A Hiding Place

June 30, 2016 | My Jottings

Every summer for the past 13 years I have hosted a women’s Bible Study in my home. I take that back…. there was one summer I just couldn’t get it together for 12 Tuesday meetings. It was when Michael’s Parkinson’s Disease really started to dominate our lives, and I was entering the stage of being perpetually overwhelmed. But somehow, by the grace of God, a group of dear friends have been meeting on Tuesday summer mornings now for a long time. It has become the highlight of my summers.

If you stop by here now and then you know that this summer we’re doing something different. Instead of the video-driven Beth Moore or Priscilla Shirer studies we’ve most often done, we are studying the book The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. And rather than make our Tuesday meetings a book club where we just discuss the chapters we’ve read the previous week, I wanted our group of ten women to have some homework to do.

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So I put together a pseudo-workbook, and we have some questions to discuss when we meet. At the end of each meeting, we watch a 20 minute segment of the film by the same name. We have different prayer partners each week, and we lift our needs up to the Lord and ask Him to invade and change our lives for His purposes and our joy.

So far, even though what we’re doing is quite different, I like it. The Hiding Place speaks of several hiding places, the most renowned being the tiny spot behind a bedroom wall where Jews were hidden in the Ten Boom house in Haarlem, Holland during World War 2. Another hiding place often inferred is the place we are hidden in Christ when we give our lives to Him.

I think of my living room as another hiding place, where ten of us carve out two hours a week to come and seek the Lord and hope we’ll encounter Him in personal, lasting ways. So while my living room isn’t the Hiding Place, it’s a hiding place to me. I would guess that many of you have “hiding places” in your home and lives where you can go to meet with the Lord in prayer and to read His Word.

I bought a new iPhone recently after I’d been trying for a while to continue using my shattered old one, and I noticed that its camera has a panoramic feature. I finally tried it out, standing in each of the four corners of my living room. I was surprised at how well the pictures turned out, considering I just swiped the camera in a slow circle without paying much attention to how steady my hands were.

You can click to enlarge these if you like:

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The wall color varies a little from shot to shot, depending on where the sunlight was coming in, I guess. I would call the paint color robin’s egg blue.

And on Tuesdays I bring in some dining room chairs wherever they fit, so we can sit in a circle for our time together.

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Just a little more than a stone’s throw from that front window behind the two chairs, is beautiful and vast Lake Superior. I don’t take for granted that I get to look out on that blue treasure every single day.

And a lovely quilt has a spot of honor in the room, folded on the ottoman you see below. In the evenings, I use the quilt that my friend Helen made and sent to me from Switzerland, but I don’t put it on the back of the couch anymore when it’s not in use, because Millie liked it too much and I don’t want little Schnauzer paws to break the threads.

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In the photo below, you can see into our dining room and beyond that, the kitchen. The paned doors right behind the blue floral chair lead to the front door of the house.

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This is just one of countless hiding places the Lord has provided for His people. Most days I just think my smallish living room is a pleasant and comfortable place. On Tuesday mornings before Deb, Kristi, Kay, Dawn, Connie, Laurel, Fiona, Sharla and Sue arrive, a sense of awe and anticipation surrounds me, and I get down on my knees and ask God to come and be with us in whatever special ways we each so desperately need.

Have you read The Hiding Place yet?

And where is one of your “hiding places?”

Comments

  1. Nancy says:

    Haven’t read the book yet but will place it on my list. My son and I were an hour from Lake Superior last week visiting my husband’s cousin in WI and her 16 year old ring neck dove named teedee. Never knew birds were so smart. How fortunate you are to have this wonderful group of women to meet with this summer and grow in the love of Christ together.

  2. Just Julie says:

    I would love to see a pet like that, Nancy. What a cute name. I hope you enjoyed your stay in our neck of the woods! And yes, it’s such a blessing to meet with friends and seek the Lord together. Hugs… xoxo

  3. Peggy Johns says:

    Somewhere back, it seems weeks ago now, you were talking about the book. I ordered it right away. I had read it somewhere in my life. It would have been in my pre-Christian life. So now, it seemed like a new book, and I understood deeply her family’s relationship with God. I loved her Dad, and what a beautiful father and role model he was of living like God. I envied her for having that. Honestly, one day, I actually had this “moment”, when I realized God was “the hiding place”! I knew nothing when I had to plan my son’s funeral, but he had high-lighted a verse in his Bible I read and wanted to ask God to do for me. I asked God to keep my child safe in the shadow of His wings, and that I would try to trust in Him that He had Alex in His refuge. Maybe it was my very first awareness, that He could be Alex and my “hiding place”.

  4. Just Julie says:

    I love Casper ten Boom too, Peggy. And I know what you mean by how it seemed like a new book. I’ve read it four times now, and each time there’s something new and powerful there. And I pray that you will sense God’s care for your son, dear Peggy. Someday those dark lenses will come off, and what we see will be glorious. Nothing can keep us from Christ’s love…. xoxo

  5. Ganeida says:

    Corrie tells a wonderful story about her sister who was so meticulously truthful that when the Gestapo burst into their home & asked where the Jews were hiding she blurted *Under the table.* The table stood on a large rug & under the rug was a trapdoor but the Gestapo only looked under the table, not under the rug. Which reminds me of how Brother Andrew used to *hide bibles in plain sight* & allow God to blind the eyes of the Soviet police. No safer place than hidden in Christ. 🙂

  6. Just Julie says:

    We just discussed that very thing at our study on Tuesday, Ganeida! We all had to answer the question, what would we do in the same situation, and all ten of us said we would have lied. 🙁 Like Corrie did. But Nollie was amazing — so pure and trusting. xoxo

  7. Nancy says:

    Just finished reading the book, The Hiding Place. Also found a virtual tour of the house on the internet. Great book that will stay with me for a long time. thanks for recommending it.

  8. Just Julie says:

    I’m so glad you enjoyed it Nancy. Our study ended yesterday and I think everyone here was truly moved by Corrie’s story. And I’ve taken that virtual tour through her home — it’s wonderful to see it! What are you reading next? xoxo

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