Memories to the future

“Memories are the key – not to the past, but to the future.” – Corrie ten Boom

Cornelia “Corrie” ten Boom, who was both born and died on this date, was one of the many thousands of ordinary people in World War II who risked their own lives to save those who were being hunted by the Nazis as part of what would become known as the Holocaust.

Captured and imprisoned for her actions, she survived the war and then wrote about the experience in The Hiding Place.  It was one of the many books that she wrote after the war, following her own advice to “remember things from the past in order to help shape the future” – a mandate for all who choose a life of writing and communication.

 

Corrie ten Boom

Acclaimed, too, for her writing and work on many other causes, she founded a church to serve those with mental disabilities and became a leading light on behalf of foster children.

Lauded for this work and her writings at her 90th birthday celebration, she reflected on how she could have been killed or died at a much younger age and the urgency she always felt to “do things for others.”  She said simply, “The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.” 

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