One of my all-time favorite stories is a small story within the larger story The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. Corrie, her sister, and their father had been arrested and taken to one of the worst German Nazi concentration camps, Ravensbruck. They were not Jewish, but they had been found to be hiding Jews in their home. Corrie shares her story and her struggles to trust in God during this time. The story within the story that I love so much is this: she and her sister Betsie had smuggled a Bible into the concentration camp. Betsie had read in the smuggled Bible the scripture that says to give thanks in all things. She took this command so literally that she decided that she and Corrie must give thanks for every aspect of their lives within the concentration camp -- even the fleas that were rampant in their overcrowded concentration camp. Corrie (as most of us would) had a very hard time being thankful for any aspect of their lives within the concentration camp, ESPECIALLY the fleas. Over the next few months of their concentration camp life, these two sisters in this hopeless situation of brutality, unfairness exhaustion, hunger and dehumanization started a a Bible study in which they were trying to infuse hope to their fellow inmates - people who were this side of heaven utterly hopeless. This act of defiance would have been punishable by death, but they were never found out, as the guards never entered their barracks. The time in the barracks became a time of reprieve for the women, and many of the women accepted Christ as their Savior. And it was not until the very end of their time in the concentration camp that they learned that the guards had not come into the barracks because they were afraid of being swarmed by the FLEAS.
Even in the midst of terrible heartache, God was taking their bad situation and blessing them with it. And they never even knew it. Only by faith did they give thanks for the fleas. Faith - trusting that God is good even when the situations in our lives appear bad.
I have many times in my life had to take this story and remind myself to give thanks for the "fleas" in my own life. Sometimes more stressful, more painful, more overwhelming than others... but life is always full of some kind of "fleas". It's often hard for me to do, but no pain, no unjustness I have faced has ever compared to what these women faced, and yet they found it within themselves to trust God. It's so easy to trust and serve Him when life is going your way, when blessings abound. Much harder when it's by faith alone that we give thanks.
Corrie and Betsie lived out the qualities of one of my favorite quotes by Frederick Buechner: "To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and the great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness -- especially in the wilderness - you shall love him."
I am striving to become the kind of person who can thank God for the fleas in my life... who can love Him even in the wilderness... who can honestly say that "When peace like a river attendeth my way, (or) when sorrows like sea billows roll... WHATEVER my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul. (lyrics by Horatio Spafford)"
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