Morning roll call at Ravensbruck came half an hour earlier than at Vught. By 4.30 AM we had to be standing outside in the predawn chill....

...Next to us, perhaps a deliberate warning to newcomers-were located the punishment barracks. From there, all day long and often into the night, came the sounds of hell itself. They were not sounds of anger, nor of any human emotion, but of a cruelty altogether detached: blows landing in regular rhythm, screams keeping pace.

...it grew harder and harder. Even within these four walls there was too much misery, too much seemingly pointless suffering. Every day something else failed to make sense, something else grew too heavy. "Will You carry this too, Lord Jesus?"

The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom.


Re-reading some books that I read years ago have made me realize how much emotion I missed then. A new wave of respect, of grief intertwined with understanding dawned.
Of course I am not in a concentration camp; but I am a wimp who can't deal with cancer, loss, death and broken dreams.

It's frustrating to be schooled in pain.

I wish I can be a yuppie Christian with happening posts and extra ordinary "change the world/campus" visions. On fire for God. Doing ground breaking things. Exciting things. Challenging (but not hurtful challenging, rather goal oriented challenging) things.

Not struggling to get out of bed and whose achievement is not crying mid lecture.

And I think back, Oh my goodness how insensitive and naive I was when I shared in Cambodia; who was I, a rich girl who has never known hunger nor hurt to speak of perseverance or healing to those who lost so much?

When I read "First they killed my father" about a Cambodian girl who loss her family just a few weeks back, a wave of nausea flooded me because...now I've seen the concentration camp, I have walked in their fields, it's no longer a story, it's a person's life; it is real...

I can just close the book and forget, but for her, it's her life that she can't escape from. Just like others can press the red X button top right hand corner now, yet I can't.

This is nonsense rambling.


The only consolation for me is that when/IF (provided God restores me) others hurt, I will no longer be the well intended but terribly un-understanding girl.

I will be able to look into their eyes and share in brokenness.


This is my body broken for you, do this in remembrance of me.