Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - Lessons from WWII: What Corrie ten Boom Taught Us [Featuring Nan Gurley]

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

⁠Moments of great conflict test our relationship with the Lord and our faith, and an excellent example of this is the life of Corrie Ten Boom. In this podcast, Pastor Allen talks with Actress Nan Gurley, who played Corrie in The Hiding Place movie and theatrical production. They discuss the Ten Boom family’s decision to hide Jews in their home during World War II, risking everything for the sake of compassion and humanity. "I read The Hiding Place in my twenties, and it had a big impact on me. You read a story like that, and you go, 'Wow, what a hero. I wonder—would I risk my life? Do I love Jesus that much?' You really don't know unless you're tested," Nan Gurley said. Corrie’s unwavering faith in God guided her through harrowing experiences including imprisonment in a concentration camp and the murder of her sister, Betsie. Join us as we explore themes of faith, resistance, betrayal, courage, and the transformative power of forgiveness. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments! Your engagement helps spread this message of hope and truth to more people.More Information: The Hiding Place Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkKRSP78BM8__ It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6d Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

Kaspar, Daddy Tenvo. Yes. It was 82 when he was arrested. And before they loaded him onto the paddy wagon, one of the Nazis said, old man, you can go back in and sleep in your own bed tonight. He'll just promise not to do this anymore. And he said, if you free me tonight, tomorrow my door will be open to whoever knocks. So he said, get in.

Culture and Christianity, welcome. Welcome. I am so excited about our guest today. Nan Gurley is with us, and I'm going to tell you a bit about her, but this is a fulfillment of something that's been in our heart around the church for a long time. For about a thousand years, the church, in the West, especially, was the primary sponsor of the arts. And so most of our classic music and classic Christian art has a Christian theme to it. I miss that. But the church stepped away from it. Yeah. And so now we've handed the arts over to the secular world. And one of the things when we built three crosses sanctuaries, we oversized the stage is so we would have a place to reintroduce the arts into formal expressions of worship. So I think you getting to be a part of what we're doing on a weekend and being a part of this podcast is another step forward in that.

If you don't know Nan Gurley, you should. She's a part of our congregation. Everything after that seems to be kind of a second. Secondary. You have been in the performing arts for a long time. I'm going to read the resume because it's a little portion of it. you have done more than 30, 50 different productions. That's just amazing to me with the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Well, I started acting at the age of eight. So I've been at it a long time. I've been at it professionally for 50 years. And almost entirely in the theater. Yes. I've done some television production and some writing. But yes, I've been treading the boards for a long time. You have.

What a remarkable. story. Aren't we getting a new performing arts center in Nashville? We are. We are. I'm going to miss the old T-PAC. Because that's where I've, that's my stomping ground. I was going to say, we grew up there, but I grew up in the seats and you grew up on the stage. I remember when it was built.

Thank you, Martha Ingram. Absolutely. The Ingrams have been good for Nashville. We are honored to have you on the program today. And as I said, I think the arts and Christianity go together. They shouldn't be secular. Our faith needs to impact creativity. Absolutely. God is the, he's the storyteller. He's the drama king. It was all his idea. Now what brings us today, I'm really excited

about you have had the privilege of playing Corey Tin Boom. And privilege is the right word. Tell us how that started and the various iterations of that, because it's been quite the journey. It has. The premiere of this stage adaptation happened in Houston in 2019 at a company called AD Players. And the interesting thing about this company is it was started by the woman who played Corey Tinboom in the movie in 1975. So her dream, her vision, was having a company of actors who glorified God through theater. And she was quite successful at it. And she passed away, oh, I'd say probably 10 years ago.

But before she passed away, she got to see a beautiful, beautiful performing arts center called the George. Her name was Jeanette Clift George. named for her in Houston. And the producing director down there is a friend of mine, and he commissioned Pete Peterson to write a new stage adaptation of the hiding place. And then he hired me to come and play Corey. Jake Speck is his name, the guy who had the vision to commission this.

