Writer Wednesday. . . Um yeah it's Thursday, but I wrote this yesterday honest!!

The name of my Blog comes from one of my favorite books “Stepping Heavenward: One Woman’s Journey to Godliness” by Elizabeth Prentiss.  The book is the diary of a young woman, Katherine, and begins “How dreadfully old I am getting! Sixteen!”  Reading that for the first time as an 18 year old I couldn’t help, but smile. She continues “I determined, in the first place, to begin this journal.  To be sure, I have begun half a dozen, and got tired of them after a while.  Not tired of writing them, but disgusted with what I had to say of myself.  But this time I mean to go on, in spite of everything.  It will do me good to read it over and see what a creature I am.”

I have dozens of journals myself, a few pages written and then nothing.  I could relate to this girl when I was 18 and I can relate to her now.  Writing honestly about who you are is often a terrifying thing.  In this book there’s a glimpse of a girl’s struggles with herself, her struggles with the Lord, her struggles with sin, her struggles with her own longings, her struggles with temptation.  And through all the struggles she faces, she grows.  She grows in wisdom, she grows in character, she grows in her relationship with her God. 

Reading this book over the years I have often found myself, with tears in my eyes, setting it down and thinking I could have written that of myself.  Things like:

“Amelia has been here.  She has had another talk with Dr. Cabot and is perfectly happy.  She says it is easy to be a Christian! It may be easy for her; everything is.  She never has any of my dreadful feelings and does not understand them when I try to  explain them to her. Well!  If I am fated to be miserable, I must try to bear it.”

“’You would not speak to me so kindly’ I got out at last, ‘If you knew what a dreadful creature I am.  I am angry with myself and angry with everybody and angry with God.  I can’t be good two minutes at a time.  I do everything I do not want to do and do nothing I try and pray to do.  Everybody plagues me and tempts me.  And God does not answer any of my prayers, and I am just desperate.’”

“I came away; and all the way home I fought this battle with myself, saying, ‘He loves me!’ I knelt down to pray, and all my wasted, childish, wicked life came and stared me in the face.  I looked at it and said with tears of joy, ‘But he loves me!’ Never in my life did I feel so rested, so quieted , so sorrowful, and yet so satisfied.”

“It has seemed to me for several days that it must be that I really do love God, though ever so little.  But it shot through my mind today like a knife that it is a miserable, selfish love at best, not worth my giving, not worth God’s accepting.  All my old misery has come back with seven other miseries more miserable than itself.  I wish I had never been born!  I wish I were thoughtless and careless like so many other girls of my age, who seem to get along very well and enjoy themselves far more than I do.”

“The truth is the journey heavenward is all uphill.”

“It is high time to stop and think.  I have been like one running a race and am stopping to take breath.  I do not like the way things have been going as of late.  I feel restless and ill at ease.  I see that if I would be happy in God, I must give Him all.  And there is a wicked reluctance to do that.  I want Him- but I want to have my own way, too.  I want to walk humbly and softly before Him and I want to go where I shall be admired and applauded.  To whom shall I yield? To God? Or to myself?”

“Yes, I have prayed, and he has heard me. I see that I have no right to live for myself and that I must live for Him.  I have given myself to Him as I never did before and have entered, as it were, a new world.  I was very happy when I first began to believe in His love for me and that He had redeemed me.  But this new happiness is deeper; it involves something higher than getting to heaven at last, which has, hitherto, been my great aim.”

“The more I pray and the more I read the Bible, the more I feel my ignorance. And the more earnestly I desire holiness, the more utterly unholy I see myself to be. But I have pledged myself to the Lord, and I must pay my vows, cost what it may.”

“Oh I do wish.  .  . that God had given us plain rules about which we could make no mistake”

“The last day of the happiest summer I ever spent.  If I had only been willing to believe the testimony of others I might have been just as happy long ago.  But I wanted to have all there was in God and all there was in the world at once; and there was a constant, painful struggle between the two.  I hope that struggle is now over.  I deliberately choose and prefer God.  I have found a sweet peace in trying to please Him such as I never conceived of.  I would not change it for all the best things this world can give.  But I have a great deal left to learn.  I am like a child who cannot run to get what he wants but approaches it step by step, slowly, timidly- and yet approaches it.  I am amazed at the patience of my blessed Master and Teacher, but how I love His school!”

I could probably go on copying quotes from this book for hours, but then what would be left for you if you decide to read it yourself?  The encouragement for me in reading this book has often been learning that I am not alone in many of the thoughts that fill my head.  I’m not the first person who has dealt with doubt, pride, selfishness, fear, anger, loneliness.  .   .  All of those struggles have not only been faced by others on this journey heavenward, but there has been victory over all of these.  I am thankful for the honesty in these pages, even though it is a work of fiction, there is a reality in the thoughts recorded that I believe must have come from the author’s heart.