Read aloud: The Hiding Place (Part 2)

{More on our current read-aloud, The Hiding Place.}

As I sit with this book in my hands, it is a certain thing that I will get all teary at some point during the reading.  The kids: "Mommy, are you crying?"  It doesn't even have to be a sad part, I just get weepy.  (I was this way when we read about George Muller, too.  These dear saints that have gone before us- George Muller, Corrie ten Boom and the whole ten Boom family, and others, too-- their lives, their stories-- challenge me and encourage me to love Jesus more fully and with greater faith.)

One of the (many) things I love about reading aloud are the discussions that come up as we read.  So far as we've read The Hiding Place we've discussed:

- Hospitality: the ten Boom home was a place of community for so many people.  They welcomed each and every person who walked through their door.  They served them tea and food- even when they had little to spare.  They were accepting and genuine in their care for others.  What can we learn from their example of hospitality?  How can we welcome friends and- more challenging, for us- strangers-- into our home?
- Honesty:  Nollie speaks the truth to the Gestapo agents, but Corrie lies.  How is it that both sisters loved God but chose differently in this area?  And God used them both.  That led to the question of "What would you do?" 
- Kindness and sacrificial love:  Mama and her girls, taking meals to their needy neighbors. Mama sending notes of encouragement- even when she could no longer speak herself. The whole ten Boom family- providing a home for Jews and risking their own lives (willingly, gladly) in the process.  A nurse who secretly asks Corrie if there is anything she can do, and then slips Corrie a package containing soap and Scripture that she could take back to prison with her. Nollie's care package to Corrie in prison.  There are so many examples of kindnesses and we've talked through so many of them- noting the risks taken and how those acts of kindness ministered to people.
- Choosing to do what was right and God-honoring in the face of evil. Even though so many others were silent or unwilling, the ten Booms resolutely chose to love and risk everything because they feared God more than men:  Firing Otto- the employee that was cruel to the old clock-mender Christoffels. Finding homes for so many Jews, and hiding them in their own home. Again- what would you do?  Would you be one who would speak or act if someone was being cruel to another?

So many other things, too- but those are the big ones.  And we're only about two-thirds of the way through the book!