And I had had 10 years of experience of working with Jake here in town with Studio 10. So he trusted me as an actor and felt like I could do it and brought me down to Houston for nine weeks to do this premiere. And then we brought it back to Nashville and did it here at the Solideo Center on the CPA campus, which is a gorgeous venue. It's the most beautiful venue in town right now. And we did a long run of it two summers ago and we did a film capture of that performance. and we had multiple cameras and Matula productions made the movie and scored it, edited it together, and it's available now. So just in plain people's language, you did a play and then they made a movie of the play.

That's right. That's amazing. So tell me what you've learned about Corey. Well, I read the hiding place in my 20s, and it had a big impact on me. Her life was amazing. her courage, the courage of the family. And you know, you read a story like that, and you go, wow, what a hero. But I could never do that. I wonder, would I risk my life? Do I love Jesus that much? And you really don't know unless you're tested. So I read the story and it moved me deeply.

But then when I was asked to play her, I really dug in. deep into research, read everything I could get my hands on that she wrote, watched everything I could find of her on YouTube. Thank the Lord we have her on YouTube. That's true. We have her being interviewed. We have some of her sermons. We have, we have captured a lot of her life. So I started listening to her trying to capture that speaking English with a Dutch accent, which is a blast. I love to do accents when I perform. How many accents do you do? Oh, well, see, there's British. There's Tennessee.

That's good. That's the heavenly language. That's right. I can do most anything. And thankfully, with the Internet, there are all kinds of free lessons on how to do different accents. So I'm a singer as well. And if you have an ear for music, you can grab an accent more quickly. So I studied that, studied her life and dug in.

And speaking her words, it changed me. It was a very difficult experience in Houston. It was a new work. It's always difficult to do a new work because the playwright's in the room making changes all the time. So you think you've got a scene memorized and then you find out you don't. And I'm one who likes to really have it down before I even. and start because I feel like then you can play. Then you can make discoveries if you've got the lines down. So it was nerve-wracking. I was gone from home for nine weeks. Wow. Which was hard

for me. I'm a home body. I've never wanted to be on the road. So it was emotionally, emotionally difficult. Plus, act two was all in Robbinsbrook. You know, it was- Which is the concentration camp. Exactly. So it was non-stop Nazis. Non-stop heartache, sorrow, pain. And the sound design for the musical, for the play was very dramatic. The sound design was wonderful. It was planes going overhead and bombs dropping and sirens going off and the sound of boots, Nazi boots on the street marching by.

And for the first time, I thought, just listening to what happened during the occupation, would have been traumatic, just the sounds. So you really start to think, how much do I depend every minute of every day on the Holy Spirit? When the stakes get that high, you find out how much of a relationship you have with the Lord. Now, there's this current strain of American Christianity. This is that Christians would never have to suffer.

Oh, it's a lie. The God will always relieve us from suffering. Right. but that's a very narrow view of Christian history. Yeah. Maybe we take just a minute. I'm sure some people listening to us don't know Corey's story. So the book is the hiding place.

Yes, that's her autobiography. She wrote several books. She did. But that's the autobiography that really is the heart of the story. Yes. The story of the tin booms, I think, I like talking about it because I feel like I can help people not see them as icons. Right. that are unapproachable.

The wonderful thing that I discovered about these people is, well, first of all, before the Nazis, before Hitler invaded the Netherlands in 1940, they were living lives of faithful obedience. They were strict Dutch reformed Calvinists, great believers in the sovereignty of God, which was foundational to getting them through what they went through. It was. Which means, in plain language, that God can do what he wants, when he wants. wants the way he wants, and he doesn't need anybody's approval. Thank you, Pastor.

That's the Living Bible version of the sovereignty of God. Absolutely. And they believed it with everything they were. And Corey was the first female Dutch watchmaker when she was 30 years old. She studied, she was an apprentice to her dad, and her granddad was a watchmaker. And they lived in the clock shop. Their living quarters were upstairs. And this was their living.

life and they had a habit, a tradition of hospitality. They were always having people in their home. Papa Tin Boom loved to host. Betsy loved to cook. This was Corey's older sister. And they also helped raise the children of missionaries. Missionaries in foreign fields who would send their kids home when it came time for them to get some serious schooling, they would come and live with the tin booms. I didn't know that. Yes. And Corey, was what we would call a Girl Scout leader. They had a version of that in Holland, which was but an evangelistic version of the Girl Scouts,

and Corey was a troop leader. And so they were in the habit of lives of quiet obedience and hospitality. Then everything changes when Hitler invades. And the tin booms immediately joined the resistance, the underground, the Dutch resistance. and two years in in 1942 they built the hiding place, which was a tiny room, two feet by eight feet, behind a false wall in Corey's bedroom.

