Vantage Point

Two of my favorite authors and missionaries of all time are Brother Andrew (God's Smuggler) and Corrie Ten Boom (The Hiding Place). These two embodied what it looks like to walk by faith. Note: They were not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but God so dramatically changed their hearts that their eyes had to follow. They were able to look at the world a little differently. God transformed their vantage point.

In 1942, Corrie ten Boom and her family made a courageous decision to join the Dutch resistance, actively working to aid Jews in their desperate struggle against the brutal Nazi invaders in Holland. Driven by their deep sense of compassion and duty, they dedicated themselves to hiding and relocating approximately 800 Jewish individuals, providing them a fleeting glimmer of hope amid oppression and fear.

However, their noble efforts did not go unnoticed, and the authorities ultimately apprehended them. Corrie found herself confined in a stark jail cell for three harrowing months, enduring the isolation of solitary confinement as shadows of despair loomed over her. The family spent four oppressive months in Scheveningen Prison, a place marked by bleakness and suffering, where, tragically, her elderly father succumbed to the toll of captivity.

After their time in prison, Corrie and her sister Betsie were transported to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp. The conditions were ghastly, an unbearable reality where hope flickered like a dying flame. In this grim setting, Corrie's beloved sister Betsie tragically lost her life on December 16, 1944, a heartbreaking moment that ripped through Corrie's spirit.

Miraculously, just twelve days after her sister's death, Corrie found herself unexpectedly released from the clutches of the concentration camp due to an administrative oversight. This twist of fate spared her life; she narrowly escaped the fate that awaited her age group, which had been scheduled to be sent to the gas chambers just a week later.

I didn't provide any details about her ordeal. Still, I highly recommend anyone who still needs to read her story pick up her book, The Hiding Place. It illustrates God's miraculous provision and protection during their time in Ravensbrück and in many other instances where He guided their lives. However, I want to highlight something that has left me utterly speechless.

Corrie found herself at a crossroads, faced with a profound decision. She could have chosen to gaze intently at the shadows of her past, immersing herself in the relentless hardships that had etched themselves into her soul. She could have allowed herself to be consumed by the crushing weight of grief that came from losing her beloved father and sister, their absence echoing in the corners of her heart.

The harrowing memories of the brutal punishments inflicted upon her and her fellow prisoners during their harrowing days in the concentration camp could have easily anchored her to despair. She could have dwelled on the haunting specters of the countless women and children who lost their lives in that hellish place, their faces lingering in her mind like a chilling nightmare.

She could have chosen to hold onto an all-consuming hatred for her captors, those who perpetrated such unfathomable cruelty. It's easy to imagine how I might have succumbed to those feelings. Yet, somehow, Corrie's spirit stood at the brink of this darkness, considering a different path.

Corrie chose a different vantage point. She put on God-sized lenses and looked at the trial of her life with the perspective that God Himself had been there with her the whole time.

Unlike Corrie, who endured the harrowing confines of physical captivity, the captors I have wrestled with throughout my life were the ones I constructed myself. My own personal concentration camp was built brick by brick, forged from the choices I made and the paths I decided to walk—each decision pulling me further away from the loving embrace of my Heavenly Father. While Corrie's imprisonment spanned ten agonizing months, the chains of my own making shackled me for nearly two decades, ensnaring me in a struggle against my own decisions.

But God! Jesus, the Savior of the world, had chosen me. He chose to save me even before the foundations of the earth were laid. He chose to love me with an everlasting love, a love that cannot fade. His love for me was so incomprehensible that He laid down His own life so that I may be freed from the concentration camp I had built with my own hands.

Today, I have a choice. I can choose to look at the trail of devastation from my past, or I can choose to change my perspective and see the wonder, awe-inspiring, relentless love of God who chose to save someone like me. I can put on my God-sized lenses and see how prayers have been answered. I can see how His hand literally kept me alive, how His hand lifted me out of the pit, how He never, not for a single moment, stopped fighting for me. I can choose to see the miracle in my life from His vantage point!

So often, the lingering shadows of our past tend to loom over our present, shrouding the lives of those we hold dear. We find ourselves mourning the loss of what could have been. But I want to encourage you today to adjust your lenses. Look through God's eyes and witness the majesty of our Heavenly Father as He skillfully nurtures and shapes in the silent crevices of each cherished son and daughter's heart. He is crafting beauty and purpose, revealing His love in ways we cannot begin to imagine.