“We must tell people how good God is. We can tell them how wonderful God is, and how His love will fill our lives, if only we will give up our hatred and bitterness.”
When people hear the last name of “ten Boom” they often think of Corrie ten Boom. When the Nazis invaded Holland during World War II, Corrie ten Boom and her family helped their Jewish friends by hiding them in their home. A name less well-known, and much less honored, is that of Corrie’s sister, Betsie.
The ten Booms were known for honoring God by loving their neighbors as themselves. It was this love for people that ended up costing them their freedom, their health, and – in the case of Betsie and several other relatives – even their lives.
On February 28, 1944, after the betraying words of a fellow Dutchman, the Nazi secret police invaded the ten Boom home and took the entire household prisoner. The ten Booms and the people they were hiding at the time were split up and sent to terrible concentration camps where they were starved and treated with humiliating cruelty every day. Already old and somewhat fragile, Mr. ten Boom died after spending just over a week in prison. Corrie and Betsie spent the next ten months in three different prison camps.
Every single day they were together, Betsie encouraged Corrie in the Lord.
Corrie ten Boom – one of the few survivors from her family – often said that it was because of her older sister, Betsie, that she was able to have the strength to share God’s love. Betsie would talk often about the prison guards or the men who beat them. But instead of cursing them, Betsie would say things like, “I feel sorry for them,” or, “May God forgive them.” And she meant it. Betsie loved her enemies.
Betsie ten Boom died only a few days before she would have been released. Her sister Corrie’s name might not have been so familiar to us today if Betsie had not been her spiritual helper and best friend. What kind of brother or sister are you? What kind of spiritual help are you to your friends? Do you share God’s love?
Proverbs 27:17 – As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.