And they had sort of a, their home was like a bus station. People would come and go, stay for an hour, stay for a day, stay for a week. Corey spent most of her time on the phone, making connections, and they had a language they would speak in code. They referred to their guests, the Jews they were hiding as watches. And they would speak to other members of the underground and say, Corey would get a call and the voice would say, I've got some very unusual watches for you that need repair.

Can I drop them by? And she'd say, sure, bring them over. Or she would call and say, I've got some watches ready to deliver. And someone would come and they would spirit them away in the nine. dress the men as women sometimes, get on bicycles, get them to the next safe house. Because the Jews were being rounded up and transported to camps where they were either being forced to do hard labor or just being murdered. Absolutely. Okay.

In horrible living conditions. They were able to do some amazing things. Corey had a friend at the food ration office, and she was able to convince him to steal ration cards because Betsy was cooking for many people every day, and food was rationed. So they had friends in the underground. Betsy's her sister. Her big sister, who was seven years older than her. And at one point two, young Nazi soldiers, young boys were coming and saying,

we don't want to do this anymore. help us? And Corey said, yes, and she would get them some normal clothes, and she would say, but give me your uniforms. So she had a, she started a collection of Nazi uniforms that she later used when she found out that there was an orphanage of about a hundred Jewish babies whose parents had been killed. And these babies were going to be killed. And Corey got these young boys. Well, she got friends to dress in these uniforms, these Nazi uniforms, and sent them out to rescue all of these babies, and she found them homes. So she was rising to the occasion in ways she probably never dreamed. But I believe she was prepared for all this because of how she

was raised. She was also Dutch. She had a spine of steel. And, you know, That's true. She was tough. In fact, she tells the story that when she and Betsy were in Robbinsbrook, another group of Dutch women were brought in on a train. And these women came into the camp marching and singing the Dutch national anthem while they were being brought into Robinsbrook. And somebody said, here come these Dutch, you just can't get them down. So Corey, her family, they had hidden the Jews for a long time. a couple of years.

Two years. And then they're betrayed by a neighbor. Yes. Christian neighbor. Quote unquote. Yeah. At least another church attending neighbor. They knew him.

Yeah. And they're arrested by the Nazis. Yes. In February and 28th of 1944. And she and Betsy and her father go into Robbinsbrook? No, not immediately. Caspar, Daddy Ten Boom. Yes.

It was 82 when he was. when he was arrested. And before they loaded him on to the paddy wagon, one of the Nazis said, old man, you can go back in and sleep in your own bed tonight. He'll just promise not to do this anymore. And he said, if you free me tonight, tomorrow my door will be open to whoever knocks.

So he said, get in. But he wore the yellow star. He did, yes. Before they arrested him. He did. He wanted to identify, even though he was a Gentile. He wanted to identify. identify with his Jewish neighbors and he sewed a star onto his sleeve. There were 35 people in the clock shop that night when the Nazis came and raided. Six of six Jews made it successfully

into the hiding place. The rest were arrested and Betsy and Corey and Caspar went to the police station. Caspar didn't last but 12 days. He died right there. Betsy and Corey were sent to a Dutch prison. Corey spent four months in solitary at this Dutch prison, which, by the way, she said was worse than Robbinsbrook, being alone for four months. They considered Corey the ringleader of the group. Probably accurately. Yes. So they wanted her isolated. So she's in solitary confinement for four months. Then she and Betsy were sent to a farm labor camp in Holland for three months.

