PERSPECTIVES CHANGED

I love our house church family. More and more, I'm learning to hear Jesus as He speaks to me through the members of His Body as we gather together around Him.

Most recently, I heard something that really gave me a fresh perspective about pain and suffering.

One of our sisters was sharing about how she had been angry at God. She was upset because it seemed to her that her sister was suffering horribly in areas where she herself was enjoying the blessings of God. This disparity made her angry and she let God know that she needed Him to be as good to her sister as He had been to her. It just didn't seem fair that she should be so blessed and her sister should suffer so horribly without any end in sight.

Eventually, my friend said to God, "If you don't fix this and bless my sister, I'm not sure I can continue to trust in you."

That was quite the ultimatum. I'm sure some of you can relate.

From her perspective, there was an injustice that needed correcting. God loved both of them the same, and yet one of them was being blessed and the other was in pain. Why was that? How could God allow this to continue?

But then my friend gained a new perspective on the entire situation. She slowly started to hear from God the phrase, "I am" in various ways; as she read scripture, as she prayed, and as she spent time with Him, the realization of God as "I am" began to soften her heart and it gave her a fresh angle on everything.

To her, that realization meant that God was so much bigger than the momentary "goodness" or "badness" of a particular person's experience in a given space of time.

But, to me, as she was sharing this with all of us on a Sunday morning, what I heard the Lord say to me was this: "Get to know me better. All of these experiences you have - Blessing, Pain, Joy, Suffering - all of these are opportunities for you to know me in a deeper way."

Immediately, my mind went to the verse which says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." [Ps. 37:4]

Right away I realized that the verse wasn't saying, "Make God happy and He will give you the stuff you want", which is honestly how I think most of us read that verse at first.

Instead, I started to see how this verse was simply saying: "If you make God your delight, then you will receive more of God as a reward."

In other words, "Is it your delight to know God more? Is the desire of your heart simply to know Him in a deeper way?" If so, then you're in luck! Because God's promise is to fulfill that desire and to show you more and more of Himself as you seek Him daily.

Suffering, then, becomes another opportunity to know God's heart. Blessings are also an opportunity to know something about God. Our joys reveal more of God's character, and our sadness points us to Him as well.

Too often, we become fixated on avoiding pain and maximizing our pleasure. But that's a very carnal way of living, and it reduces our experience of God to a simplistic paradigm which says: "If I'm blessed then God loves me and if I'm suffering then God is upset at me."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus is with us always, no matter what our experience is. He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, and he dances with us in our seasons of joy.

Jesus told us plainly: "In this world you will have trouble", and then He added, "But take heart, because I have overcome the world."

The troubles still come our way, but our gift is that we get to go through those hardships with Jesus alongside us.

"It rains on the unjust and the righteous as well," Jesus said. The difference for us is that we get to know Jesus better along the journey of life, whether in joy or in sorrow.

I hope that encourages you today.

If it does, please share this with your friends on Facebook or Twitter. There might be others who need to hear this blessing too!

Peace,
Keith

Learning To Abide

Fear, worry, and doubt are un-Christian practices.

How can I say this? Because Jesus says this.

Jesus tells us not to worry. If we ignore him and practice worrying, then we are disobedient to Jesus. 

Or, to put it another way, worry is a sin.

When we worry we are saying that we doubt that God is in control. We give power to our fear and we act as if God isn't big enough to handle our life.

Jesus also tells us not to be afraid. He tells us not to fear men, who can only destroy our body but not our soul. He even tells us not to fear Him. 

His Apostles remind us in the New Testament that perfect love casts out fear, and that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 

So, if we are ruled by our fears, we are not behaving like a Christian.

Doubt is a natural human emotion, just like fear and worry. But like those other emotions, doubt isn't something that a follower of Jesus can practice. 

If we are abiding in Christ, then we cannot doubt Him. If we go all in with Jesus, then that means we place all of our hope in Him, and if we do that we are not doubting, but trusting. 

