Peter Marshall was a famous orator, pastor of the historic New York Avenue Presbyterian Church and the Chaplain for the State Senate. His sudden death at the age of forty-nine in the later forties left his wife Catherine with no physical means of supporting herself or their small son.

Several weeks after Peter’s death, three well-meaning friends approached her with the news that she had very little money to live on. They spread charts and lines of figures across the dining room table, pointing to the dire necessity of her selling off the summer cottage on Cape Cod that was filled with wonderful memories; and that she should consider moving into a very modest apartment if she wished any money to be available to send Peter Jr. to college.

She listened to their advice, grateful that they had cared so deeply for her husband that they would see a dire need and offer their help. But as they spoke about taxes, interest, depreciation, upkeep, she couldn’t help but feel that something was missing from their counsel.

In To Live Again, Catherine recalls: “Alone in my room later, I stared out the window into the moonlight shining on the swaying treetops. Suddenly, standing there at the window, I knew what was the missing factor was.

“These three friends, who saw my many inadequacies…who had meant to be so kind, had reckoned without God. I remember how often Peter had faced this same attitude with his church officers. He would come home from a trustees’ meeting sad and grim.

“Catherine, no matter what’s presented for their approval, their litany is always the same. ‘But Dr. Marshall, where is the money coming from?’ Where’s their faith in God?”

Suddenly, it was as though Peter was standing with her in that room, whispering in her ear, reminding her of God’s ability to save regardless of the circumstances. How many times had she heard him say…

“Either God is with me—I am that I am—a fact more real than any figures or graphs. Or He was not. If He was there, then reckoning with Him was certainly not being ‘realistic’. In fact, it could be the most hazardous miscalculation of all.”

Catherine relates the amazing details of God’s faithfulness in her book, To Live Again, which chronicles how God answered her needs by fulfilling a dream of hers to be a writer, and in the process has blessed generations of readers who have stumbled over her books.

Catherine Marshall discovered one of the purest truths of a Christian life. God is in control of all things. There is no problem outside of God’s ability to save, nor His desire to do so. He holds our futures within His omniscient hand. Impossibilities are grand avenues of hope to Him.

I, too, can testify to God’s faithfulness. Like, Catherine, when I needed financial resources to allow my husband to retire, God gave me an idea for a series of novels. And even though I had no experience as a novelist, the first one sold with a six figure advance.

No matter what you’re facing, no matter how dire or ostensibly hopeless the situation, do not despair. God has the answer already tagged with your name.

And while you’re waiting for deliverance, don’t let Satan’s tempt you to doubt with the lie that God only intervenes for a select few. That’s pure balderdash! God has no favorites.

There’s an old hymn that says it best…

It Is No Secret What God Can Do
The chimes of time ring out the news,
Another day is through.
Someone slipped and fell.
Was that someone you?
You may have longed for added strength,
Your courage to renew.
Do not be disheartened,
For I have news for you.
It is no secret what God can do.
What He’s done for others, He’ll do for you.
With arms wide open, He’ll pardon you.
It is no secret what God can do.
There is no night for in His light
You never walk alone.
Always feel at home,
Wherever you may go.
There is no power can conquer you
While God is on your side.
Take Him at His promise,
Don’t run away and hide.
It is no secret what God can do.
What He’s done for others, He’ll do for you.
With arms wide open, He’ll pardon you.
It is no secret what God can do.

Copyright 2009 Katherine Valentine