And then Betsy and Corey were shipped by train to Robbinsbrook. And Corey, when they found out that Corey was a watchmaker, they set her to work on doing technical work, working on repairing radios for fighter pilots, and she purposefully miswired them so they wouldn't work. So she found a way to resist, even when she was in a concentration camp. And Betsy died in that camp? She did. Betsy suffered from pernicious anemia all her life. She was not, she was, she was, she was frail. She was not a robustly healthy woman ever. So she died of anemia and starvation. They, um, they were arrested in February and then spent the last four months of the year in Robinsbrook. Betsy died, uh, December 18th, I think, of 1945.

in Robbinsbrook, 12 days later, Corey was released due to a clerical error. There's no explanation for why. She was released by herself. And a week later, all the women in Robbinsbrook, her age, were sent to the gas chamber. So it was a divine, it was the sovereignty of God. It was. Rescue and Corey. But it's such a powerful lesson to us that our faith is not a,

about privilege and convenience. No, it's not. And I'm concerned for the American church. I mean, I've spent my life there, so I'm not throwing stones at anyone. But I'm so concerned that the message that we have imbibed has been that our faith is to make our lives more comfortable and about promotion. And God can certainly bring those things. But it's about serving him. And there are times there's a tremendous cost for that.

We're not used to that. No. We're used to thinking that if I do everything right, he has to bless me and life will be comfortable. And I think a lot about the fact, I mean, I've lived here on my life. All I've ever known is convenience. You know, I flip the lights, they come on. Comfort, I sleep on memory foam. You know, I can get coffee when I want it.

If these conveniences were taken away, who would I be? Because of our faith. That's right. Not just taken away, but taken away because of our advocacy for Jesus. And I pray all the time that I won't deny him, but I haven't been tested like that yet. No. And I'm not volunteering, but I'm willing to walk whatever the Lord puts in front of us. I pray.

I can imagine that doing this live in front of a live audience has to have a unique reward. You get to feel the response of the audience? Yes. What impact has that made on the people? on you? Well, it is a delight to play to a live audience because whether they know it or not, they're a player. Their reactions mean a lot. And you know what? It's interesting, especially in this age of cell phones, it's common to hear them go off, you know, while you're performing. And you think, I'm in the middle of being brilliant and someone didn't silence their phone. And it takes you

out of the moment. Trust me, it takes you out of the moment. I understand. But I remember, especially here performing it in my own hometown two summers ago. I have never, ever experienced anything quite like this experience where I could sense the audience leaning forward and really with me, with every word. I was telling Buddy Green that not long ago. I was saying, buddy, I can't believe what it was like. And so we were over at Christ Presbyterian Academy at CPA, okay, that glorious venue. And I said, buddy, it was just unbelievable. They were so quiet.

And he went, Nan, they were Presbyterians. No way. It was more than that, buddy. They were really with me. No, well, thank you for keeping that story out there and aware. I had the, when I was younger, I guess early high school, junior high, maybe, I had the privilege of hearing Corey Tin Boom speak, but I didn't know her story. And I had gone to this large Christian camp. And there were several speakers there I did know.

And they introduced Corey Tin Boom. And I thought, who is this? Because she was an older lady. When you're a teenager, everybody's old. Oh, yeah. And she had a heavy accent. And she came out on stage a little flashlight. and she said, oh, my flashlight doesn't work.

And I thought, somebody helped this lady. And she opened it up, and she pulled that little piece of cloth. And she said, oh, there's pride in my flashlight. And she took the cloth out and put it back. Oh, it still doesn't work. And she said, oh, there's unforgiveness in my flashlight. And finally, the light worked. And so she talked to us a bit.

And I thought, you know, is that the best they can do? But they mentioned her book. So I left the auditorium. and bought her book. And I liked to read, so I read it that evening. And I cried because of the hardness of my own heart, because I had been so intolerant of her. And I said, God, if you ever give me the opportunity, I would sit on the floor or sit in the grass out of respect for what you have done in that woman's life. And it was several years later. I was in college in Oklahoma. and I go to church one Sunday

and they say you can't come in, we're full. And I said, why are you full? And they said, we have a guest. And I said, who is it? And they said, it's Corey Tin. They're telling us all this in the parking lot. They said, it's Corey Tin Moon. And they said, but if anybody's willing to sit on the floor.

And I said, I'm in. So 10 years later, I guess, I got to keep my promise and sit on the floor at her feet and listen to her, teach again. That's a fabulous story. Did you happen to know, do you know Lydia Prince? Appointment in Jerusalem, have you read that book? No.

