The Joy of Surrender

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An excerpt from an old video of Corrie ten Boom recently resurfaced and is making the rounds on Facebook. It is so straightforward and simple – and simply phenomenal.

This well-known video excerpt, titled The Glove, comes from a much longer film called Surrender, which was filmed in 1975 by Youth with a Mission. The film (almost an hour in length) features Corrie and three teenagers during a quiet, informal Bible study on the text of John 15 and other related scriptures.

For modern students who desire to learn more from Corrie ten Boom, this video will be an hour well spent. But the actual shorter clip of the film currently being shared online (The Glove) starts at 41:29 in the video and lasts less than two minutes.

Even though I had undoubtedly seen the clip before, the blatant truth of this Bible study excerpt once again pierced my heart as true as any arrow ever shot. Here’s a transcript of the clip:

I have here a glove. That glove cannot do anything.

It cannot write, it cannot cook, it cannot do anything. But when my hand is in the glove, it can write, it can cook, it can do many things. You say, no, that's not the glove, that's the hand in the glove.

You are right. You and I cannot do anything. We read it in John 15, without me you can do nothing.

But with the Lord you can do many things, everything. What this glove can do, this hand can do, that is tremendous. What the Holy Spirit, no, what you can do, when the Holy Spirit fills you, that is enormous.

Yes, you. I have now my hand still in the glove. My whole hand is in the glove.

But these fingers are not filled. Now the glove cannot do anything. You must surrender every corner of your life.

These words alone don’t do this Bible lesson justice, especially considering the 83-year-old woman speaking these words did more than talk the talk.

Corrie ten Boom literally surrendered everything and everyone she loved to Jesus, long before her horrifying days in a World War II concentration camp – and long before she traveled the world speaking on the infinite depths of God’s love and forgiveness.

So, in the video, when she pulls out a clear, plastic glove from the side of her chair and demonstrates how worthless that piece of plastic is without a hand inside it, her humble, unassuming words speak volumes. She knew from firsthand experience that the Holy Spirit is the only entity who can wholly fill us and use us. In fact, Corrie’s life is an absolute testimony to what a totally surrendered human vessel can accomplish in the hands of our mighty God.

But in the eyes of today’s technologically driven world, Corrie’s story might seem lacking or pointless. After all, she never married, never even dated much. She and her sister Betsie remained spinsters, living in their parents’ home, caring for their ailing mother and two aging aunts until their deaths.

Rather than having children of her own, Corrie poured her Christ-centered love into her nieces, nephews, and the neighborhood children. She conducted Bible studies and Christian clubs for those children, including a group of children with profound disabilities.

Corrie also worked alongside her father Casper in his watch shop, situated below their family apartment. She was not worldly or highly educated, and never wealthy in her own right. The only thing of worldly note she accomplished before the war was becoming her nation’s first licensed female watchmaker.

But I can unequivocally declare that with God’s hand filling her “glove,” Corrie ten Boom accomplished (and is still accomplishing) mighty things for the heavenly kingdom of Christ, even though she died in 1983.

Through her testimony of miraculous survival, as well as her Bible studies, speeches, books, and movies, people worldwide have heard the gospel of Jesus – as well as the story of how her devoutly Christian family hid Jews in their home, knowingly jeopardizing their freedom and their lives for God’s people.

Ultimately, it was quite a weighty sacrifice for the ten Boom family, costing the lives of Corrie’s father, sister, brother, and nephew. But it has been estimated that the ten Boom family saved the lives of 800 Jews during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. And there is an unestimated number of people who were led to Christ in the secret Bible studies held by Corrie and Betsie during their time in Ravensbrück concentration camp.

A few days after Christmas and only 12 days after Betsie had died, Corrie was accidentally released from this death camp due to a clerical error on December 28, 1944. Once again, with God’s hand in her glove, she walked miraculously away from Ravensbrück at the age of 59. Beyond the marvel of her accidental release only weeks before the infamous forced death marches began, Corrie’s physical survival alone was statistically amazing.

According to Yad Vashem, though Ravensbrück was “designed to hold 5,000 women, the actual figure was six times this number. In all, some 132,000 women from twenty-three countries all over Europe passed through the camp…. Only 15,000 survived.”

Think about those numbers for one long, solemn moment.

Only 15,000 of 132,000 women survived their imprisonment in Ravensbrück concentration camp. That is a mere 9% survival rate. Obviously, only God could have orchestrated Corrie’s statistically miraculous physical survival and accidental release.

Almost 81 years after her release and 33 years after her death (on her 91^st birthday, no less), God is still filling the hand of Corrie ten Boom – and He did so today by filling the hand of my glove as I wrote this blog.

But for those who don’t appreciate Corrie ten Boom’s glove analogy as much as I do, let’s take it right back to the words of Jesus in John 15, verses 1-3: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful” (NIV).

Glove or vine; cut off or filled up – the choice is ours, but the outcome is the same: God will have His way in each of His children.

So, right now, I pray that we make the same choice as Corrie ten Boom and surrender every corner of our lives and every finger of our gloves to Him. For with our total surrender, there is absolutely no limit to what God will accomplish in us.

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