Some necessary but unexpected outpatient surgery has found me this week often on the couch. The first day or so I was able to relish a favorite book, Stepping Heavenward: One Woman's Journey to Godliness, by Elizabeth Prentiss. This author is perhaps better known for her hymn, More Love to Thee O Christ. The story begins in 1831, as Katherine Mortimer starts a journal on her 16th birthday along with a pledge to live her life afresh for God. The beautiful but painful story of her sanctification follows. The pages are a treasure to me as much of what Prentiss covers is barely hinted at in Christian circles today: God's willingness to undertake our sanctification just as willingly as our salvation, the hidden life of a believer especially in days of suffering, prayer as an avenue to the heart of God, and a high call to holiness in the life of a woman and mother. Here is one of my favorite tidbits, as Katherine recalls the judgment of her terminally ill, God-fearing, stoic father-in-law:
"But is a mortal man who cannot judge of his own state to decide mine? It is true he sees my faults; anybody can who looks. But he does not see my prayers or my tears of shame and sorrow. He does not know how many hasty words I repress, how earnestly I am aiming, all the day long, to do right in all the little details of life. He does not know that it cost my fastidious nature an appeal to God every time I kiss his poor old face and that what would be an act of worship in him is an act of self-denial in me. How should he? The Christian life is a hidden life, know only by the eye that seeth in secret. And I do believe this life is mine."
She determines to begin to call him "Father", something she has been unable to do up to this point. It is a predetermined act of love; one of the will, not of the emotions.
The hidden life of a Christian who can assess but God Himself? Let us take care not to judge too harshly those whom His dear Son indwells.
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