The Back of the Embroidery

“When you pass through the deep waters, I will be with you.” — from Isaiah 43

Corrie and Betsie were taken to a prison camp called Vught, in the south of the Netherlands. The women there sat all day with nothing to do, and soon they began grumbling and quarrelling. So Betsie started a club! Its members promised to try not to grumble, not to say unkind things about anyone, and to speak encouraging words to others.

Later Corrie was sent to work at a bench, testing small switches for radios, eleven hours a day. It was not as interesting as mending watches, but she was good at it. Betsie worked in the sewing room. On Sunday afternoons the women met on a patch of grass between the huts to worship God, and soon Corrie was leading the services.

Vught was still a hard and frightening place. One day, as the armies fighting the Nazis came closer, the guards took many of the men prisoners away and killed them. Corrie laid her head on Betsie’s shoulder and asked God why he let it happen.

Then Corrie felt God showing her that she did not have to carry all the sadness of the world by herself. She could bring it to him and leave it there. And she thought of a piece of embroidery. On the back it looks like a messy tangle of threads. But turn it over, and you see a beautiful picture! One day, she believed, we will see the right side of our lives, and understand.

In September the sisters were crowded into a goods wagon with about eighty other women. For three days and nights the train rumbled into Germany. At last it stopped near a lake, and the women walked to the gates of a big camp called Ravensbrück.

Right now we often see only the tangled back of the embroidery. But God sees the whole picture, and he is weaving something good. You can bring your sad and worried feelings to him and leave them in his hands.

Dear God, when I don’t understand what is happening, help me to trust you. I give you my worries now, and I leave them with you. Amen.