The Stenographer Who Never Stopped Writing

When Oswald Chambers died suddenly in Cairo in 1917 at the age of forty-three, his wife Biddy faced an unimaginable loss. She was a trained stenographer, and throughout their marriage she had quietly transcribed nearly every lecture and sermon her husband delivered — filling notebook after notebook in her precise shorthand.

Biddy's modest hope was simple: preserve Oswald's words so their daughter could someday know her father's faith. She began painstakingly typing out her shorthand notes, organizing them into short daily readings. In 1927, she published a small devotional volume titled My Utmost for His Highest.

She could never have imagined what God would do with those notebooks. That single book has never gone out of print. It has been translated into more than thirty-nine languages and has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide. Presidents, missionaries, soldiers, and ordinary believers have called it the most influential devotional they have ever read. A grieving widow's shorthand notes became one of the most widely read Christian books in history.

Biddy asked God to help her preserve a father's memory for one little girl. God answered by giving the world a spiritual treasury that has shaped millions of souls across an entire century.

That is the God of Ephesians 3:20 — the One who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power at work within us.