There are no "ifs" in God's world.

The Germans had repaired the bomb damage to the airport and were using it now as a base for air raids against England. Night after night we lay in bed listening to the growl of engines heading west. Occassionally English planes retaliated and then the German fightters might intercept them right over Haarlem.

One night I tossed for an hour while dogfights raged overhead, streaking my patch of sky with fire. At last I heard Betsie stirring in the kitchen and ran down to join her. She was making tea. She brought it into the dining room where we had covered the windows with heavy black paper and set out the best cups. Somewhere in the night there was an explosion; the dishes in the cupboard rattled. For an hour we sipped our tea and talked, until the sounds of places died away and the sky was silent. I said goodnight to Betsie and made my way up the stairs to my room. The fiery light was gone from the sky. I felt for my bed: there was the pillow. Then in the darkness my hand closed over something hard. Sharp too! I felt blood trickle along a finger.

It was a jagged piece of metal, ten inches long.

I raced down the stairs with the shrapnel in my hand. "Betsie!" We went back to the dining room and stared at it in the light while Betsie bandaged my hand. "On your pillow," she kept saying.

"Betsie, if I hadn't heard you in the kitchen--"

But Betsie put a finger on my mouth. "Don't say it, Corrie! There are no 'ifs' in God's world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety--Oh Corrie, let us pray that we may always know it!" (The Hiding Place, pp. 83-84)


If I wanted to I could ponder "what if" all day and night. Even if I tried, I couldn't count the number of decisions I've made - whether conscious or subconscious - that could have been different, and were they, would have led me somewhere else.

It's not that where I am is all that bad. No. In fact, it's pretty great. Abundantly blessed. I have family, I have friends. I have a good job, with good people. But I have a broken heart, for reasons both in and out of my control. People have died, people have moved. I have moved. I have said yes when people have said no. I have lost, and I am finding. Dreams have died, dreams have changed.

We make choices every day that bring us to where we are. Our lives are a series of choices and circumstances. Thousands upon thousands. Changing just one could change our lives entirely. So much energy is wasted wondering "what if." What if this, what if that? Who can say? The fact is there is no "if," when it comes to the past. There is only what was, what is, and what is to come.

I could spend all day asking what if. It's true that if I had made different decisions along the way my life would also be different. Maybe something I wanted would be a reality now. Maybe I wouldn't want it anymore. Betsie Ten Boom had it right--there are no places safer than others, no circumstances ultimately better than others. No matter where we are we are all in the same place: in need of God's mercy, love and grace.

I've learned that there's no decision I have made, no circumstance I have found myself in whether it be within or out of my control, no place I find myself where God cannot find me and work wonders with my life, where God can't take my heart and fill it, my life and use it.

I don't waste my time asking "what if," because there are no "ifs" in God's world, only "ares" and opportunities to love.