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"Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass." (Psalm 37:5)

Catherine Marshall was a woman of luminous faith. She was a member of the Guideposts family for almost three decades during which time she helped readers -- and those of us on the staff -- to learn more about the limitless variety of prayer, about finding divine guidance in the day-to-day, about the robust and joy-filled Jesus Whom she knew.

For all her deep spirituality, Catherine was a practical Christian who wrote from her experience. And the foundation of her faith, the touchstone she always kept at hand, was the soul-deep change she underwent many years before she had published a single word.

Catherine was a young wife and mother -- married to the much-admired pastor, Peter Marshall -- when she fell ill with what she always described as "a wide-spread lung infection." She never used the word "tuberculosis." She languished in bed for months, and the months turned into years. As her body grew thinner, so did her spirit. Then came a day of decision. Catherine stopped struggling. She stopped beseeching God to do as she asked and let Him do as He desired.

"I gave Him a blank check," she told me once. Catherine surrendered her vanity, her willfulness, her sins, her worries, her happiness and, yes, her life. From that point on, she began to recover.

"The crisis of self-surrender" -- that's what the great Philosopher William James called it long before Catherine discovered it for herself. James described it as the vital turning point of religious life. It was, for Catherine Marshall, the SUREST STEP toward God that a human being can take.

"Lord, help me to know the victory of surrender..."

"I Surrender All" 

All to Jesus I surrender,

All to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him,

In His presence daily live.

-van varner