I will give you a copy before you go. Great. She was a friend of Corrie's and tried so hard to get my mom and Corey together. Lydia was from Denmark. And in the 30s, she went to Jerusalem without any support alone and ended up starting a home for girls, unwanted girls. In Jerusalem. in Jerusalem, but when it was still under the Ottoman Empire. Okay.

And took more than 70 girls with no support. The Lord provided, and she ended up marrying Derek Prince. Oh, okay. So that's how I got to know her. She was a friend of our families. But she called and said, you've got to come spend some time with Corey. But when you described Corey's personality to me a minute ago, Lydia was that way. Really?

She was Danish. And she was, I knew her when she was in her 70s. but she was very blunt. Yes. If you're having dinner with him after Derek had spoken to a group of people and you walked up to the table and said, I hate to interrupt, she would say, no, you don't or you wouldn't have bothered us.

That's kind of refreshing, isn't it? It is. She's not going to nice you to death. No, no, none of that. There was none of that in Lydia. And I see the same in Corey when you... So one of the stories I remember from her book, and I'm sure you know it better and you can tell it better,

but she had spoken. This is after the camp and years later, and she's telling the story. story. And a man approached her afterwards, who had been a guard? Yes. Asked her to forgive him. Yeah, you tell that. You're better than me. Oh, and this is in the play, and in our movie. This, and she spoke about this in 60 countries for the rest of her life. She told this story, showing people how God can enable you to forgive the unforgivable. But what happened was she had been speaking. And this is not long after she's released. She's speaking everywhere, telling the

story. A Betsy commissioned her. As Betsy's dying in Robbinsbrook, she says, we must tell them, Corey, that there is no pit so deep that he is not deeper still. They will listen, Corey, because we've been here. And then Betsy died. And then Corey's speaking. Afterwards, this Nazi guard comes up to her in a rather cavalier way and said, Miss Ten Boom, I just heard you speak. She recognizes him immediately as the guard who's responsible for Betsy's death. He said, I heard you speak. I've become a Christian.

Will you forgive me? If it had been me, I would have at least wanted him on his knees, weeping, groveling, but he's not doing that. And Corey says, hate rose up in me, nothing in me. and I had just spoken on forgiveness, but nothing in me wanted to forgive. And she said, and then this passage came to mind. And she says it like this, for the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit

who has been given to us. And she said, when that passage came to mind, she reached out her hand. And she said, she literally fell. an electrical current go through her shoulder into her hand. And she grabbed his hand and said, I forgive you, brother. She said, I would never have been able to do that apart from the Holy Spirit. And that's the message that she spent the rest of her life traveling and telling.

She did. Well, I think it's a relevant message for us today, not just because of the rest of her life traveling and telling. just because of her faithfulness and the faithfulness of God. But I think there's some very uncomfortable parallels with the world we're living in. You know, the church in Europe failed. Hitler's rise to power is as much about the failure of the church as it is a failure of politics. And they didn't just round the Jews up from Germany. They rounded the Jews up from throughout Europe. One of the places I visit in Jerusalem every year is the Holocaust Museum. And they have trees planted on the perimeter of the Holocaust Me, Jadvisham, in commemoration of the righteous

among the Gentiles, those who stood on behalf of the Jews. And the guides are usually friends of mine, and I've heard them say dozens and dozens of times, why are there so few trees? Because the people did not stand up. It was inconvenient, it was uncomfortable, there was a cost to it. And Eric Metaxus has... has written his letter to the American church and drawn the parallels between Europe and the 30s and Germany in the 30s and the current American church, that if we don't stand up for a biblical worldview,

not politics, if we don't stand up for a biblical worldview that we will forfeit our freedoms. Yes. That there's a point beyond which you have to endure the consequences. And I'm not wise enough to know what that exact moment is. But I know God will, enough to know that he won't be mocked. And we can't sit in our churches and ignore the consequence, what's happening to our children. No. What's happening to marriage and family

and think that God will not respond to us. I just finished Eric's book, the letter to the Mirican church and it was hugely. What was your takeaway? I was convicted. I was inspired. I begged the Lord to make me courageous. I don't want to be embarrassed when I get to heaven. And meet Corey.

