Suffering – This Jolly Beggar

A Common-Place Jotting: Corrie ten Boom

Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember

Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983) and her family helped Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II and, by all accounts, saved nearly 800 lives in the Netherlands. They were devout Christians.

On February 28, 1944, a Dutch informant told the Nazis of the ten Booms’ activities and the Gestapo raided the home. They kept the house under surveillance, and by the end of the day 35 people, including the entire ten Boom family, were arrested, Although German soldiers thoroughly searched the house, they didn’t find the half-dozen Jews safely concealed in the hiding place. The six stayed in the cramped space for nearly three days before being rescued by the Dutch underground.

All ten Boom family members were incarcerated, including Corrie’s 84-year-old father, who soon died in the Scheveningen prison, located near The Hague. Corrie and her sister Betsie were remanded to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp, near Berlin. Betsie died there on December 16, 1944. Twelve days later, Corrie was released. None of the other members of her family had survived.

In 1971, she wrote a best-selling book of her experiences during World War II, entitled The Hiding Place in which she recounts her extraordinary experiences through World War II and illustrates how Christ’s strength sustained her.

The above biography taken from biography.com.

“In darkness God’s truth shines most clear.”
Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place

“I have experienced His presence in the deepest hell that man can create. I have really tested the promises of the Bible, and believe me, you can count on them.”
Corrie ten Boom

“Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
Corrie ten Boom

“If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. If you look at God, you’ll be at rest.”
Corrie ten Boom

“She said if a red fox had crossed somewhere, that area was safe”

When I left her yesterday
the black was in her hair
the gold was in her eyes
and she spoke of fathers
and unmourned sons
but now she freezes the air
like a stray from bygone forests
and primordial paths
looking at me like a traveler
she’d warned before
of hazardous roads
and one in particular
where red foxes
appear to startle the unwary
from perilous paths
and slipping slopes of memory
but for the shibboleth:
Mother?
You’re safe.

I somehow missed posting on this prompt from Sarah of dVerse who chose quotes from a book for us to use as poem titles.
"She said if a red fox had crossed somewhere, that area was safe" was the one I chose. 
Click on Mr. Linky for more.
Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/mother-and-daughter-on-grass-1683975/

When Christmas Comes

Written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers  
Genre: Realism
Word count: 100 words
PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson 
Click on the frog and join in the fun!

When Christmas Comes

As a child, Christmas decorations made her sick with excitement. Now they made her sick for those gone missing since the lock-down. They showed up in little boxes the home projected onto a screen, but she knew they were impersonators. She watched, but refused to speak to those teary-eyed strangers. Her own family was naturally cheerful, even boisterous. “Lord, where are they?” Every day she recited their names, rolling them in her mouth like hard candy. Every day there was less of them to remember. But Christmas came. Her heart burned. There was a Light to investigate in the heavens.

City of Peace

Written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers 
Word count: 100 words or less
PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields 
Click on the frog and join in the fun!

City of Peace

     “What are you thinking?” Avram asks me gently as we walk in the shadows of the old city.
     “’O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem!’”¹ I quote. “Why so much suffering, Avram, the blood that has flowed across the centuries into this day?”
     “Our hands bear that guilt.”
     “And sickness, earthquakes, floods?”
     “Do you wonder nature suffers as part of the judgment on us?”
     “The curse!” I snort.
     Avram speaks quietly. “The Maker of the Universe has not left us without blessings, of which He is the foremost, or redemption, because of His love.”
     “I only see hatred.”
     “Then that is all you will find.”

¹Luke 13:34 — “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!“

Psalm 69:32
When the humble see it they will be glad;
you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
Acts 17:26-27
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us ….

Through It All: Fruit

Prostrated by the summer’s heat, we cannot always see the fruit that is being produced on a vine. Just so, cast down by our sufferings, it’s hard to see the fruit God is producing in us. Even so, Lord God, we pray, let it all be to your glory! Amen.

[Christ Jesus said:] “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
John 15: 1-6

Day 25 – Film That Inspired

In response to SandmanJazz’s 30 Day Film Challenge today, to wit, a film that inspired you, I like his repartee to the prompt: “Inspired me to what?🤣”

Exactly.

Inspired me to what?

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And that made me think of a movie I saw just in the last month on Amazon Prime: Healing River (2020), written & directed by Mitch Teemley. It’s a religious drama borne out of sudden tragedy. I hesitate to call it “religious” because that brings to mind the Hallmark pablum variety. This is more of a drama in the vein of Mike Nichols’s directorial debut, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966). Although it’s no black comedy, Healing River socks it to you with its fluid cinematography, character psychology, acerbic, no-holds barred dialogue and – here’s where the inspiration comes from – brutal honesty about what it means to be a Christian.

Continue reading “Day 25 – Film That Inspired”