Conclusion: The Invitation Still Stands

You have now met ten women whose lives were remarkable in ways that history has largely confirmed. Monica’s tears produced a theologian whose influence has never ceased. Teresa’s interior castle still guides seekers centuries after her death. Susanna’s domestic prayer cell ignited a revival that spread across the English-speaking world. Madame Guyon’s writings from a Bastille prison cell have introduced millions of readers to the depths of contemplative prayer.

Amy Carmichael’s fifty-five years of unbroken service in India continue to inspire and convict those who read her story. Corrie ten Boom’s Ravensbrück testimony has encouraged the faith of countless people walking through their own valleys of shadow. Lottie Moon’s sacrificial death seeded a missions offering that has funded thousands of workers across the world. Mary Slessor’s courage among the headhunters of Calabar broke open an entire region to the gospel.

Gladys Aylward’s mountain crossing with a hundred children remains one of the great acts of faith in recorded history. Evelyn Christenson’s simple question has mobilized an estimated fifteen million people to pray.

What do you do with lives like these? You cannot simply admire them from a distance, because each of them would refuse the admiration. Each of them, in her own way, would deflect every tribute back to the God who had answered her prayers, given her the faith to pray them, and produced the results that others were now praising. They were, to a woman, deeply convinced that what they had discovered was available to everyone — that the God who had met them in their specific centuries, cultures, and circumstances was the same God available to every human being willing to seek Him.

That is the most important thing this book is trying to say. These ten women were not exceptional because they possessed some spiritual gift that most people lack. They were exceptional because they took God at His word when He said: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13, NIV). They sought Him with their whole hearts. And they found Him. The promise has not been withdrawn. It stands today exactly as it stood when Monica wept in Carthage, when Teresa prayed in Ávila, when Susanna drew her apron over her head in Epworth, when Gladys prayed at the Yellow River. The invitation still stands.

Perhaps you have read this book because prayer has been a struggle for you. Perhaps it has felt dry, mechanical, or simply absent from your life — a discipline you know you should practice but find yourself repeatedly failing to sustain. If so, these ten women have a message for you: begin again. Begin now. The God who met Corrie ten Boom in a concentration camp is not waiting for you to achieve a certain level of spiritual attainment before He will meet you. He meets you where you are. He receives the broken, halting, five-minute prayer of a beginner with the same attentive love with which He received the long intercessory vigils of John Hyde.

Perhaps you have read this book because you are already a person of prayer, seeking encouragement and example to go deeper. If so, the ten women in these pages are calling you further in. There is always more. Teresa of Ávila described rooms within rooms within rooms in the interior castle of the soul, and she had walked them all — and beyond the last room she had found not a wall but an opening into the infinite. No one exhausts God. No one reaches the end of what prayer can discover or accomplish. There is always deeper water to swim in.

For every reader, whatever your starting point, the invitation is the same. It is not complicated. It does not require a theological degree, a spiritual director, or a particular temperament. It requires only what these ten women brought to it: sincerity, persistence, and the willingness to take God at His word. Jesus said it as simply as it can be said: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7–8, NIV).

Everyone. Not the spiritually gifted. Not the monastically inclined. Not the theologically trained.

Everyone who asks receives. Everyone who seeks finds. Everyone who knocks will find the door opened. Monica asked. Teresa sought. Susanna knocked. The door opened for each of them. It will open for you.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

— Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV)