TJ Hirst

My daughter and I just finished reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, which is the June Book Selection for the Bodacious Bloggity Book Club at Marathon Bird. Today EH and I each share our impressions for the discussion.

Every step in life opens into a future of uncertainty. Some of the experiences brighten us with pleasure, others hurl horrific happenings toward us and some seem to have no consequence beyond that day. The future of Corrie ten Boom’s world, like all of ours, was unknown. Yet, in her youth and early adulthood the daily faith of her family prepared her to meet the destructive forces of World War II when they reached her country and her own family with compassion and courage.

One of my favorite examples is of her wise father’s response to Corrie’s questions about sex. They were riding the train. He set his heavy bag in front of her and asked her to carry it off the train. When she said she couldn’t, he taught her this parallel truth. He said,

It would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.

Corrie’s father is not only giving an appropriate answer to his child but teaching her a pattern of faith. He is saying, “trust me with your unknown questions and fears,” just as she later applies that pattern to faith in God during her loneliest and most disheartening moments.

Now that my own daughter is “older and stronger” to bear some of the weight of these historical events, I invited her to share this book club discussion with me. She said:

The Hiding Place, the story of Corrie ten Boom, is a remarkable one. Through her many struggles of hiding Jews in her family home, she learns from her sister how to have faith in God. After being sent to Ravensbruck and being shown where they were to sleep, a smelly, straw-covered platform covered in fleas, occupied by seven other women, almost the first thing they did was pray. Not in sorrow, asking to get out of their situation, but thanks. Thanks for everything, including the fleas.

As Corrie remarked to her sister, “Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.”

Her reply was profound. “‘Give thanks in all circumstances,’” she quoted. “It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.” When, during their daily Bible studies with the other women in the barracks, they realize that their area is rarely patrolled, Betsie finds out that it is because of all the fleas that the guards avoid the place.

Other miracles abound as Corrie’s faith grows. The vitamin oil that she snuck in for her sister continued to produce oil, even after Betsie had passed it around to so many others. When they received vitamins from a friend who worked in the hospital in the camp, the oil stopped coming out.

I read the story of Anne Frank in school, and even though I knew it had actually happened, it didn’t seem as real to me. Then I read this book, and it seemed real. It took me a little while to figure out why. Her faith, so similar to my own, allowed me to compare my life to Corrie’s.

I learned from Corrie’s story, like my daughter, by comparing it to my own life. Despite the crimes committed against her, her sister and many others, she continued to identify and strive to correct her personal weaknesses like selfishness. Ironically, her tragic circumstances of the concentration camp magnified her understanding of the biblical account of the apostle Paul’s own “thorn in the flesh.” Through that comparison she learned this truth:

The real sin I had been committing was not that of inching toward the center of the platoon because I was cold. The real sin lay in thinking that any power to help and transform came from me. Of course it was not my wholeness, but Christ’s that made the difference.

Corrie’s faith prepared her. Her adversity transformed her. That purifying process took place not in an idyllic setting but one of the most cruel. Most of our lives are not idyllic nor horrid but the reality of them presses upon us the same opportunities to meet them with faith to live and love.

My parents live in tornado-weary Missouri and have a weather radio that blares warnings repeatedly during the spring storm season. A few years ago they bought us one, although we have fewer in Minnesota. We set the radio to beep for watches and warnings rather than sound a verbal alarm.

This weekend, within hours of my husband heading out of the house, I was on my own with these storm clouds, an hour of consistent bleeps from the radio, a tornado warning, and three anxious kids.

Storms tempt us to watch their approach and fury. If my husband were home, he’d want to head to our crow’s nest—the highest point in our house.

But with mom in charge, who is cautious and always heeds warnings, we prepared the essentials—weather radio, cell phone, flashlights, sturdy shoes, blankets, books, and cookies. The neighborhood tornado sirens sounded and we settled into our basement storage room for a family outing. The first thing my youngest asked was, “Can we say a prayer together.”

After 45 minutes of reading a children’s magazine, talking about safety precautions and occasionally checking the radio for updates of the storm’s path, she assured me that the “prayer worked.”

We emerged to find the storm had blown over without blowing too hard. One of them asked the question, “Did we need to go downstairs after all?”

I said, “Of course. It was good practice if nothing else.”

The Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?

The creeping phlox in my terraced rock garden in bloom.

Year after year, the lavender phlox appears in a surprise of unexpected color.
I doubt—not the creator—but my own capacity as a gardener.
I work to revive the landscape from the harshest of winters;
yet the perennial renews its beauty without me.
My certainty grows with its continual increase. How can I not see His hand in both?

Perennial: adj. 1. Lasting or active through many years. 2. a. Lasting an indefinitely long time, enduring. b. appearing again and again, recurrent. n. 1. Botany: a perennial plant. 2. Something that recurs or seems to recur on a yearly or continual basis.

