Published by: Steve Sisler. Follow me on Twitteryou maniac. This little post is an excerpt fromGumnazo: lessons in fighting naked.

I heard the story of Corrie ten Boom when I was about ten years old. I saw a movie about it calledThe Hiding Place.1 She was in a German concentration camp during the Nazi regime after it was discovered that her family hid Jews within the walls of their watch shop during the 1940 Nazi invasion of Holland.

In the story, the German soldiers would come in the barracks’ and rape everyone at night. Then the women got lice and so the soldiers stopped doing it. Corrie thanked God with tears for having lice. She thanked God for sending them. When I saw that I cried.

I distinctly remember the scene when someone got their hand smashed with the butt of a rifle. I realized that I didn’t know much about anything and how sheltered I was. I realized how much I should be thankful for, but I wasn’t thankful for much of anything. At ten years old I was impacted by a couple of scenes within a television movie that has had a place in the making of my life. That image has stuck with me for 36 years.

I wanted to be like Corrie ten Boom and thank God for the simple things in life. I wanted to appreciate something as simple as a little bug. I wanted to believe that God was someone who would actually do something like that. But instead sometimes I criticize God for not killing the perpetrators and sending bugs instead. As if He was adding insult to injury.

I’m not saying that God actually sent lice to thwart the seedy desires of psychopathic menacing men; that isn’t what I find fascinating about the story. Although God could have done such a thing, I find it fascinating that this woman was looking for good in God’s intension even in her darkest hour. When most people would blame God for His absenteeism during their darkest time, Corrie is looking for Him, searching for the smallest clue of his presence. Looking to attribute to Him some small gesture of His love. Oh, that I might be so in love with Christ that I could see none other than His goodness in my darkest time.

It’s when I think about these things and actually ponder them that I feel stupid and judgmental. Like I think I should have been God instead of Him and He gently reminds me how misunderstood He is. It’s at that moment that I want to defend Him. Live for Him and make up for my lack of understanding by my steadfastness and loyalty if nothing else. - Taken from Gumnazo: lessons in fighting naked.