Of course, none of us ever perfectly avoids these three things - fear, worry and doubt - but the point is that we do not practice these things. We don't allow fear, worry and doubt to remain. We cast those things out quickly and we refuse to be ruled by those because Jesus is our King and we are submitted to Him.

If we are abiding in Jesus, then we are practicing faith, hope and love, not fear worry and doubt.

Let's continue to walk in our new nature, which is Christ in us.

-kg

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READ MORE:

THE SKY IS [NOT] FALLING>

FEARLESS>

WORRY NOT> 

SWEET HOUR OF THANKSGIVING

Our house church family is going through a really beautiful season lately. One thing I've been loving is how much people are genuinely interested in being together and spending time with each other.

Last Sunday, after our house church gathering in the morning we shared a potluck lunch together, which was pretty amazing [as always]. A few people couldn't stick around but some of us did and our conversation started to drift into an exploration of "What Makes Us Happy?"

Most assume that what makes us happiest is money or fame. But there have been plenty of academic studies which disprove that theory. In fact, I just recently wrote a blog for my employer about this and I got to bring that up in our conversation with the house church family.

I've also blogged quite a bit about this here on my personal blog.

It's also true that those who win the Lottery are typically bankrupt, divorced, estranged from their families and in debt [or sometimes even dead] after only a year or so.

So, if money and fame and wealth don't make us happy, what does?

It turns out, Jesus was right when he told us not to worry about tomorrow, or to worry about what we will wear or what we will eat, etc. but to seek first the Kingdom of God and focus our energy on serving others, making people around us happier and being thankful [or content] with what we have today.

That's exactly what all the studies show, anyway.

Wealth and fame do not pull happiness in their wake. Actually, it's being content and serving others that tends to pull success and happiness behind them.

Today at lunch several of my co-workers also began to share more about the blog I wrote about happiness and we also affirmed this principle of being thankful and how it connects to being happy.

Then, as I was leaving lunch to go back to work, I saw an email from one of our dear sisters in our house church family. She wasn't able to join us the other day for our conversation about what makes us happy, but she had read about it on our house church page online and sent us all this note:

"Hi Fam!

Missed y'all a lot yesterday but was blessed to hear how the conversation went over lunch. It's rad how God puts similar things on the hearts of his people... in my prayers, the word "gratitude" has kept coming up and I felt the Lord nudging me to take it more seriously and put it into a concrete discipline.

Basically all I'm doing is recording something I'm thankful for every hour. It may seem silly and at times the thing I write down are kinda silly but it's actually become something that I look forward to every new hour and a really good reminder of God's relentless love and provision. 

Here's yesterday's list: 

5am- a place to call home

6am-family to drink coffee with

7am- transportation through the sky

8am- best friends

9am- unique personalities 

10am- the privilege of worshipping

11am- languages of all kinds

12pm- the opportunity to travel 

1pm- deep relationships 

2pm- rain!!

3pm- food on the table

4pm- protection from the weather

5pm- a job where I can love people

6pm- chocolate covered items 

7pm- good and Godly mentors 

8pm- human diversity

9pm- good tunes 

10pm- time to rest 

If any of you wanna join me in this, I think it'd be fun to do together. "

How awesome is that? Imagine being thankful every single hour of the day!

Isn't that what we should be doing as followers of Jesus anyway?

Just to close the loop, I forwarded that same email to one of my co-workers as an example of how this practice of being thankful and being happy was being practiced by people in our house church.

His response was this: "That's pretty cool. Did you hear the quote that says, 'If you ever meet God and the only thing you ever said to Him was 'Thank you', that would be enough'?"

I thanked him for sharing that quote and told him that I agreed. "What more is there to say?"

Isn't that cool?

My challenge to you is: Could you do this for a week? Just make a list of what you're thankful for every waking hour for the rest of this week and see how that changes your attitude and affects your level of happiness.

If you decide to do this, please share the results here in the comments section. I'd love to know how it goes!

Blessings,

Keith

God Will Not Cooperate

GOD WILL NOT COOPERATE 
(It's His World, We Just Get To Live In It)


After over thirty years of being a Christian I have learned a few valuable lessons. This is probably one of the most crucial ones; God will not cooperate.

