To see a copy of the sketch used in the video, scroll all the way to the end of the post.
Last week, I wrote and recorded a video inspired by Lilias Trotter and her beautiful, challenging, and inspiring life.
The decisions and opportunities of Lilias Trotter feels far away from most of us. How many of us would leave all that we know and go to a distant country to share the gospel and love of Christ with only two friends, a sense of God's call and a bit of personal cash?
Lilias left, without support, without knowing the language and plunged into the great unknown.
I am continually inspired, convicted, and encouraged by her life. Lilias was and is a woman of vision, conviction, and enduring faith. Lilias stepped out in ways most of us, me included, can only imagine.
So, perhaps that is why I am especially encouraged by the life of Catherine Marshall who learned to navigate life with God in the messiness of what most of us deal with, year in and year out: relationships, finances, heartbreak, surprises (good and bad) and plot twists.
Early in the summer, I finished re-reading Meeting God in Every Turn by Catherine Marshall, a memoir, filled with vignettes of the most momentous people and situations in her life that make up 12 life lessons.
Initially, Catherine resisted writing the book.
The request came the morning of her step-daughter's, Linda's, wedding. The young woman saw in Catherine a life lived well full of faith and effectiveness despite challenges and upsets.
Linda wanted that.
And this book was birthed.
Catherine was born in 1914. Her life saw many pivotal world events and changes. She grew up the daughter of a pastor in Tennessee.
Catherine and her siblings lived in a time of rapid growth and change as the world swung between disaster, depression, world wars, and the will to succeed.
Seeds of faith were planted in her by her parents. Her mother influenced Catherine with her resolute faith in God and her prayer life. After describing an incident where an answer to the challenge of college came after prayer, Catherine reflects:
Once again, Mother's very real bank account had provided the necessary provision at a time of need. From those hours each day spent alone with him had come her supreme confidence that He would always provide out of his limitless supply.
A little more...
Out of this solid wealth, this certainty, Mother could always afford to give to others, not just material things, but showering sparks of imagination, the gleam of hope, a thrust of courage – qualities that provided more substance than the coin of any realm and which opened the door fulfillment in many a life she touched.
p. 75
Catherine would encounter significant challenges in every decade of her life. Her young adult life would see her through an extended romance with Peter Marshall, a Scottish preacher and chaplain to the US Senate. What started as a blissful season would end in the devastating death of Peter, in his early forties.
During their 9-year marriage, Catherine would face a two-year struggle with tuberculosis, the pressure of life in Washington DC, and then, devastating grief at the early death of her husband.
Her thirties would be filled with navigating her life as a single mom, refusing to give in to poverty and embarking on a writing career (rare in her day!), a decision whose results surprised everyone (including Catherine).
Though the years of starting her writing career brought many challenges, she followed closely after the opportunities that came, worked hard, navigated disappointment and frustration. Ultimately, she discovered God's providential care through writing and a surprise publishing career.
Listen to her as she talks of the outcome of wrestling through a season of fear and uncertainty about work, money and figuring life out:
For our God never considers our work as merely a way to earn a living – so much an hour, so much a year. He has given each of us the gift of life with a specific purpose in view. To Him work is a sacrament, even what we consider unimportant, mundane work. When 'done unto the Lord' it can have eternal significance.
A bit more...
It is therefore important to Him that we discover what our particular aptitudes and talents are: then we use those talents to His glory and their maximum potential during our all-too- brief-time on earth.
p 231
Not only did she write the biography of her first husband and publish several of his essays, but she also wrote many other nonfiction books as well as fiction. The fiction book which she might be most well known for today, Christy, is the story of a teacher who leaves the city to go and teach in the Appalachian Mountains. It's based loosely on the adventurous life of Catherine's mom. It was later turned into a 20-episode miniseries in the 1990's.
As life seemed to settle down with a successful writing career in her forties and the raising of her son, a new challenge: remarriage and the raising of three more children, all under the age of 11. How is that for a plot twist?
In every season, Catherine reflects how God walked her through the challenges and the lessons she learned. She's honest about her mistakes, her slowness to learn, frustrations and her heart to continually seek God.
Maybe that is one of the reasons I like Catherine so much. She never comes off as having "arrived." Instead, she constantly seeks God and learns more about Him, how he works in us and through in all the seasons of our lives.
She faces what we all face in life: economic downturns, family drama, untimely death of loved ones, the challenge of raising children well, navigating work and purpose, wrestling with marriage (and whether to get married), a desire to love and be loved, the challenge of living with grace in our families despite differences.
Though technology has changed aspects of life since Catherine's day, little has changed in our hearts and desires, right?
This book made me wish I could go out to coffee with her and talk! I have more questions for her that were not answered in this book.
The principles of life and walking with Christ stay the same through the ages. This book is especially encouraging for those who feel life has gone inexplicably sideways and are confused about what and how to move through.
Let's let Catherine have the final word on her own life and what she learned:
Even though I'm now a grandmother, I know more clearly than ever that I'm still as needy and dependent on the Lord's help as when I was a child, first hearing His voice. He has allowed me to go off on selfish tangents and wander down wrong paths, but always He meets me at every turn and brings me back to Him.
p 431
