Riveting Story of Perseverance (from the 50’s) Proves Timeless…
Friends! Oh boy, have I ever discovered a compelling, and inspirational, and true story. It’ll grab you from the get go and not let you go! Believe it or not, all of this transpired in the early 1950’s….
The recommendation for this book happened while having lunch with a friend recently. She lost her husband over twenty years ago to brain cancer. She said this was one of the books that helped her tremendously. I quickly made note of it and ordered it once home. Not just because of the recommendation, but because one of my dear friends just lost her husband, and well, you know how we want to do or say something, so my thought was perhaps this book can help her too.
The book? To Live Again by Catherine Marshall
After asking several friends about Catherine Marshall, many have read books by her and love her writing. She’s written thirty plus books. Her writing came about because of her husband’s sudden death from a heart attack. He was only forty-six when he died and they had a nine year old son at the time.
Catherine’s husband was named Peter Marshall. He was a preacher and also a Chaplain to the United States Senate. Their son was named Peter John.
Here’s a picture of Catherine with Peter:
Because of Peter’s sudden death, Catherine had to figure out things on her own and fast. She had very little work experience, Peter left them with very little money, no will, plus she’d be raising their son. Obviously, the situation was less than desirable.
Oh, “but God…”
Quickly multiple people came out of the woodwork, begging Catherine to publish Peter’s sermons. This was quite a daunting task when she and friends discovered Peter had meticulously filed his sermons away—some six hundred! Which sermons should be included in the book?
Catherine said in a letter to her former professor at Agnes College, also the head of the English Department, “I hope I can take this great crisis in my life in the spirit of an adventure.” At the time, she had some five to six hundred letters to answer, many of them with more requests to publish Peter’s sermons.
She did complete the feat and the book became a best seller, going thru’ multiple printings. You won’t believe how many thousands of copies sold with each printing! Everyone was astonished, but God wasn’t!
Here’s how the book looked once published:
Next up, Catherine wrote a book about Peter’s life called A Man Called Peter.
It, too, was super popular and lo and behold 20th Century Fox approached her about the rights to her book to make a movie! The movie came out in 1955. John and I watched it recently and it’s well worth your time.
Don’t miss the story in To Live Again about the making of the movie. It’s in the latter part of the book and is equally fascinating. We readers get to watch all the parts come together. From the Holy Spirit’s prompting, Catherine requests each meeting begin with prayer. Catherine solicited prayer from many of her readers too. She said, “All of this can happen only if this whole project is literally floated on a gigantic wave of prayer.”
While we watch Catherine navigate her new life without Peter, we grimace with her over her difficulties and happily rejoice with her over her victories. We learn of so many precious elements of their marriage and we get to meet many of her close friends and family who help her. She bravely tackles one day at a time, again a picture of perseverance.
She said she was learning, minute by minute, that:
Catherine is a beautiful visual of Deuteronomy 31:6 and 8 which tell us that the Lord will personally go before us, never leaving us nor forsaking us. Therefore we need not be afraid or discouraged.
Words from Peter’s funeral haunted Catherine, but it turned out to be a huge “aha” moment for her and for us readers, a new outlook on Heaven: “We have known Peter Marshall in the flesh. From now on we are to endeavor to know him in the spirit…The fellowship with him will remain unbroken.”
Catherine also discovered help from the Bible for the bereaved is limitless:
After Peter’s death in January, Catherine admits “grief had made me tone deaf to the harmonies of earth.” But, as spring arrived, she proclaimed, “Now I could hear music again, Hence, Easter had fresh meaning that year. In my heart was a new peace.”
Look at her beautiful conclusion:
“Thus that Eastertime, I knew that we human beings who are still grappling with life on the planet Earth need have no fear of any unknown tomorrows. In my heart I could kneel before the risen Lord and promise Him to try to live in the present joyfully.”
This is what makes the book such an enjoyable and compelling read. We readers get a front row seat to Catherine’s excitement with her writing projects and fulfilling what she knows to be Peter’s wishes with honor and respect. Her fan mail further encouraged her and confirmed what she initially thought in her heart about Peter’s sermons.
For example, an eighty-two year old man wrote that for his birthday that year he was given a copy of Mr. Jones, Meet the Master. He told Catherine,
A book Catherine read by Rabbi Liebman, Peace of Mind, confirmed her perseverance on behalf of her husband. This is part of the quote she embodied:
“We must act like ambassadors of our departed,
Their messengers and
Their spokesmen,
Carrying out the mission for which they lived and strove and
Which they bequeathed to us.”
While writing A Man Called Peter, Catherine had a huge revelation. She felt her initial outline was all wrong. She immediately knew that “the hero of the book had to be God —and not Peter Marshall.”
She received confirmation to her revelation from her fan mail that soon began coming from all over the world, even tho’ there were no foreign translations yet. Her mailman asked her what in the world was going on! She realized, “…far more important, out of the pages had stepped a living Lord.”
Finally, one last surprising element of the book comes from Catherine’s fans who were teenagers. She didn’t see that coming. They asked her all kinds of questions. Here’s my favorite comment:
“I feel, and I know many teenagers who feel that Dr. Marshall’s ministry was not cut off which his death, but rather extended and augmented.”
Amen. What a blessing Catherine’s obedience to the Lord proved to be.
One more wee footnote: Many of you are familiar with another of Catherine’s book that became not only a best seller, but a CBS TV Series, called Christy. It first released in 1967 and sold over ten million copies!
Now you know how we like to close, “Run! Don’t walk to your nearest bookstore and grab To Live Again. I believe it’ll lead you to A Man Called Peter and/or to Mr. Jones, Meet the Master.” And never fear, I’ll report in on the last two books soon.
‘Til next time!
Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the page above are “affiliate links.”