Confidence: n. 1. Trust or faith in a person or a thing, 2. A trusting relationship. 3. A feeling of assurance. 5. The state or quality of being certain.

The Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?

My “baby” is nine. The sweet smell of Baby Magic on her neck blurs beyond recall, like most of that time. I write to remember; yet words are not experiences. Occasionally, we are blessed with circumstances to help us remember—with real senses—the events in the past.

On a rainy weekend afternoon I wrapped myself in a blanket in my favorite recliner to read a book. I absorbed the story for a couple of hours and felt a tad guilty. But dinner was leftover calzone that just needed reheating, and no one needed me.

The phone rang. Thirty minutes later I brought a baby home from the hospital. A friend’s adult daughter was sick, and she asked me if I could watch her infant granddaughter. Telling our children we were going out for an errand, Paul and I met her at the hospital and then returned home with a baby sleeping in her car seat.

Her baby sleep noises—like the ones that used to keep me awake wondering and worrying—were now soothing to listening to while I finished my book. My “baby” sat by this new baby’s feet watching the waking up process. She hadn’t experienced little fingers grasping her finger or the close-up softness of a two-month-old infant in her own house.

“Does she want a toy? I can get her some blocks,” my daughter said.

“No, she will just want to look into your face and have you smile at her.”

But her needs were more. More than I had remembered. Awake and immediately hungry. I forgot how a baby cries and cries and words like, “I’ll be right there,” don’t halt the crying while you fix a bottle.

In those cries I pressed my mind to remember how to mix formula. Did I put the powder in the bottle first or after the water? I poured the powder in first then filled it to the top with water. It clumped together.

The baby cried. Oh, what was her name. I could not remember. Sue? Cindy Lou Who? I picked her up and tried to soothe her while mixing the clumping mess with the other hand. Cold water; I had used cold. Ugh.

I put her down in her car seat. “Will you watch her for a minute?” I said to my daughter. I tried to heat the bottle and shake it. I remember there used to be caps so the milk didn’t spray out while shaking the bottle and that they are usually at the bottom of a diaper bag.

But then I also recalled the eager slurping that replaces hunger cries and the satisfied milk mouth afterwards. I felt like a new mother, unsure in the moment, but an old one when the memories returned to remind me how.

The hours were not meant for me to reminisce but to serve a child. But the circumstances sharpened the memories of my own young motherhood. The question that lingered, “How did I ever do it?”

As President Henry B. Eyring, a leader in my church once said, “Trying to remember allowed God to show me what He had done.”

My recollection of that day was the kindness He had done for me many, many days before. And with that knowledge once again in my core, I can appreciate who my children and I have become all the more.

At this point in my life I am a trial and error gardener. I plant perennials, fruits and vegetables, annual flowers, shrubs, trees, and children.

We live in a smallish community in a Zone 3. That means two things to me: First of all, our planting starts about a month and a half later than most of the country. Secondly, the few retailers who carry vegetable transplants have only minimal varieties.

Last year the limited selection frustrated me enough that I determined I would start my own seeds to transplant into my garden.

By last week I still hadn’t done it. Time was still on my side since our last frost could be as late as Memorial Day. Fortunately, a few friends and I met at my house to share garden ideas and that jump started my follow through.

I planted my seeds and set them out in the sunny window. I watered them and waited with a whole lot of apprehension.

Then, I saw sprouts. A weird noise of glee come from me.

With faith that summer light and warmth will indeed return, I uncovered the winter mulch from my perennials and discovered the hosta also sprouting.

Admittedly, I doubt—as a gardener of both plants and people. My husband was relating that he asked one of our children to pick up up clothing several times and still a jacket remained on the floor. He wondered if it will always be like this. I laughed a bit. I said, “Just keep repeating it. There is hope; eventually they will learn.”

I have discovered it is easier to keep nurturing when I connect with people who have already experienced the stages of growth, in plants and children. I share my own struggle to move to the teenage season of parenting at the Letters to A Parent website this week.

What have you learned from nurturing children? Liz at Woolgatherings is launching a new website called Root and Sprout and is looking for articles on parenting.

Root and Sprout is a place for moms and dads to come for practical information, stories, and advice about being a parent and raising kids. Root and Sprout is a website for parents written by parents (or people who have experience working with children). If you can write a blog post, you can write an article for Root and Sprout! (Don’t forget that you get a byline and link to your blog or website). If you are interested, you can learn more here.

Finally, a big thank you to Scribbit for the post Starting Seeds Indoors. As a novice I thought the sunny window would be enough. But with her tips on getting a grow light and my desire to use what I have, I dug out our aquarium light and plugged it in. I hope this will be another success for my trial and error garden.