Calling All Corrie Ten Boom Fans…
Friends! Join me today on a lovely adventure with none other than sweet-n-precious Corrie Ten Boom.
Author Russ Levenson taught me about the book we’ll be discussing today from one of his books (Preparing Room: An Advent Companion by Russell J. Levenson, Jr.). Not familiar with the title by Corrie (“Clippings from My Notebook,”) I looked it up and promptly ordered it. Of course I did….Here’s the book:
Believe it or not, this book released in 1982! This makes it fun to see how timeless the truths are which Corrie gifts us with from her travels long ago…a good reminder of how timeless God’s Word is.
The Foreword is written by one of Corrie’s coworkers and traveling companion, Pamela Rosewell. Pamela cared and worked for Corrie from 1976-1983. She was born in England, but wound up living in the United States. She passed away just last year. (3/4/23)
Prior to working with Corrie, Pamela worked for Brother Andrew in the Netherlands for seven years.***See end of this post for yet another co-worker of Corrie’s, Ellen deKroon Stamps, whom I was blessed to meet…***
Pamela tells us Corrie will share photographs from her travels and devotional thoughts with each in this book. She reminded us Corrie traveled to sixty-four countries over a period of thirty-three years. Let that sink in for a minute!
Corrie’s biggest desire, after being released from Ravensbruck (a concentration camp), was to tell as many people:
Pamela tells us what impressed her most about Corrie was her willingness to learn from anyone, of any age. “Through her magazine, The Hiding Place, she passed on to her prayer partners ‘clippings from her notebook’ and shared some of the thousands of photographs which she’d taken during her travels.”
An additional treat in the book before we get to Corrie’s thoughts and experiences, is a “Tribute” written by someone you may have heard of before: Cliff Barrows! (At the end of the tribute, there’s a heartwarming photo of Corrie with Cliff and Billy Graham.)
The Tribute opens with a beautiful Scripture. Hebrews 13:7-8 says,
Cliff gives us the reminder when considering what an effective leader Corrie was, that “by God’s grace, the power we saw in Corrie’s life and ministry is available to each of us every day.” He then gives us several attributes of Corrie we’d do well to mimic:
Commission
Commitment
Courage
Compassion
Coronation
Crown
You’ll love how Cliff lays these attributes out before us with personal stories about Corrie. Don’t miss this part!
The book includes forty-five short devotions on a myriad of subjects. Today I’ll share tidbits from just two of them, but trust me when I say you’ll love all of them!
The first one Gobsmacked me. It’s called The Cure for Care and it’s based on 1 Peter 5:7 which says,
The topic of this devotion centers around worry. Confession: This is one of my besetting sins. Oh, but wait ‘til you hear Corrie’s take on the subject!
She begins by saying, “The words ‘fear not’ occur many times in the Bible. The Word of God has no suggestions, only commandments. So if we fear and worry, we are being disobedient, and disobedience is always a sin.” Alrighty, then…
Corrie adds that worry is “useless”, and…
“When we are worrying, we are not trusting.”
Then she offers an antidote to worry from the story of Elisha in 2 Kings 6:1-7. The discovery of this new-to-me story was eye-opening.
From these Scriptures, we learn a son of the prophets had been chopping wood when the axehead he was using fell into the Jordan River. We also find out it was a borrowed axe, so the son became worried and afraid, rushing to Elisha for help.
Elisha told him to go back to the place where he’d made his mistake so that he could receive the “miracle of restoration.” Suddenly the axehead “floated to the surface, and the young man grabbed it and replaced it on the handle!”
So here’s Corrie’s antidote to worry: She tells us to “go back to the place where you opened the door of your life to the influence of the spirit of worry. Where did the fear enter? What was it that caused you to start worrying?”
“Remember the spirit of fear does not come from God. Instead, God gave us power and love and a sound mind. (See 2 Timothy 1:7) Therefore, you need to ask the Lord Jesus to close the door you opened.”
Oh, that needs repeating: “You need to ask the Lord Jesus to close the door (of worry) that you opened.”
Isn’t that a great way to look at the demon of worry?
My other favorite devotion is a precious one called God’s Special People. We learn that Corrie “was involved in working to bring the Gospel to mentally handicapped people before World War II. She later wrote a booklet about those experiences entitled Common Sense Not Needed.”
Warning: you may need Kleenex for this one….
So one of the many handicapped people Corrie ministered to was a young boy named Anton. He had Downs’ Syndrome and couldn’t speak or walk by himself. Corrie said she wasn’t sure how much he was grasping of her messages, so she showed him a simple lesson he could later do by himself.
Try this with me:
Hold up your right hand. With your left hand touch each finger while saying these five words: (You can easily teach your children or grandchildren this!)
“Jesus loves insert-your-name so much.” So in my case, “Jesus loves Elizabeth so much.” I did this with our granddaughters Claire and Charlotte recently and their faces lit up hearing their own names and they could remember this easily too…
Corrie said Anton connected with this short activity, totally getting this! The next week, Anton showed Corrie on her hand, “Jesus loves Anton so much.” He got it and he actually said one word after Corrie repeated the phrase, also telling him she loved him too.
Anton said, “Yes!” Corrie said that was the only word she ever heard him speak. What a gift she gave to him…She never gave up.
In addition to the forty-five devotions, some one-liner quotes are sprinkled throughout the book. I’d like to close with my favorite one, however I’m sure you’ll pick your own favorites as they’re plentiful:
Yes, well that’ll make you think!
Now you know how we like to close, “Run, don’t walk to your nearest bookstore and grab Clippings from My Notebook.” Like shoes, one can never have too many devotionals, plus considering its’ author, it’s a real find.
‘Til next time!
P.S. In May of 2015, my friend Sherry and I learned Ellen deKroon Stamps was living a quick drive away in Asbury, Kentucky. Sherry orchestrated a lunch with Ellen for us to become acquainted. At the time, Ellen’s husband, Bob, was the interim Chaplain at Asbury University. Here’s the link if you’d like to read more.
Ellen told me she was blessed to work with Corrie from 1968-1976, so right before Pamela joined Corrie. Ellen wrote a book about her experiences: My Years with Corrie
Two of many additional books I’ve loved by Corrie are:
If you’d like to learn more about Corrie, she’s authored a number of books for your perusal. Enjoy!
Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the page above are “affiliate links.”