normal
everyday life, marked by a special occasion like a business anniversary.
Signs
of change were becoming a little visible, even on that street in Haarlem.
Jewish refugees were arriving or passing through from Germany. Watch suppliers
in Germany, who made some of the best watches in the world, were no longer
shipping to Ten Boom Watches. They were mostly owned by Jewish families, and
life was changing drastically for Germany’s Jews.
But
despite these occasional shadows, in Holland, quiet and picturesque Holland, normal
life continued, the life families like the Ten Booms had known for much of
their lifetimes. (And Holland had not been a party on either side to World War I.)
“I
know that the experiences of our lives,” writes Corrie Ten Boom in The
Hiding Place, “when we let God use them, become the mysterious
preparation for the work He will give us to do. But I did not know that then.”
The
change would come to that street in Haarlem, and to that little shop known as
Ten Boom Watches. And the wind would become a whirlwind.
So,
too, we are prepared – mysteriously – with the routine of the everyday for the
work He will give us to do.
Led
by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’re beginning a discussion of The Hiding
Place. I first (and last) read it four decades ago, and I’m looking forward to
read it again. Consider reading along; you can see other posts on this first
chapter, “The One Hundredth Birthday Party,” by visiting Sarah at Living Between the Lines.
Top photograph: The Ten Boom sisters: Betsie,
Corrie and Nollie as young girls. Bottom photograph: The Ten Boom shop and house
in Haarlem, now a museum.
3 comments:
Oh, now I want to find my copy! A friend recently re-read it also for the first time as an adult and said she saw so much of it differently.
I, too, am reading the book, Glynn, and may chime in from time to time. Interesting that your quote here was one I also wrote down. Blessings!
Thanks for drawing out the parallels between then and now. It's much needed not in the arena of provoking fear, but challenging us to dig deep in knowing God's goodness and standing for His righteousness whatever may come. Great post--thanks Glynn.
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