"THE HIDING PLACE"

There is no pit so deep...

I rented the movie "The Hiding Place" from Netflix recently and just finished watching it the last few mornings while I walked down the basement because of inclement weather--meaning rain and NO sunshine--for the past several days.  Very unusual for Colorado.

But it wasn't the first time I had watched the movie.  And, I actually read the book before I watched it that first time. About that period in my life I was thirsting for books to read, when there wasn't any extra money in our young family budget to buy books, especially hard back books.  Every week the Sunday supplement of the newspaper had an enticing advertisement popular at the time with Doubleday and other publishing houses.  It was something like get six books for a penny each or 99cents for six books or some other hook.  The catch was that after you got the initial outlay of books, you had to additionally purchase a certain number of books at the inflated price over the next two year period.  I have the same need to read as other people might have to garden or sew or cook or some other activity.  So, in a weak moment, I succumbed to that ad-copy, trying not to think of where I would come up with the money when it was time to pay the piper.  "The Hiding Place" was one of the books I chose.  As a story it was very absorbing.  As a real-life story it carried with it the added weight of good and evil doing battle in a most graphic depiction.

Watching the film again was still a moving experience, though, and plenty of tears splashed onto the belt of my treadmill as I once again became involved in the true story of a Protestant family in Holland who opened their home to the Jewish underground during the Nazi occupation of World War II.  Eventually, the family was betrayed, and they were taken to several camps as political prisoners of the Nazis.  Much of the movie centers around what happened to the two middle-aged spinster sisters in one of the camps.

As I watched while walking this week, I remember being touched during that first experience and commenting on it in my journal after I had seen it initially.  I was curious to see if what I had written matched my memory, so I went to the row of journals on the shelf in the computer room and easily found the entry I had written following our movie-going experience.

NOW COMES THE "60 PAGE SIDEBAR", AS MY ROOMMATE SUE GREAVES USED TO SAY ABOUT MY STORY-TELLING:  What I didn't realize is that it was the VERY FIRST entry I ever made when I decided to keep a daily journal.  A new year.  Possibly a New Year's resolution to begin writing a journal--though the comments in those many notebooks often fell into more of the "diary" aspect rather than a true journal.  A journal in the way the Puritans envisioned it:  writing of experiences so as to see personal growth.  Yet...it was those journals that were the fodder for the Nichols Family News for the 10 years I published the family newsletter.  Journal entry or diary notation, they contain a lot of information--NOT ALL of equal value to the family.

It was January 16, 1976.  "Tomorrow is our 7th anniversary.  To celebrate, we went to see a show and have dinner afterward.

The show we chose to see was "The Hiding Place", a story about a Christian family in Nazi occupied Holland who risked their lives for the Jewish underground.  Eventually they were caught by the Gestapo and taken to a concentration camp.

I was deeply touched at this true story of people who felt that men and women everywhere were brothers and sisters in Christ's family, and that the ultimate purpose in life was obedience to God's irrefutable laws, and That Christ's love for us could sustain us through any trials.

If I had seen the movie even a year ago, I confess that all the mention made of Christ's love for mankind might have seemed a little corny to me--even so  that I might have felt uncomfortable and squirmed a little in my seat.

Instead, because I am beginning to understand just a minute part of this important concept [of love], I felt akin to what [these Protestants] were demonstrating in their interaction with other people regardless of attitude or belief.

In fact, it left me with a desire to be a more Christian and more tolerant person than I am.

It was a moving experience."

Forty one years later I am far, far beyond that young woman who was just beginning to realize who the Savior is and what His Atonement means for us all, and most importantly to me personally.  At that time I had no clue as to the trials that were ahead in my own life, and how very many times I would have to cling to the Atonement of Jesus Christ to see me through some hard devastations.

As I watched the movie this time, I saw exemplified what I personally know now.  How the truth in the scriptures sustained these women and how, in spite of the hell around them, they could still feel the very presence of heaven among them. 

They cherished the Bible. It made me wonder if I would sacrifice so much just to have my scriptures with me.  I can also see why at one point in my life, the way the family talked about Christ and their relationship to Him, might have made me uncomfortable.  It was because at that time anything different from our Mormon "vernacular" seemed hokey or over the top to my narrow vision of God and Jesus Christ AND the Holy Ghost.  Since then I have had the privilege to have had conversations with many, many people who are not members of the Church but have, not only a belief in God and Christ, but also have had deeply personal experiences with the Holy Spirit, as they refer to the Holy Ghost.

I recalled when President Hinckley  in General Conference once used for illustration an experience Corrie Ten Boom related about herself years later meeting one of the most evil and meanly depraved guards from one of the camps in which they were imprisoned.  The guard said something to the effect that he had changed or repented or some such thing and thrust out his hand to shake hers.  President Hinckley said Corrie Ten Boom confessed that her arm seemed paralyzed and she felt it almost impossible to take the man's hand.  Then it flashed through her mind all the things she had preached around the world in 60 countries about God' love and forgiveness...she HAD to take that hand.  And when she did, it was like an electric current going through her about the power of love and forgiveness--even when someone had so horribly wronged her and her sister.

Well, this is a long convoluted little blog entry which in the end, I guess, turned out to be nothing more than a  book/movie review.  But I give them both two thumbs up. "The Hiding Place" is a story about God's triumph over evil, even in the very place where evil reigns. As the two Ten Boom sisters stayed in the center of "God's will", they made it possible for God to work through them.  And they changed lives!

If you want another affirmation that the Atonement of Jesus Christ was accomplished through His love for us and because He suffered he can succor us with that love, then read the book....and watch the movie.  It will be worth your time and will increase your testimony of the Savior's matchless capacity for charity.  Plus it will give pause about your place on the grand scale of being a person through whom the work of the Kingdom is carried forward.

                                                   ...that God's love is not deeper still.

PS  I went down the basement to find my copy of the book.  I knew exactly what it looked like and was sure I could put my finger right on it.  But...apparently, that is ONE thing I gave away when we moved from Arvada.  So, I went on online to see about purchasing another copy.  (I have seen copies at thrift stores, but passed them by knowing I had my own copy.  Nada!)   I also found a source for a free download of an audio book of "The Hiding Place" at christianradio.  If you're into audio books, that might be something you would like.