Book Review

I actually forgot how much I love to read until recently. You see with 2 very active little boys the only books I have read in the past few years involved Elmo, learning your shapes or something to do with automobiles. I used to read all the time. In fact my friend, Amber and I spent a whole summer re-reading classics like "Grapes of Wrath" and my all time favorite "To Kill a Mockingbird." Now that the boys are a little older and can (for the most part) play with each other, I have some free time to read books that I want to read. Me. The Mom. Getting to choose my own books with pages that don't have words like bulldozer in them. Yah!

A few Sundays ago our pastor was speaking on bitterness. Something we can all relate to at some point or another. He read a passage from a book titled "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom. In the passage she had come face to face with a guard that tortured her in a WW2 Nazi prison camp. The reunion happened decades later and she happened to be speaking at the conference about forgiveness. The guard had apologized and she struggled at that moment to forgive him and shake his hand. That was enough to make me run to Barnes & Noble and by the book.

I read it in 2 days. If you've ever been in a black hole or a pit that you're pretty sure you can't get out of...read this book. The basic story line is this..Corrie and her family were taken into custody after housing Jews during WW2. She and her sister were sent to a women's camp where they were forced to do horrible and strenuous physical labor or be beat. Corrie places her faith in God and at the prison camp realizes that there are no accidents. She's here for a reason. I must admit, laying on a bed infested with fleas, surrounded by 1,000 starving, sick women, would have me questioning the reason I am there. But she trusted God and later found out that everything, even the fleas, were part of God's greater scheme. One of my favorite lines from the book comes from Corrie's mother who says "Happiness isn't something that depends on our surroundings...It's something we make inside ourselves." I don't want to give away anymore of the book but Corrie's struggles to be optimistic in the face of a very, very dark place or even possibly death was really an eye-opener for me. She trusted God. Really trusted God. It made me question myself and how I would be in the same situation. Would I spend my days feeling sorry for myself? Or would I thank God for the fleas infesting my bed because those fleas scared the guards out of that particular prison and no women was beat simply because of the fleas.

If you read this book make sure you read the pages following the end of the book. Amazing. This book has moved to the top 3 of my all time favorite books. I really loved it that much. It might be the best $7.00 you've spent in a long time.