Jerusha: I’m honored to introduce you to Michelle Ule, biographer of Biddy Chambers, wife of the famous Oswald Chambers. Michelle is offering one free copy of the highly-acclaimed Mrs. Oswald Chambers to an FW reader. So join me in giving Michelle a warm, FW community welcome and leave a comment below to enter the giveaway!
By Michelle Ule
Picture this:
With the sun beating down as high as 130 degrees onto the Egyptian desert where you live and the war continuing its bloody grind across the trenches of France, you return from the Red Cross hospital located near the Sphinx and pyramids.
Flies are a constant presence in the camp. Pestilence stalks the landscape in a time before antibiotics and it’s an interminable effort to keep your four year-old daughter clean when you’re basically camping in an adobe hut with a sand floor.
It’s November 15, 1917 and you’ve been living in a YMCA camp surrounded by Australian and New Zealand soldiers for two years. Your husband, noted Bible teacher and YMCA chaplain Oswald Chambers, had been making plans to “go up the line” accompanying soldiers to the Battle for Jerusalem.
Like any good soldier’s wife, you encouraged and supported him.
But then he came down with appendicitis.
God gave you a word, “This sickness is not unto death, but that I might be glorified.”
You clung to that word, poured over your Bible and prayed psalm after psalm.
But Oswald died.
What would you have done if you had been 34-year-old Biddy Chambers?
Ten years after her husband’s 1917 death, Biddy Chambers arranged for the publication of a devotional with his name listed as author.
She titled it My Utmost for His Highest.
Using snippets from shorthand notes she took of all Oswald’s teachings and sermons over the course of their seven-year marriage, Biddy compiled a 366-day reading that has stood the test of time.
Each reading features a title, a short Scripture passage and three or four paragraphs taken from Oswald’s messages centering on a theme.
On specific days close to her heart, Biddy wove those notes from Oswald’s teachings into a devotional truth that not only made spiritual sense to readers but also conveyed a personal reflection.
On her birthday, Biddy revealed how she dealt with the grief and terror of losing her husband that grief-stricken day in the desert.
The July 13 reading talks about “The Price of the Vision,” and takes Isaiah 6:1 as its jumping off verse (“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.”).
It also reveals Biddy’s reaction to her husband’s shocking death:
“Our soul’s personal history with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discouraged.
“Let me think about this personally—when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord?”
Following her husband’s military burial with honors in the Old Cairo Cemetery, Biddy, her daughter Kathleen, and a friend went away for two weeks to mourn. They spent their time grieving, thinking, praying and watching the Nile River flow past.
At the request of the YMCA, Biddy Chambers returned to the Zeitoun YMCA camp and picked up her husband’s mantle. Biddy and Oswald both loved the soldiers to whom they ministered. Throughout the war, they knew the men soon would confront their eternal destinies in either Jerusalem or France.
As Biddy wrote to a friend, “God released Oswald from his tasks; He did not release me.”
Biddy Chambers had loved and served her God for many years of challenges by 1917. Living penniless during a world war in a desert camp without her husband was the hardest of all.
How did she resist being overcome by fears of the future?
By clinging to what she knew best: the character of God and her trust in Him.
“My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me.” (Utmost, July 13)
What sort of character does God have?
Officer’s Christian Fellowship describes Him as “eternal, just, faithful, omnipotent, omniscient, righteous, sovereign and the source of truth and love.”
Kathleen Chambers later said this about Biddy: “All my life my mother . . . never for half a second questioned what God allowed to happen, ever. She might have been puzzled, but was unperturbed and never desperate.”
The July 13 reading concludes with a declaration of how Biddy dealt with her fear by where she put her trust:
“Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, ‘In all the world there is no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You.’”
Biddy believed God would never leave nor forsake her, and she knew she could trust Him.
After repatriating to England after World War I, Biddy Chambers experienced financial poverty. Given the choice between a secure position running a Bible school or relying on friends for living expenses as she turned Oswald’s words into books, Biddy chose to follow her God.
As a result, we have My Utmost for His Highest and twenty-nine other books with Oswald Chambers’ name listed as author.
Biddy Chambers came to see that the word she got while sitting at Oswald’s bedside was not that Oswald wouldn’t die, but that his Holy Spirit-inspired words would live on to God’s glory.
It’s proven true to this very day’s reading.
What better way to conquer fear—and fulfill her destiny—than to trust in the character of God?
How has trusting in God’s character helped calm your fears? Have you been impacted by My Utmost for His Highest? Please share!
Michelle Ule is the author of Mrs. Oswald Chambers: The Woman Behind the World’s Bestselling Devotional (Baker Books 2017).
You can learn more about Oswald and Biddy Chambers, not to mention Michelle herself, at www.michelleule.com.
Connect with Michelle on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Michelle is giving away a free print copy of Mrs. Oswald Chambers to one of you who leaves a comment below. So don’t forget to join the conversation! (Winner randomly selected Jan. 22, 2018; Winner must have Continental U. S. mailing address.)
Among Christian devotional works, My Utmost for His Highest stands head and shoulders above the rest, with more than 13 million copies sold. But most readers have no idea that Oswald Chambers’s most famous work was not published until ten years after his death. The remarkable person behind its compilation and publication was his wife, Biddy. And her story of living her utmost for God’s highest is one without parallel.
Bestselling novelist Michelle Ule brings Biddy’s story to life as she traces her upbringing in Victorian England to her experiences in a WWI YMCA camp in Egypt. Readers will marvel at this young woman’s strength as she returns to post-war Britain a destitute widow with a toddler in tow. Refusing personal payment, Biddy proceeds to publish not just My Utmost for His Highest, but also 29 other books with her husband’s name on the covers. All the while she raises a child alone, provides hospitality to a never-ending stream of visitors and missionaries, and nearly loses everything in the London Blitz during WWII.
