A Child at Bedtime

“Who knows? Perhaps you have been put in this place for such a time as this.” — from Esther 4

On 10 May 1940, when Corrie was forty-eight, the German army marched into the Netherlands. After five days of fighting, the Dutch army had to give up, and German soldiers walked the streets of Haarlem.

Germany was ruled by the Nazis, who hated the Jewish people. Step by step they made cruel new rules. Jewish people were not allowed in parks, or cinemas, or ordinary schools. In 1942 they had to wear a yellow star on their clothes. Papa, who was over eighty, wanted to go and get a star and wear it himself, to stand beside his Jewish neighbours. His family had to talk him out of it! Then the Nazis began taking Jewish families away on trains, and they did not come back.

One evening Corrie was visiting a Jewish doctor at his home. As they talked, his little girl called down the stairs. Daddy had forgotten to come and tuck her in! The doctor hurried up, and Corrie heard him playing with his children before they went to sleep.

As she sat waiting, Corrie thought: the secret police could come for this family any night. And she made up her mind. She would help the Jewish people in every way she could.

Soon frightened people began knocking at the door of the Beje. They had heard that the watchmaker’s family would help. The ten Booms took them in for a night or two and fed them, while they searched for safer places for them to stay. Papa was very good at comforting frightened people.

God did not need the ten Booms in order to save his people. But he had put them in that house, in that town, at that time. God has put you in your place too, and he can use you to help someone who needs it.

Dear God, thank you for putting me where I am. Open my eyes to see who needs help, and give me courage to help them. Amen.