If you want to know what frustration is, try to bargain or reason with God. Want to know how to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.

Sometimes we get the idea that we can change God's mind about something. There are even a few scriptural accounts where it appears that Moses and Abraham convince God to go along with their plans. The problem with this is that you cannot negotiate with someone who already knows the end from the beginning and knows your thoughts before you speak. Want to know what is really happening in those passages? It's God demonstrating that He knows things always go better with us if we think it was our idea.

Once in a while you will see a bumper sticker that says, "God Is My Co-Pilot". I always pray for people who have that on their car because if you think God is about to sit quietly in the passenger seat while you drive your life outside of His will you are either sadly mistaken or you are in the wrong car. Soon enough you will discover that things go so much smoother when you scoot over and allow God to be the Pilot.

We all know the passage where Jacob wrestles with God and refuses to let go until God blesses him. The problem with that is God had already promised to bless Jacob before he was even born. Jacob didn't need to wrestle the blessing out of God's hand, but God allowed him to wrestle anyway. Truth is, God loves to wrestle. I think what we need to consider is, what will we do with God AFTER he gives us that blessing we wrestled from Him? Will we let go of Him? Often, we do exactly that. We vow to not let go of God until He blesses us, and then after He blesses us, we let go of Him. Bad idea.

I firmly believe that God will drop trouble into our lives just to hear our voice after a long silence. 

Save yourself a lot of trouble and just surrender now. God will have His way...(just ask Job or Jonah)...and His way, believe it or not, is much better than all of your beautiful plans and dreams.

Die to yourself daily and things will go SO much better in your life. Practice daily saying, "I Give Up!" and watch God do amazing things with your life. His will, His Kingdom, will come to your life, to your house, to your job, and things will be like Heaven...where His will is always done without question or gripe or complaint.

I recently discovered a phrase used by the early Church Fathers that says, "Conversatio Morem!". It translates to "Constant Conversion!" which honestly is what we all need to embrace. We all need a daily, constant surrender to Jesus in order to fully walk in The Kingdom of God.

"Man makes his plans but God orders his steps."
-Proverbs 16:9

Life in the Kingdom begins with surrender. The sooner you can practice this in your actual life, the sooner you can begin to live in the Kingdom of God, where His perfect will is always done.

God will not cooperate.

-kg

NOTE: This article originally appeared on the weekly [Subversive Underground] e-newsletter.

Fearless

So, as I’m drilling down to uncover why so many of those who profess to know Christ are comfortable with killing, and torture, and war, I’ve discovered something: It turns out that what we really seem to lack is an abiding connection to the love of Christ in our daily, walking around lives.

At least, I cannot personally fathom how anyone who was abiding in Christ – who is Agape love incarnate – could look at another person made in the image of God and condone their torture, or approve of their death, or justify their suffering – even if it was in the best interest of our nation.

Not only are we disconnected from the love of Christ ourselves – and lacking in love for one another – we are also more often ruled by our fears than by our confidence in our Lord Jesus.

The truth is, our world is inundated with a continual, abiding fear. We are immersed in fear. We are surrounded by it. It is nearly inescapable in our culture today.

Don’t believe me? Just watch the evening news and count how often the word “fear” is used. Listen for how many times the news anchors refer to people who are afraid, or who are horrified, or terrified, etc. and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Then pay attention to the TV shows you watch. Notice how often fear is used to motivate everyone’s actions. Or how those real-life mystery shows train you to suspect your spouse or to mistrust your neighbors.

It’s on the Internet too. Just the other day I posted this on social media:

“Fear says: Buy bigger guns, locks and dogs to protect yourself. Love says: Welcome friend. What's mine is yours.”

The reaction I received to that was this: “Easy enough to say until you’re watching some thug rape your wife or daughter.”

Wow. Instant, automatic fear response. (And, yes, this was from a Christian).

Our choice is simple: We either decide to remain in a place of fear – and then we make decisions that flow from that fear – OR we decide to live in the love of Christ and then we make decisions that flow from Him and His love.

