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In the years following World War II, when Communism was in full swing in Eastern Europe, Corrie ten Boom traveled from country to country sharing the Gospel and encouraging believers who followed Jesus at the risk of their very lives.
One evening, under the cover of darkness, she was guided into an apartment in Lithuania (a country under Soviet occupation at the time). Inside, she met an elderly man who was caring for his wife, a sufferer of multiple sclerosis. As a consequence of her disease, the frail old woman was “bent and twisted almost beyond recognition.” She lay on a couch propped up by pillows unable to move any part of her body except her eyes and her right hand. Corrie walked over to the woman, bent down, and kissed the index finger of her right hand.
That crooked, fragile finger was impacting the Kingdom of God in a mighty way.
Each morning, after her husband served her a meager breakfast, he would carefully sit her upright on the couch and place a vintage typewriter in front of her. Taking a stack of cheap, yellow paper from its hiding place in the cupboard, the old man prepared his wife to type.
And peck by peck by peck, the old woman slowly, painfully, and methodically typed.
All day.
She was translating the Bible and other Christian books into Russian and Latvian, an illegal practice at the time. Books by Billy Graham, Wathman Nee, and even a few by Corrie herself, were being translated into the native language of this elderly woman’s people. As she typed she prayed. As she prayed, she typed.
Corrie had come to thank the old woman for her impactful work in the Kingdom. But the sight of her shriveled form and her suffering brought Corrie to tears. In her heart she asked God why He wouldn’t heal her. Sensing Corrie’s inner turmoil, the husband spoke up and answered Corrie’s unasked question.
“God has a purpose in her sickness. Every other Christian in the city is watched by the secret police. But because she has been sick so long, no one ever looks in on her. They leave us alone, and she is the only person in all the city who can type quietly, undetected by the police.”
She could only move one finger, but this old woman changed the lives of many others.
What are we – who have full use of our whole bodies – doing for God’s Kingdom?
Resource’s Origin:
Tramp for the Lord: The Story That Begins Where the Hiding Place Ends by Corrie ten Boom. CLC Publications, 2011, Pages 187-189.
Topics Illustrated Include:
Bible
Communism
Danger
Disease
God’s Plan
God’s Protection
God’s Word
Persecution
Purpose
Service
Sick
Suffering
Work
(Resource cataloged by David R Smith)
