Corrie ten Boom's Hiding Place and Unbroken Faith

Placeholder — regenerating. The lantern on the porch swayed in the warm summer breeze, throwing little golden circles across the wooden steps. Ellie pulled her knees up to her chest and watched the fireflies blink on and off in the tall grass beyond the fence, each one like a tiny, wandering star that had come down to say hello. "Grandpa," she said softly, "where did the flag come from? The one in the glass case inside?" Grandpa set down his lemonade and leaned back in the old rocking chair until it creaked the way it always did, that long, low sound like the house itself was thinking. He looked at the flag through the window for a moment before he answered. "That flag flew over your great-great-grandfather's firehouse," he said. "Right in the middle of the city, where the streets smelled like bread in the morning and rain in the afternoon." Ellie scrunched her nose. "Bread and rain?" "Mmm." Grandpa smiled. "The bakery was on the corner, and they started their ovens before the sun came up. Your great-great-grandfather said that every morning when he raised that flag, the wind carried the smell of fresh rolls right along with it. He said it felt like the whole neighborhood was waking up together." Ellie thought about that, about hundreds of people opening their eyes in the same moment, stretching their arms, hearing the same birds, smelling the same warm bread drifting down the same streets. "Did he raise it every single day?" she asked. "Every single day," Grandpa said. "Rain, snow, the kind of cold that turns your breath into a little cloud the second it leaves your mouth. He never missed once in thirty-one years." The fireflies kept blinking. The rocking chair kept creaking. Ellie felt something quiet and important settling around her like a blanket.