Let’s not kid ourselves here, we cannot do both.

Either we put our hope in Christ and we walk in His love, or we walk in fear and we live our lives as people who must manage those fears.

Let’s consider this for a moment: Could someone who honestly put their hope in Christ ever live in continual fear? Of course not! And someone who is led by their fears can’t – at the same time – be completely trusting the Lord and placing their hope in Him. The two are mutually exclusive.

As I’ve said once before, Jesus came and introduced us to something called “The Good News (or Gospel) of the Kingdom” and it is about complete submission and daily reliance upon Christ.

We either follow the Way of the World (which involves fear, and violence, and torture, and power, etc.), or we follow the Way of Christ (which involves trust, and love, and humility and service to others, etc.).

We cannot follow the Way of the World and the Way of Christ at the same time. It’s like saying that you’re going to get in your car and drive East and West at the same time. It can’t be done.

Either go one way or the other, but you can’t do both because one path will take you in the opposite direction from the other one.

Why am I writing about fear? Because fear is the flip side of the coin from love. We’re told that “Perfect love casts out all fear.” (1 Jn. 4:18) And I believe that if we cling to our fears we’ll also experience less love and suffer from the effects of that deficiency.

Anyone who doubts this can simply look around you. Our world is not following the Way of Christ. It is saturated with fear. It is ruled by fear. It is all about power and control and exploitation and selfishness. 

Jesus came and died to demonstrate a better way. That’s what we call the Good News. 

It means we can abandon those ways of being and start living a different way – a Heavenly way. It means we can actually be transformed from within by His incredible love and His amazing Holy Spirit into people who are not ruled by fear any longer.

Because we put our continual hope in Jesus we can love without fearing pain. We can trust without fearing violence. We can give without fearing poverty. We can share without fearing guilt.

As followers of Jesus, we have to say no to fear and yes to love. We have to repent and turn away from the way of the world. We have to put our hearts into His capable hands and begin to trust Him with everything. We have to start learning how to walk in love and to leave fear behind us for good.

Abiding in Christ means abandoning fear. The only thing that casts out all fear is His perfect love. When we are filled with his love there is no more room for fear. When His love fills us, we can’t help but love everyone around us – even our enemies.

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:16-19)

ASK JESUS

It was one of those moments where the Holy Spirit gives you the words to say at just the right moment.

I was on vacation with my family when the text came up on my cell phone. A friend of mine had a house church that needed some advice about something they were struggling with. As I listened to the person speak to me about the challenges the group was facing I whispered a prayer under my breath for help. What hope could I offer her? What wisdom could I share? I was drawing blanks.

She shared with me how she had asked everyone in her group to describe what they wanted out of the gathering. What she got back was a variety of responses. Some wanted an Acts 2 church, others wanted deeper community, still another wanted to understand the Bible more. There seemed to be little common ground among them, although every need expressed was valid in its own way. That’s when the Holy Spirit gave me what she needed.

“I understand why you asked everyone to share their expectations,” I said. “I would have wanted to know that if I were in your shoes. But maybe next week you should ask everyone a different question. Ask them to pray about what Jesus wants from this church, and not to assume that it’s the same as what they’ve already expressed.”

That was it. One simple question that cut to the heart of what this group was struggling with. But it wasn’t my question, it was the Lord’s question for them.

I love moments like that. I love when the Holy Spirit shows up and rescues me in those situations where I’m being asked to do something that is beyond my reach. Sometimes the answers come to me in mid conversation like this, but sometimes I have to stop and pray out loud for wisdom. Either way, I’ve yet to have a situation where the Lord didn’t answer me when I needed help.

My anchor verse for all of this is James 1:5-7:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.”

Why does this work? I believe it’s because God wants to keep us constantly aware of our need for Him. Especially when it comes to building His church. The real danger comes when we start running off on our own without consulting Him along the path. If we can do church without God then what’s the point? Jesus said that without Him we can do nothing.

So, maybe it would be great to ask this question in your church gathering: “What does Jesus want with your group?” And then spend some time listening to what He says. The answers might surprise you.

