February 1944 found middle-aged Corrie ten Boom running a successful underground railroad for Jews all across Holland. That same month she was discovered by the German secret police, and she, her sister, and her father would all be imprisoned at Nazi concentration camps. 

During the first three months of her arrest, Corrie was almost entirely in solitary confinement. The next three she spent with her sister, Betsie, in a Holland concentration camp. The conditions were terrible, but nothing compared to what they would face next. A three-day train ride took them to Ravensbruck, a German concentration camp even worse than the last one they had left. It was known for stripped-down searches, beatings, and sickness. 

The joy and delight of Corrie and Betsie up to this point had been a small Bible that Corrie had managed to keep hidden from the guards by concealing it in a pouch that hung from her neck. This joy was in danger of being short-lived, however, when they learned that each prisoner was subjected to a strip and search procedure before entering the camp.

When they arrived, each woman had to take off every scrap of clothes and walk naked past a group of guards into the showers. Corrie and Betsie asked one to show them the toilets and behind a bunch of wooden benches hid their little Bible. After showering, they were given thin cotton dresses to wear and lined up for another search, this time with the Bible tucked underneath Corrie’s dress. 

She sent up a prayer asking God to send his angels to watch over her, that they might keep their Bible. Once in line, Corrie watched the guards pat down each woman in front of her, front and back, searching for any hidden material. The woman before her was searched three times, but the guard motioned Corrie along and stopped her sister behind her.

Further down, another line of guards was searching the women. Corrie prepared herself to be found out, but again they motioned her along, claiming she was slowing down the line. And so Corrie and Betsie were able to take their Bible into the dark depths of a Nazi concentration camp. 

It was just a quick, and no doubt, impromptu prayer that Corrie offered up while standing in line, but God answered it, as he always does when we ask, believing. 

“And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” 1 John 5:15