And meet Corey. Or have nothing in common with the saints of old. I don't want to be, you know, with the saints. the group that was the soft hot house posies that were never tested and tried. I don't want to be that. I think you're safe. But you know, the line that I use so often is that standing up begins at our kitchen table. Yes, it does. You don't have to have a platform or a following or be an influencer. It starts at your kitchen table. And that's not clever of me. I learned it from Corey and Lydia and it starts in your home. Everything Corey did, she did from her home.

Yes, that's true. I mean, she didn't have to go look for something. No. She turned her bedroom into the story. That's right. I mean, put up a false wall. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she was also just already in the habit of obedience, quietly in the habit of obedience, which is, you know, I've tried to do that as an actor all my life. You know, the theater is, it's, it's. It's. It's. It's not a Sunday school. No. And, you know, you've got to take your faith into the marketplace, into the workplace every day. And then when the stakes get really high, you'll be ready.

Let's take a minute. That's an important message because people say to me, the place where I work is ungodly or the people I work with are ungodly. I think if you're going to go into the arts, you've got to be prepared actually to be handed topics that aren't godly and to work amongst people that choose not to be godly. And you said you did that. on purpose. Yes, absolutely.

And, well, Daniel was always my role model. Yeah. You know, he worked among pagans. And when he was abducted and taken into the Babylonian world, I mean, you know, he was put in the classroom to learn these Chaldean ways. I mean, he didn't sit on the back row and make paper airplanes and goof off. He learned it. He decided early. In fact, I like to picture Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in those, at those campfires as they walked, you know, 600 miles, was it?

From Jerusalem to Babylon, around those campfires, I'm guessing they decided, okay, guys, this is what we're going to do. We're going to stay faithful. And by the time they got there, they were ready. And Daniel decided to bring excellence into everything he did. he worked hard and God granted him favor. So early on in my career, I decided, okay, Lord, this is what I'm going to do. This was your idea. You gave me these gifts.

I'm going to trust you to be my agent. I'm going to go in and I'm going to work harder than anybody else. I'm going to be the most professional person in the room. I'm going to try to be every director's dream. I'm going to be so prepared. I'm going to listen. I'm going to take notes when the director gives notes. I'm going to bring it every day 100%.

If they don't hire me, it's got to be because they don't like Jesus. It's not going to be because I'm not delivering. So I would bring it every day like that and pray up before I went in there and ask him to give me opportunities, conversations, ask him to keep me humble, make me a good listener, and remember that he's more excited about the use of my gifts than even I am, but that ultimately I'm performing for an audience of one, and I didn't want to sell out.

So I made choices along the way, roles I would do, rolls I wouldn't do. I said no to some things. I got laughed at. I got criticized, but I kept thinking, well, This isn't all there is. And one day, in the new heavens and the new earth, I'll maybe have my own theater. This isn't the last time I'll get to use these gifts. And one day, you know, Jesus will be on the front row.

We'll let him take the final bow. Well, you have to, I had to make it, we all have to make a choice. If the angels applaud and people laugh, I'm good. Me too. You know, I can live with that discrepancy. Yeah. I mean, it never gets easy. Never gets easy.

No, that's important. You've got to keep your perspective. So even having more life experience, it's still not easy to face rejection because of Jesus. No. But once you draw that line in the sand, you kind of get a little tougher, a little braver, a little more courageous. The first time, the seminal moment for me for drawing lines in the sand came very early in my career. I had finally busted my way into a theater company, really the first professional theater company in Nashville.

And I'd worked my way in and gotten cast, and I could tell they liked me and were going to hire me again, especially if it was a musical. And so I found out that the next show they were going to be doing was Jesus Christ Superstar. And I was young. and thought, hmm, okay, I better read the libretto. I better make sure.

I mean, the topic is number one with me, the Lord Jesus. I better find out Andrew Lloyd Weber's POV of who Jesus is. And I was fairly certain it wasn't biblical. So I thought, okay, I better get my hands on the libretto. I better really read the score. So before I audition, And of course I wanted to be in it. I wanted the work.

I wanted to work for these people that I loved and enjoyed. So I got my hands on the libretto. And the more I read, I was reading and reading, and I could feel the heat coming up. Feel my heart rate going up going, oh, no, oh, no. I mean, Andrew Lord Weber's take on Jesus' very new age. He is not God. He's just a good guy who got a bum wrap.