 

-kg

Permanent Vacation

Do you need a vacation from your life? Are you tired of being tired? Ready to clock out, turn off and escape for a while? I know I am. In fact, I am getting ready to go on that vacation right now.

What I’ve noticed is that getting ready for a vacation can be very therapeutic. That’s because there are two kinds of stress – Eustress and Distress. One is a positive form of stress [Eustress] and the other is a negative form of stress [Distress].

Eustress is the anticipation of a good event. Like waiting for a child to be born, or looking forward to a birthday party, or the arrival of a friend. These are stressful events, because they make us nervous, they create the build-up of energy in our bodies, and they place us in the same mindset as what we experience during Distress [the negative form of stress]. But the difference is obvious. Eustress is anticipation of something we want to happen. Unlike Distress which is a dread of something horrible, Eustress pays off in the end. When it finally comes we are elated. We celebrate. We smile.

I’m in deep Eustress right now. I’m making lists of things I need to accomplish before I set out on vacation. I’m making piles of things I want to remember to take with me on my trip. I’m clearing my desk at work so that everything is out of the way before I head off.

I’m also in a much better mood. I find myself humming and singing to myself. There’s a spring in my step. I’m much nicer to be around.

My heart rate is also a little bit elevated as I imagine myself relaxing with my family. My breathing speeds up when I look at the clock and start counting the minutes until I can leave.

So, what I’ve learned from this experience is that anticipation can be liberating. It allows me to focus on what really needs to be done before I can enjoy myself. It makes me happy. It lifts my spirits. It changes my perspective.

In fact, I think perspective is really what this is all about. If I were dreading this vacation, then I would be experiencing Distress, but since I’m looking forward to it, my attitude brings me a sense of fulfillment.

What if I could live my entire life in anticipation? Just imagine what it would be like to always look forward to something and assume that it’s good? What if I really believed that God loved me? What if I fully accepted that God delighted to give me good things? What if I actually behaved as if God had a plan for my life – a plan to bless and not to curse me? What if I understood that God had lavished such love upon me that I had already been adopted into His family?

The truth is, all of this is the truth. Now, the only question is, will I live my life according to the truth, or will I stress out about all the bad things that will probably never happen to me?

Even more amazing, God’s promise to us is that even if bad things happen to us, He will always find a way to turn into a blessing for us in the end – if we continue to trust Him.

The secret is to look forward, not behind. Good things are in your future. That’s where God has already prepared a feast for you and reserved a seat at the table in your name.

All aboard?

-kg

MY SECRET IDENTITY

I’ve come to realize that I have an ongoing conflict within myself. Part of me wrestles with pride and self-love while another part of me wallows in self-loathing. So, my pendulum swings between these two extremes. Either I feel an inflated sense of self, or I beat myself up for not being a better person.

If I’m prideful then I hate myself for being so full of myself. If I feel sorry for myself then I hate the fact that I have given in to these feelings of self-doubt.

Then the cycle repeats.

Self-love or self-doubt. Bravado or pity. Pride or condemnation. Those are my choices. I either compensate for my feelings of inadequacy by telling myself I’m better than I really am, or I beat myself up for being too self-absorbed. Where do I find the balance? How do I change this inner struggle? How do I rewrite the script that continually plays in my head over and over again?

I recently began reading a book about self-image. Specifically, about how our identity is wrapped up in Christ. Not all of it was great. In fact, a lot of it really didn’t click at all for me. But what God did show me was significant and important.

Identity has always been a fascination of mine. It’s why I love the books I love. It’s why I love the movies I love. If I listed them for you now you’d see what I mean. The point is that the question I’ve been asking all this time is, “Who am I?” and deep down, deeper than I’ve known until now, the other question I’ve been asking is, “Who is God?”

Frankly, answering the question, “Who is God?” is easier for me to answer than “Who am I?”, as crazy as that sounds. I’ve never doubted God. Not in the sense that I’ve doubted His existence. Truthfully. I can remember being a little boy and talking to God, thinking about Him, reasoning out how He could have created everything without needing to be created Himself, praying to Him for help, promising Him that I would be a preacher if He would put my parents back together again. All of these things took place years before I formally went forward and surrendered my life to Him. I have always felt Him near me. So finding out who God was and is has never been that much of a struggle for me.

