In all things, Christians are to be thankful, and there is much to be thankful for. We can be thankful that God offers grace and mercy to sinners. We can be thankful that Jesus left His heavenly home to dwell with mortal humans. We can be thankful that He bore the punishment we deserve, died on the cross, and was raised from the dead. And we can be thankful that, through Jesus, death has no power over believers.
“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” –1 Corinthians 15:56–57
Yes, there are countless reasons to give thanks.
But what does thankfulness look like when life is difficult? When pain is unbearable, when suffering is long and unrelenting, how can we give thanks? Certainly we can find ways to be thankful in hardship, but should we ever be thankful for hardship?
For one pair of siblings, learning the complexity of thankfulness came in the darkest season of their lives.
Gratitude for the Trial
Corrie and Betsie ten Boom were Dutch sisters during World War II. They had grown up in a Christian family that had connections to the Jewish community. Corrie was one of the few licensed female watchmakers in the Netherlands, and she used her job in her father’s shop as cover to help the Dutch resistance during the Nazi invasion. Corrie, Betsie, and their father, Casper, hid Jews in their family home.
When the Nazi’s uncovered their operation, the ten Boom family was arrested. Casper died in prison, and Corrie and Betsie were eventually transferred to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. Corrie had miraculously smuggled a Bible into the concentration camp, praying that the guards would not find the lump of the book under her thin prison dress.
The conditions at Ravensbrück were beyond horrid. Prisoners were starved until their muscles wasted away. They were forced to undress and stand naked in an unheated hospital corridor for weekly medical inspections. And when Corrie and Betsie arrived at their permanent barracks, the room smelled of backed-up plumbing and soiled bedding. The sisters crawled onto the straw-covered platforms where they would sleep at night. Corrie tried to settle in when something bit her leg. A flea—the straw was swarming with fleas.
Corrie wailed, wondering how they could live in such a place. Betsie asked God to show them the answer, and then excitedly told Corrie to open the Bible to the passage she had read that morning. Corrie turned to 1 Thessalonians.
“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” –1 Thessalonians 5:16–18
That was God’s answer, Betsie proclaimed. He wanted them to give thanks for their circumstances. Corrie was skeptical, but gradually, they began to thank God. They thanked Him for being assigned to Ravensbrück together. They thanked Him for being able to sneak in a Bible and for all the women in the barracks who would come to know Jesus through its pages.
But when Betsie thanked God for the fleas, Corrie scoffed. There was no way God could make her grateful for a flea. Betsie repeated the verse to her sister: “give thanks in all circumstances” it said. Reluctantly, Corrie thanked God for the biting fleas.
As the weeks went on, the ten Boom sisters held secret worship services in their dormitory in the barracks. A growing number of women attended to quietly sing hymns, pray, and hear the Word of God. Corrie and Betsie would translate their Dutch Bible into German, and other women in the aisles would translate the German into French, Polish, Russian, and Czech. Though half a dozen guards were always present in the barracks, no one ever entered the dormitory during the worship services, a blessing that perplexed the ten Boom sisters.
One day, Corrie returned to the barracks to find Betsie with a twinkle in her eye. Her sister could barely contain herself when she explained that she had discovered why the guards never discovered their nightly worship services. They refused to come into the dormitory, Betsie said, because the place was crawling with fleas. The pests that Corrie had at first refused to thank God for were the reason they could freely read the Bible and share the gospel with others.
Betsie died at Ravensbrück in December 1944. A few days later, Corrie was released. After the war, Corrie helped establish a home for those who had survived concentration camps. She traveled the world as an evangelist and motivational speaker. She wrote several books, and in her memoir, “The Hiding Place,” she told the story of giving thanks for the fleas.
Practicing Thanksgiving
The Bible says to give thanks in all circumstances—the pleasant, the ordinary, and the impossibly difficult. What may seem like a curse may actually be a well-disguised blessing.
That is what Betsie and Corrie ten Boom discovered in the filthy, flea-infested barracks of the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Thankfulness led to joy in a place marked by grief, suffering, and death.
God may not always reveal the purpose of a trial as clearly as He did for the ten Boom sisters, but He always has a purpose. In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28), and so in all things, we should give thanks.
When persecution arises, when grief shows up uninvited, when pain makes its home in the heart, cry out to God, and then practice thanksgiving.
East-West Devotionals
Dive deeper into a collection of encouraging stories and devotionals by East-West Founder John Maisel and other authors that will spur you on in gratitude, worship, and obedience.
