Distress teaches some to pray; it hardens others. Hardness is a defense mechanism which had at times its temptations for me also. If a person cannot endure the sight of the suffering about him, he tries to build a cloak of armor about his heart. But that makes him insensitive to good influences also. Would these people, once grown insensitive, change when they were again in better circumstances? I did not know. God has a special path for each individual.

I did not understand the “why” of suffering except that of my own suffering in this place.… As far as I myself was concerned, I had here received the blessing of a better understanding of the suffering of the Lord Jesus, and consequently a deeper appreciation of his great love. I was learning under all circumstances not to rely on my own strength, but as a child to talk over everything with him who is in all things the conqueror. I saw more clearly my own insignificance and his greatness, and felt myself purified and growing stronger. The “why” of my own suffering was no problem to me. But all the other suffering, which was so much worse! I knew that Ravensbrück was only one of very many concentration camps, and that there was limitless suffering in the bombarded cities, on the battlefields, and in the occupied countries. I knew that judgments were in the earth more terrible than ever before in human history.

In a corner of the room where there was light enough for me to read, I turned to the Revelation of Saint John. It is such a wonderful book. It is of such great importance that judgment is declared on anyone who adds to or takes away from it, and a blessing is pronounced on those who read and keep its words.

I did not know if the things about which I read were now happening, if the symbolical but terrible events referred to the present or to the future. But this I did understand, and this gave me something to hold onto: these world judgments were included in God’s plan. All of this was not just a mistake; God makes no mistakes. He looks upon trouble and grief with the intent that we shall bring it to him and leave it with him. That was the lesson I had to learn here.

This, too, I learned: that I was not called upon to bear the grief and the cares of the whole world around me. If I tried to do that I would only succumb.

I was also learning to pray. Praying is bringing to the Lord everything that troubles and distresses us. It means leaving our burden of cares with him and going on without it. I had been very stupid: I had gathered up all my cares, and after prayer the burden had seemed twice as heavy as it had before. And so I prayed, “Lord, teach me to cast all my burdens upon thee and go on without them. Only thy Spirit can teach me that lesson. Give me thy Spirit, O Lord, and I shall have faith, such faith that I shall no longer carry a load of care.”

Source: Corrie ten Boom, A Prisoner and Yet (CLC Publications, 2012), 88–89, 116. Used by permission.