Stories: Be True to You

This story amplifies how important it is to stay true to ourselves because we never know the impact we may have on the world. If you missed my Pearls and Pigs post, you can read it here.

The year was 1908 and there was a long journey ahead, but nothing could spoil the excitement Gertrude felt as she boarded the ship bound for America. With all the possibilities she could imagine, leaving London was a simple choice. She was determined to take full advantage of her skills at Pitman shorthand, able to transcribe at 250 words a minute, faster than most people talk! But she wasn’t traveling alone. Her mother had asked a family friend Oswald to keep her company on the trip.

Oswald was going to study theology and was as excited about his future as she was about her own. During the length of the voyage, they would enjoy long conversations walking along the decks and sharing meals together. After finally arriving in America, they promised to keep in touch as they each pursued their dreams.

Two years later, Gertrude and Oswald, over time and distance, realized their great love for each other and married. In 1910, Gertrude Hobbs became Mrs. Oswald Chambers. In 1911, they moved back to London and worked together at the Bible Training College. Funded by The Pentecostal League of Prayer, they would not only teach but provide room and board for the students, often paying for their needs from their personal resources.

Oswald had the funny habit of giving everyone a nickname, and Gertrude would be no different. In his frequent love letters, he would referred to her as his “beloved disciple.” This name was soon shortened to BD, and then to Biddy, which everyone quickly adopted as her name.

Biddy’s True Path

When World War I began, Oswald felt the call to become a Chaplin to the troops in Egypt. Biddy would follow with their 2-year-old daughter Kathleen. They would live in a YMCA hut north of Cairo for nearly four years.

Michelle Ule, author of a biography on Mrs. Chambers tells us, “When Oswald died unexpectedly of complications from appendicitis in 1917, Biddy was left a penniless 34-year-old widow with a four-year-old child in the middle of insect and disease-ridden Egypt during a world war.

The YMCA asked her to stay on and run the hut until the end of the war. She repatriated to a broken England with her headstrong daughter, then six-years-old, and had few resources beyond her trunks full of notes.

From those notes, Biddy compiled 30 books—among them My Utmost for His Highest. With two exceptions, all the books with Oswald Chambers’ name listed as author were published after his death.”

My Utmost for His Highest* was first published in 1927 and has been in print ever since. It has sold more that 13 million copies, translated into 39 languages, and for many people, it is the only devotional book they read consistently every year.

What an amazing legacy: for a shipboard romance to blossom into a love and devotion that would touch lives for the next 100 years! Such a beautiful example of being true to yourself and doing what you know to be right for you, no matter the circumstances or challenges.

Thank you, Biddy, for believing in God, in Oswald, and in yourself. Millions of people are forever grateful!

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“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

Ephesians 2:10

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