The Hiding Place....

Excerpt from The Hiding Place

“Fridays….the recurrent humiliation of medical inspections…a Fall chill had settled into the walls.  Still, we were forbidden even to wrap ourselves in our own arms, but had to maintain our erect, hands at sides position…..”Surely there is no more wretched sight than the human body unloved and uncared for.”  

…I could not see the necessity for the complete undressing:  when we finally reached the examining room a doctor looked down each throat, another..at our teeth, a third between each finger….after all that we trooped down the cold corridor and picked up our X-marked dresses at the door.

But it was one of these mornings while we were waiting, shivering in the corridor, that yet another page in the Bible leapt into life for me.

HE hung naked on the cross. 

I had not known – I had not thought….the paintings, the carved crucifixes showed at least a scrap of cloth.  But this, I suddenly knew, was the respect and reverence of the artist.  But oh – at the time itself, on that other Friday morning – there had been no reverence.  No more than I saw on the faces around us now.

I leaned toward Betsie(her sister) and said, “Betsie, they took HIS clothes, too.

 Ahead of me I heard a little gasp…”Oh Corrie, And, I never thanked Him.”

                                      ~Corrie Ten Boom (The Hiding Place)