But finding out who I am? That’s another story. In fact, I think it’s difficult for most of us. We can tell people our name, and our address, and where we’re from, and what our hobbies are, and who we love, but none of us can accurately answer the question, “Who are you?” Because my name, and my address, and my hobbies, and my job, and my associations do not define me. They are all things that exist outside of me, they are not me.

What I learned from reading this book was this very simple truth: “To know myself I have to know God, and to know God I have to know myself.” In other words, my identity is revealed in Christ when Christ is revealed in me. Jesus put it this way:

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:24-26)

Denying myself is part of finding myself revealed in Christ. It’s more than simply saying “no” to my sinful desires. It’s also about giving up on defining myself. In other words, I am not who I pretend to be. I am not who you think I am. I am not who others tell me I am. I am only who Jesus reveals me to be.

So, letting go of my ideas about who I should be and embracing the person that God made me to be allows the veil to be removed from my eyes. Losing my life allows me to find my true self hidden in Christ, where I have been all along.

At the same time, I have to fully embrace the person that God has made me to be. For a long time now I’ve been hiding from my true self.  I have a teaching gift yet I often sit quietly in the background and let others talk. Yet, God made me to be a teacher. That’s part of my identity. To deny that is to deny my true self.

All of this takes me back to when I was five years old, laying on my bunk bed in the dark, whispering to God from my heart of simplicity. The more I shared my heart with God, the more God revealed His heart to me. It takes me back to sitting in my closet and pouring out my soul to God as a teenager. This is a relationship. The more I know God, the more He allows me to know my true self.

Over time I think I’ve forgotten how to let God love me like that. I’ve become so used to pretending to be the person I think I’m supposed to be that I’ve been hiding my true self from Him. I’ve been rolling over in the darkness when He calls my name. I’ve been going through the motions instead of coming before Him just as I am; simply trusting that He will love me because of who He is.

The beautiful truth is, He just wants me to know Him. He really wants to show me who I am, too. The more I open my heart to Him, the more I know Him, and the more He reveals myself to me.

One of my favorite promises in scripture is found in Revelation 2:17 where Jesus promises that one day He will give each of us a white stone, and on that stone is written a new name. It is a unique name that Jesus has already picked out for each of us individually. He tells us that no one will know that name except the two of us. It’s a special secret name that reveals our true identity through His eyes.

I can’t wait for Jesus to drop that white stone into my open hand. I can’t wait to turn it over and to read that secret name etched there by His own hand.

I am only who I am when He whispers that name to me.

-kg

WORRY NOT

What if we treated worry as a sin? Would that change the way we respond whenever we felt ourselves starting to worry about something? Would we quickly repent of that and re-submit ourselves to Christ?

Well, I hope you’re sitting down because worry is a sin. That is, if you define a sin as disobedience to Jesus, anyway. Because Jesus clearly commanded us not to worry, and he told us that if we would seek first the Kingdom of God that all of the things we’re worrying about would be handled for us.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…” (Matt. 6:25)

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matt. 6:31-33)

I think most of us treat worry as something we’re better off not doing, but I think few of us put worry in the same category as lust, or slander, or stealing. Most of us treat worry as a bad habit, or an occasional mood swing, but according to Jesus our worry betrays our lack of faith in God to handle our needs.

If we treated worry like we treated lust or lying, we’d feel guilty whenever we caught ourselves doing it. We’d feel the need to confess that sin to God and to ask Him to help us resist that temptation.

Trusting God allows us to enjoy the freedom of living in the now. It sets us free from being chained down to all the “what ifs” and fears that rule our minds and corrupt our joy.

So, the next time to feel tempted to worry, repent of that sin and confess it quickly to God. Surrender your fears to Him and re-affirm your trust of God’s love for you and His perfect ability to take care of everything in your life.

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” – Corrie Ten Boom.
-kg