But the clincher, the very, at the finale, ends at the tomb. There is no resurrection. I went, whoa, can't do that. I knew that I knew. It was no temptation whatsoever. I knew I would have been miserable being in this because it was false about my savior. But then I also knew that I knew that I knew. I had to meet privately with the director and tell him why I wasn't going to audition. I knew I was going to have a, oh, captain, my captain moment. I was going to stand up on the desk. So I called him, and I said, hey, can I come in and talk to you?

He said, sure. So I got prayed up. My husband prayed over me before I left. And I was, I admit to you, I was shaking in my boots. But I went in. And I said, hey, I love working for this company. And I really want to work for it again. but I want you to know, I won't be coming to auditions for Superstar, and I want you to know why.

I said, the gospel is everything to me. And Andrew Lloyd Weber leaves Jesus in the tomb. I said, the resurrection is the whole purpose, and I can't be a part of it. So I just respectfully wanted you to know that and say that I'll be back again, but I won't be there for this one, and I was getting my coat and getting up to leave, because I had said my speech. And he went, well, sit down, sit down, sit down. I'm going, oh, no, I don't have anything else to say.

I was just so nervous. So I sat back down. And what came out of his mouth was the last thing I expected. He said, you know, when I was little, when I was about six years old, some friends of my parents died. And it scared me to death. And I remember going outside in the street and screaming because I didn't know what happens after you die.

So I went, okay, I realized I had more opportunity to speak to him. And it taught me, it taught me a lot. It taught me, don't be afraid to give an account for the faith that is in you. Don't be afraid of the outcome. Trust the outcome to the Lord. Do what you know you have to do and trust him. Well, this began a lifelong relationship with this person. It began roll after roll after roll for me.

They kept hiring me. The Lord blessed me and gave me favor as a believer among them. After you stood up. After I stood up. But that moment when I drew that line in the sand, I thought, okay, this is who I am. It's who I'm going to be. And he's faithful. That's such a remarkable story.

Man, you have blessed me today. We have to do this again. Well, you bless me every Sunday. I have more questions. We're very kind. We're delighted you'll be doing Corey Tin Boom here at the church. Yeah, I can't wait to be part of your sermon. I'm looking forward to that.

You know what I've written? I read an early copy. I haven't seen. Well, I'm commissioning the church today to stand up as the Ten Booms did. Amen. If she could come back and talk to us, what would she say? So I've collected some of sentences of hers with things also I think she would. would have said, I can't wait. I'm very nervous about doing it for the church. I'm nervous.

You shouldn't be. They'll be very receptive. I'm nervous because I want to do it well. I want to serve the work. You know, Victor Frankel, it was a survivor. Yes. And wrote about it. Yes. And I remember him saying, he said, the good people didn't come out. He said the kind people and the gentle people. And when I read that from him, I thought of Corey and Betsy. Yeah. Because Betsy was the kind, and the more gentles. Yes. And Corey was tough as a boot. She was.

And I knew he was telling the truth. But, you know, for this podcast, the question we always want to close with is what can we do? And you've given us a whole list today. We have to forgive the unforgivable. It's a decision. It's not an emotion. Yes. We have to be a light, even in places where maybe they would prefer to stay in the shadows.

Yes. We have to have the courage to stand up for our faith. It starts at our kitchen table. We don't have to go further than that. And that if you'll be faithful, God will bless your life. You turn down the role of a lifetime and you've done 50 more performances. 50 more roles for them. That's pretty impressive.

It is. Well, he's just that good. And I tell young actors coming up behind me, you know, because they're facing it. They really are to trust him that he gave him the gifts. if they'll trust him, he's going to open doors because he delights to see it. So somebody's listening and they may not have the opportunity to see you do the play live. Where can they find the movie? Apple TV.

Okay, and it's just the hiding place? The hidingplacefilm.com. Yes. Very good. If you don't know the story of Corey Tin Boom, you need to read the book. Oh, yes. But then be sure and see the movie. Absolutely.

Nan Gurley, you are a delight and a remarkable reminder of what living at our friends. faith looks like. Thanks for being on the podcast today. My pleasure. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture. I'll see you next time.