“In Darkness God's Truth Shines Most Clear.”

As promised, this is part 2 in a series of blog posts about my time in Romania and various other places in Europe.

On our way to Romania we visited the Dachau Concentration Camp outside of Munich, Germany.  I'm still processing that experience.  I'll never be able to fully wrap my mind around it.  I've learned about what happened there, and many places like it, my whole life.  In the last decade I've been especially fascinated by WWII.  Yet, standing there, in the very location that at least 100,000 Jews and enemies of the Nazi's died, was different.  They played a half hour movie with real footage from the liberation and stories of atrocity.  There was video and pictures of the stacks of emaciated corpses laying there with their eyes open looking back at you.  I'll never forget those eyes for the rest of my life.  I knew that going there would be difficult.  It affected me in a deep way that will take me much longer to process. 

At the far end of the camp there were several religious memorials representing different religions that had prisoners there.  The most interesting of which was the protestant memorial, which was actually a church.  Not just a church building, but a church body.  The sign said that they meet there every Sunday for worship.  Can you imagine going to church in the very place where one of the worst atrocities of the world took place?  Incredible. 

I brought along the book The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom.  It was my intention to read it before we went to Dachau, but I didn't start it until the day after.  In it she tells the incredible and true story of how she was a Christian in Holland and hid Jews during the war.  Eventually she was imprisoned and sent to a concentration camp.  The pages came to life because I had walked around a camp and could visualize what she described.  Her story is one of forgiveness that could only have come from Christ.  Her and her sister would lead Bible studies and pray for the very people that were torturing them.  If you've never read The Hiding Place, go on Amazon, pay the $4, and read it.  It will affect you. 

“....And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives along with the command, the love itself.” -Corrie Ten Boom

Not coincidentally, I am writing about this on September 11th.  A day in which we remember a different atrocity.  Both of these were born of hate, and both of them left deep scars of hatred in the victims.  The context of this quote from Corrie is difficult.  She is standing in front of the man who tortured her.  Having accepted Christ's forgiveness, he is asking for hers.  No one is too far from Christ's love.  Not a terrorist and not a Nazi.  We must pray for those who persecute us, that they would experience the love of Christ. Only then will we be free of the hatred that binds us.  

“In darkness God's truth shines most clear.” - Corrie Ten Boom

Stay tuned for part 3