Give Thanks for Fleas?

It’s easy to be thankful when things are going well. But can we learn to give thanks in times of trial?

Corrie (52) and her sister Betsie (59) arrived at the Ravensbruck concentration camp in the fall of 1944. The dormitory was filthy, smelly and overcrowded. There were no individual beds, but only, as Corrie recalled, “great square piers stacked three high, and wedged side by side and end to end with only an occasional narrow aisle slicing through.”

Corrie and Betsie were directed to a second tier in the center of a large block. “To reach it we had to stand on the bottom level, haul ourselves up, and then crawl across three other straw-covered platforms to reach the one that we would share with—how many? The deck above us was too close to let us sit up. We lay back, struggling against the nausea that swept over us from the reeking straw.”

It was at this point that Corrie felt something pinch her leg.

“Fleas!” she cried. “Betsie, the place is swarming with them! … Betsie, how can we live in such a place!” (The Hiding Place, 1998, pp. 179-180).

A long time since February

Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place (first published in 1971) is an account of her and her family’s experiences as they hid Jews in their home in Nazi-occupied Holland between May 1942 and the end of February 1944, when the family was arrested. The remainder of the book recounts Corrie and Betsie’s time in the Scheveningen prison and then Vught and Ravensbruck camps.

The Bible became Corrie and Betsie’s only hope and comfort. By the time they reached Ravensbruck, they were on their third complete reading of the small New Testament they had managed to keep with them. As they thought despairingly of their new surroundings, Betsie reminded Corrie of what they had read earlier that day: 1 Thessalonians 5:14-18.

They read the passage again and Betsie gasped, “That’s it, Corrie! That’s His answer. ‘Give thanks in all circumstances!’ That’s what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!”

A thankful mind-set

While few of us have been in circumstances as dreadful and dire as what Corrie and Betsie ten Boom faced in a Nazi concentration camp, it is a question that all Christians must cope with at one time or another: Do we only give God thanks when things are going well? Or do we also give God thanks when things are, in fact, going terribly?

I can only imagine the sorrow and longing of Bible women like Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Hannah who were childless for years—especially in a culture where bearing offspring was the most important validation of a woman’s worth! No doubt the words said of Hannah—“And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD and wept in anguish”—could be said of them all.

The loss of a husband and provider is another trial frequently found in the pages of the Bible. The widow in 2 Kings 4 faced the very real threat of losing her two sons to slavery to pay off debts. Combined with drought or famine, being a widow could mean loss of life (1 Kings 17).

But the lesson of the Bible—found in the stories of Joseph, the Israelites in Egypt, Job, Ruth, Naomi and so many others—is that our thankfulness comes not because our lives are so perfect and free of trial, but because we trust God to help us through them. Psalm 34:19 states it clearly: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.”

Miraculous intervention

Certainly trials and difficulties come upon all people—whether they have a relationship with God or not. But for those God is working with, these trials are not random or purposeless. Indeed, that is the message of Romans 8:28: “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

Obviously this doesn’t mean we should purposely sin or make foolish decisions that bring about suffering. But we need to keep in mind the lesson from the children of Israel in Egypt: The worse things look physically, the greater the miracle that is required and the more we can be astounded by the intervention of our amazing God!

The good thing about fleas

While it seemed incomprehensible to Corrie ten Boom, on that first evening in Ravensbruck, that they should be thankful for fleas, she came to see them as, indeed, a blessing from God. The large flea-infested room later became a workroom during the day where the weakest prisoners, such as Betsie, were put to work knitting socks for German soldiers.

Curiously, the German supervisors and guards never seemed to harass and abuse them in the room. In fact, they wouldn’t even cross the threshold! It was a puzzle until Betsie overheard one of them say, “That place is crawling with fleas!” (p. 190).

Strange as it might seem, there was a reason to be thankful even for fleas!

As a family, Becky, her husband, Mike, and their daughters have read several true stories about men and women of character and conviction during World War II and the Holocaust. She finds them both sobering and inspiring.

See more posts by Becky Bennett:

• Moving Through the Pain: Dealing With Relationship Injuries
• The Power of Positive Expectations and Encouragement
• How Does Your Garden Grow?

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