Before Corrie ten Boom became known for hiding Jewish families from the Nazis, before the concentration camps and the speaking tours and the books, she was just a watchmaker's daughter in Haarlem, sitting at a workbench winding tiny springs into tiny cases.
A Normal Tuesday in Haarlem
It was an ordinary workday in the 1920s. The Beje — the family's narrow house above the watch shop — smelled of metal polish and her mother's cooking. Corrie was repairing a watch, the kind of repetitive work she'd done since she was a teenager. Nothing unusual about the day. No crisis, no dramatic event.
But sitting there, tools in hand, she felt what she later described as God pressing something onto her heart: that her life would be used for something she couldn't yet see. Not a voice. Not a vision. More like a deep knowing that settled into her chest while her hands kept working on the watch mechanism.
She Almost Dismissed It
She nearly brushed it off. She was a single woman in her thirties, living with her father and sister. Her world was watch repairs, church on Sunday, and the occasional holiday. What could God possibly want with such a small life?
But the feeling didn't leave. It stayed with her through the afternoon, through dinner, through the evening prayers her father led. She wrote about it later as one of those quiet moments when God plants something in you that won't make sense until years later.
Decades Later, It Made Sense
It was another twenty years before Corrie understood. When the Germans occupied Holland and Jewish neighbours began disappearing, the ten Boom family turned their small house into a hiding place. The "something she couldn't yet see" turned out to be one of the most remarkable rescue operations of the war.
What This Means for You
God spoke to Corrie in the most unremarkable moment of her most unremarkable day. Not in a church service. Not during a crisis. While she was winding a watch spring. If you're waiting for a dramatic sign, you might be missing the quiet press on your heart that's already there — in the middle of whatever ordinary thing you're doing right now.