The inspiring story of a devoted woman ahead of her times will quickly become a favorite of those who love true stories of overcoming incredible odds, making a life out of nothing, and serving God’s kingdom.
Comments 23
What an inspiring testimony! And I never realized that I was being blessed by Biddy’s labors (as well as Oswald’s) when I read “My Utmost for His Highest.” Thank you for such an encouraging and edifying post. What a great way to start off the week!
Biddy prefered to remain in the background. Out of the 30 books she put together, her name is never mentioned. In Utmost, she signs herself as “B.C.”
She also didn’t take pay for compiling the books–which were basically self-published.
I learned a lot from her myself!
What a wonderful behind the scenes story! Thanks for sharing it with us today. It makes me want to re-read some of my Oswald Chambers books.
I’ve been taking apart each day’s Utmost and then explaining it for my writer FB page. What an astounding exercise this has been. I’ve read the devotional for nearly 20 years, but examining it like this has only increased my appreciation for what OC understood about God.
I’m also in awe of Biddy as compiler extraordinaire!
Thanks, Jerusha, for the challenge of this post. Rereading it now, I’m excited all over again! What a powerful, extraordinary God and what an example of leaning into Jesus when life hits bottom.
Author
Thank you for researching Biddy’s story, Michelle, and putting it to paper for the rest of us to be inspired! God’s work through Biddy in difficult circumstances and her choice to follow Him instead of fear is so encouraging. Thanks for being my guest today!
I had no idea! What a marvelous example of faith!
Amen!
This is crazy inspiring! I did not know that Oswald Chambers did not, himself, put together My Utmost for His Highest. Fascinating story. I’m so encouraged for having read this today!
The two needed each other. OC provided the Holy Spirit-inspired wisdom; Biddy turned his words into at least one book that has never been out of print in 90 years: My Utmost for His Highest.
What an amazing woman she was!
Truly. My life is different because of Biddy Chambers.
As is everyone’s who loves My Utmost for His Highest. LOL
What an amazing story! Michelle, thank you so much for sharing this glimpse into the life and heart of Biddy Chambers with all of us. A few years ago, I read David McCasland’s excellent biography “Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God,” and I remember being astounded by Biddy’s unshakable trust in God in the midst of her difficult circumstances. I would love to know more about her life — what a wonderful, godly example for us to follow!
Thank you again!
I was also inspired by David McCasland’s book–which led me to write Mrs. OC.
David is the first person mentioned in my acknowledgements! (He’s a very nice man).
I personally gained SO much from the research and writing of this book. Biddy’s life story blessed my family in many ways.
Thanks for commenting!
Wow, Michelle, what an inspiring and convicting story! You wrote it so beautifully and vividly, too; I felt as if I was Biddy in the scorching desert.
Biddy reminds me of Barbara Youderian, whose husband, Roger, died at the end of an “Auca” spear. Barbara and Roger had only been married four years and had two children. After Roger’s body was recovered, Barbara wrote: “God gave me this verse two days ago, Psalm 48:14, ‘For this God is our God for ever and ever; He will be our Guide even unto death.'” Barbara accepted Roger’s death with such peace and faith that she never even thought to ask God “WHY?”
Michelle, you must be a kindred spirit. I too love to read the stories of Christian heroes. In fact, my Facebook author page looks back at heroes of the faith to inspire, encourage, and challenge believers. If you’d like to learn a little more about the Youderians, I’m posting about them this week.
Thanks for the suggestion, Katie, I’ll take a look a look at your website.
Those men who were martyred in Ecuador left quite a group of widows (and a sister), didn’t they?
It’s interesting–I’ve known several women who followed their husbands off into ministry only to become the one left behind to run it.
God works in unusual ways, often to demonstrate how well his strength is made perfect in what we perceived to be weaknesses.
Dear Michelle,
I experienced something very similar; hearing the same encouraging words, then the opposite happening.
I understood that The Word is Life and that my loved one lives even though their body was no longer here.
“Seeing God’ in that way brought me into deeper fellowship.
Amen, Veronica.
It takes a mature believer who knows her/his God well, to look past the immediate to the greater plans of God. That’s one of the many things I learned from Biddy’s life.
Thank you so much for sharing Biddy’s story, Michelle. It is so inspiring to hear how the Lord helps people overcome such difficult and sorrowful circumstances and enables them to do great things to advance His kingdom and to encourage the rest of us. Praise God!
To answer your question, trusting God’s character has helped me overcome my fears by realizing that God is sovereign – that He is in control of every thing that happens to me and that He loves me and is working His will in my life. I try to remind myself of that when I start worrying about things. I can’t control things, but God’s got it under control!
Marjorie–You answer shows you know God the same way Biddy did–as someone to be trusted with all the twists and turns of life.
What I came away with from her story–among other things–was awe at how her faith stretched her into such interesting and sometimes harrowing experiences and yet she continued working on those books–because that’s what God called her to do.
The result–some of which she saw in her lifetime–was such wonderful glory to God and encouragement to believers in difficult circumstances.
Thank you for your comments.
How powerful are our words- the power of life and death lies within them. As I read your words about this dear soul’s faithfulness to the Lord and to her beloved husband’s work for the Kingdom, I was reminded of the promise that we defeat the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony…WHAT a testimony Biddy’s life was…and tho’ dead yet still speaks! Thank you for the blessing! I am once again reading through my Oswald Chambers Daily Devotional Bible this year and it will be with renewed vigor that I read!
Absolutely, Becky. I haven’t read it the same way since I finished Mrs. OC. Blessings on your year and I pray your understanding will be deep.