While at CTS, Young met her husband, Stephen Young. The couple married in 1977 and then moved to Yokkaichi, Japan, to plant a church with Mission to the World ministry. Kathy Keller, assistant director of communications for the New York City PCA church where her husband, Tim, was the lead pastor, wrote a review explaining why Redeemer would not sell Jesus Calling at its book table, even though lots of people asked for it. Young didn’t think her writing was inspired by God—and was certainly not inerrant—yet she didn’t think it was just a creative writing project, either. Writing from God’s perspective wasn’t conceived as a rhetorical device. She thought of her journals as a testament to God’s Presence. Young told RNS that she’d often heard from readers about how “Jesus Calling” helped them draw closer to God, brought them comfort in times of illness and grief or gave them courage in the midst of their struggles.

Young was born Sarah Jane Kelly in Nashville on March 15, 1946. Little is known about her childhood except that her father was a college professor and her family lived in the South. She graduated from E. C. Glass High School in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1964, and attended Wellesley College, where she majored in philosophy. She went on to earn a master’s in education, focusing on child study, at Tufts University in 1974.She spent about three years preparing a manuscript but could not secure a publishing contract. She gave up in 2001, when the family moved to Perth, an isolated city in Western Australia, so that Steve could establish a ministry for Japanese people there. Her illnesses, in the following years, got so bad that she could barely leave her room. She focused as much as she could on writing, praying, and meditating on God. Byron Williamson, founder of Integrity, received a sample of Young’s work in 2003. The writing grabbed him. In 2004, Young published what would become her wildly successful daily devotional book Jesus Calling. The wife of a Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) missionary to Japanese people, Young suffered from Lyme disease and other chronic illnesses that sometimes forced her to stay in her room for 20 hours a day. In her isolation, she started to practice “listening prayer” and journaling what she felt the Spirit tell her. The accusations of possible heresy did not hurt sales. While some new readers approached Jesus Calling and follow-up devotionals with caution, most became ardent converts when they read Young’s Jesus’ words

They also pointed out the long history of devotional writing, including classic works by Andrew Murray, Oswald Chambers, and A. W. Tozer, was broadly accepted in evangelicalism. Young’s writing style might be different, but readers were very familiar with the devotional genre that critics seemed to wildly misunderstand. Helping readers connect with Jesus I had not sought this powerful experience of God’s Presence,” she wrote, “but I received it gratefully.” Experimenting with a prayer journal I grabbed it,” she told CBN. “I went into the other room, and I read it immediately. I just was kind of like, ‘I’m at peace.’” According to HarperCollins, since its publishing, the book has sold over 45 million copies and has been translated into 30 different languages.She met her husband, Steve, while in seminary, and after the couple graduated in 1977, they became missionaries with Mission to the World, a missionary agency of the Presbyterian Church in America. They served first in Japan and later in Australia, where Young worked as a Christian counselor.

She need not have worried. In its first three years, Jesus Calling sold an average of 20,000 copies per year, with many people buying them as gifts. Christian bookstores reported customers asking if they could buy the devotional by the case.

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Jesus Calling was written to help people connect not only with Jesus, the living Word, but also with the Bible-the only infallible, inerrant Word of God. Sarah endeavors to keep her devotional writing consistent with that unchanging standard. Many readers have shared that Sarah’s books have helped them grow to love God’s Word. As Sarah states in the introduction to Jesus Calling, “The devotions . . . are meant to be read slowly, preferably in a quiet place with your Bible open.” After walking alone in the snowy Swiss woods, Young felt a Presence—she would always write about it with a capital P—and felt it was the overwhelming personal answer to a question she had only thought was intellectual. She said aloud, “Sweet Jesus.” I absolutely adore this devotional,” wrote one woman from Tennessee. “I have read it nearly everyday for the past year, but I still find peace from it even now. Beautiful and comforting.” Spiritual struggles led to L’Abri