He heals the brokenhearted
    and binds up their wounds.

• Psalm 147:3

“Willem’s face reddened, too. ‘Because, Corrie, this is something that can never be. You don’t know Karel’s family. They’ve wanted one thing since he was a small child. Karel is to … marry well. I don’t say he wants it. To him, it’s just a fact of life like any other.”
“When Karel left the village for many months, we said our good-byes after breakfast. A part of me was disappointed that he still had not proposed. He seized both my hands and said, ‘Corrie, write to me!’
“And so I did. … Then one glorious, nippy November day when all of Holland was singing with me, the doorbell rang. I flung open the alley door, and there was Karel.
“Beside him was a young woman.
“She stood smiling at me. A blur seemed to move over the scene as Karel said, ‘Corrie, I want you to meet my fiancée.’ Before the door could click shut once they had left, I was fleeing up the stairs to my own room where the tears could come.
[Her father consoled her by saying,] “’There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill love, so it stops hurting. But then a part of us dies, too. Or we can ask God to open another route for that love to travel. If you ask Him, God will give you His love for Karel. When we cannot love in the old, human way, God can give us the perfect way.’”

• Corrie ten Boom, God is my Hiding Place

“God will heal my broken heart and teach me to love in ways I cannot comprehend.”

• Corrie ten Boom, Highlighted Quote

Boilerplate

In this new mini-series, I will be looking at a devotion that is said to be written by Corrie ten Boom.  Really, this devotion is like several that I had read.  They come from the writings of that person.  Thus, the prayers at the end may be the editor’s addition to what Corrie ten Boom actually wrote.

Each of these posts will include the suggested verses to read, a quote from the writing that came from a Corrie ten Boom book (five in all according to the copyright page, but no chapter in the book is given the specific book of origin).  I will also include the highlighted quote, similar to an internet quotation, and I will end with the quoted prayer for that devotion.

Discussion

This devotion was copied from The Hiding Place.  I was keenly interested, while reading the book, about how she was single and middle-aged when she was arrested and sent to the concentration camp.  She earlier describes Karel as being so much like her that the only thing they disagreed on was how many children they would have, but then her brother warns her that Karel will never propose.  And although the devotion left out some details, the naïve Karel came by that day because he thought Corrie and his wife could become friends.

But in the usual fashion, Corrie ten Boom described her father as being a wise and God-fearing man.  His words always seemed golden.  And it is true.  You can kill love, but you kill a piece of yourself, or you can ask God for the ability to show this person forgiveness.

And so it was with her.  She found a way through God’s help to forgive and close that chapter of her life.  She even decided that she was one of those people who would never find a husband, so why try?  And in doing so, she devoted more and more of her time in praising God.

I had a girlfriend in college.  She was still in high school, but for more than a year, we were inseparable.  Like Karel and Corrie, we were planning our lives together, although I had a military commitment and the Vietnam War was raging.  My parents did not like her, so we avoided family events.  Then she changed our status suddenly, without warning or explanation.  I think her parents did not want her to become the widow of a guy who died in a war on the far side of the world.  She did not even want to be friends.  And then a year or so later, she called and set up a meeting at a barbecue joint in town.  She was dressed to the nines.  She was pulling out all the stops to get me back, again with no explanation.  And there was one set of rules for us dating again, her parents and my parents must never know.  A red flag came up.  Her older sister had been a first runner up in the Miss Mississippi contest, and this younger version was even prettier than her sister.  And when it came to playing piano in the Southern Gospel style, no one could beat her.  But dating someone when both sets of parents had to be left in the dark seemed to be a trap.

I turned her down.  She had broken my heart twice, and about a year and a half later, I met the woman who would be my wife.  And what’s more, I thought my wife’s mother was a wonderful lady and I had some things in common with her father.  No hiding.

Sometimes, God has someone better around the corner.  You just do not know it yet.  But Corrie did not look for another man.

If Karel had married Corrie ten Boom, would she have been arrested for helping hundreds of Jews escape Nazi persecution?  Would she have dedicated the rest of her life to evangelism in God’s service, after leaving the concentration camp?

We may not understand why someone broke our heart.  We may not have the ability within us to forgive, but God’s love in our heart can give us the strength to forgive and the strength to carry on in our lives because He has something better for us to do.

Closing Prayer

“Father, at times, the pain of rejection and heartache is more than I can bear. I need Your grace. Help me to release those who have hurt me and enable me to love them the way You do. I give You the gift of my emotions. Heal my heart. Flood my wounded soul with Your healing balm, so I can think of _____ [name those who have hurt you] without the slightest trace of pain. Lord, I forgive them.”

• Corrie ten Boom, God is my Hiding Place (prayer for Day 5, Healing for the Brokenhearted)

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.