Not sure why God planned it this way, but both books I am reading right now have swept me back in history to the atrocities of Nazi Germany’s prison camps. I knew “The Hiding Place”would do so, but Pat Conroy’s “Beach Music?” Deceptive title for the brutality he chronicles as he hears the stories of Holocaust survivors. (And here I thought I was in for a musical romp on the beach!) Horrendous accounts of evil unleashed to its fullest… and the long-term devastating effects it has had on people’s lives. But here the similarities diverge. The survivors in Conroy’s account are consumed by the evil and wear the scars of their torture on every cell of their being… often destroying the remainder of their life and relationships. The ten Boom family, or at least what remained of them, emerges physically scarred, but emotionally and spiritually deepened by their ghastly dance with the devil. They chose love and forgiveness… even praying for their enemies as they beat and tortured them. Sound familiar? Yep. Jesus. Fixing their eyes on their Savior, they were saved from the worst of the affliction… the long-term psychological scars of such abominable abuse. I am both aghast and challenged by their faith in You Father. Believing You were there with them, and able to love those around them in costly, sacrificial ways even as Satan served up the worst the world has ever seen. My missionary commission may be the Isle of Cancer, but theirs was hand-to-hand combat in the Dungeon of the Devil. How much I am learning about redeemed suffering from them! Thank You for engineering this dual read as I grapple with my own (comparatively) minuscule suffering.