By: Andrés Salazar

Marsha did not set out to write a devotional. She was trying to survive.

After losing her mother, everything unraveled in a way that felt both quiet and overwhelming. PTSD, emotional exhaustion, a kind of spiritual emptiness that doesn’t announce itself loudly but settles in and stays. She describes that period as chaotic, not just externally but internally, like nothing quite made sense anymore. Faith wasn’t just distant; it felt absent.

And then something unexpected happened. Not gradually, not through a long process of reflection, but in a single moment that disrupted everything. She woke up from a deep sleep with a clear sense that she had been called to write.

Not a polished book. Not a strategic project. A grief journal.

That journal, The Ultimate Journey, didn’t reach a wide audience. It didn’t turn into a breakout success. But that was never really the point. What it did instead was open a door she hadn’t realized was there. It nudged her toward something deeper, something she hadn’t fully confronted yet.

It pushed her to ask a question she had been avoiding.

If something called me, who or what was it?

Searching for Something Real

Marsha’s next step wasn’t about writing. It was about searching.

She didn’t suddenly become someone with unshakable belief. In fact, her honesty around that part stands out. She admits she had no faith at that point, which makes what came next feel less like a cliché transformation and more like a real shift that had to be earned.

The turning point came through an ACTS retreat. Three days focused on Adoration, Community, Theology, and Service. It sounds structured on paper, but for her, it wasn’t about the format. It was about what broke through during those days.

There’s a difference between hearing about healing and actually feeling it begin.

She describes the retreat as profound, not because it solved everything, but because it reintroduced something she had lost completely. A sense of worth. A sense that maybe she wasn’t as alone as she had believed. A sense that healing wasn’t just possible but already in motion.

That experience didn’t close the chapter on grief. It reframed it.

Instead of something that defined her, it became something she could move through.

Writing From the Inside, Not the Outside

When Marsha started working on Jesus, Open the Eyes of My Heart, the process didn’t feel forced.

She wasn’t outlining a concept or trying to fit into a genre. She describes herself as being spiritually on fire, which is a phrase that can sound exaggerated until you understand the context. For her, it meant that every day felt charged with purpose. Every small moment carried weight.

So she wrote from that place.

Not big, sweeping lessons. Not distant reflections. Short, direct stories pulled from her daily life. Encounters, realizations, moments where something shifted internally even if nothing changed externally.

That approach shaped the book into a devotional, but not in a rigid sense. It reads more like a personal record of someone actively trying to see God in real time, not someone looking back with perfect clarity.

There’s a difference.

One feels polished. The other feels alive.

Faith That Isn’t Clean or Linear

What stands out in Marsha’s story is how little she tries to tidy it up.

She doesn’t present faith as a smooth transition from doubt to certainty. If anything, she leans into the messiness of it. The confusion, the hesitation, the emotional swings that don’t just disappear because someone had a powerful moment at a retreat.

Her writing reflects that.

Each entry is tied to something specific she lived through. Not abstract ideas, but real situations where she had to wrestle with what she believed and what she was experiencing. That tension gives the book its edge. It doesn’t pretend that faith removes struggle. It shows how faith can exist inside it.

And sometimes, that’s more useful.

A Different Kind of Healing

There’s a moment in her story that shifts everything.

After the retreat, she says, “As I sought the Lord, He heard, and He answered. Now, I had to answer Him.”

That line changes the direction of the narrative. Up until that point, she was searching. After that, she felt responsible to respond.

The book becomes that response.

Not as a final statement, but as an ongoing conversation. A way of documenting what happens when someone chooses to engage instead of withdraw. When they decide that healing isn’t passive, it requires participation.

Her version of healing isn’t about returning to who she was before loss. It’s about becoming someone new who can carry that loss differently.

Why This Story Lands Right Now

There’s something about Marsha’s journey that connects beyond the obvious faith angle.

A lot of people are dealing with some version of what she went through. Not always grief in the same form, but that feeling of being disoriented, disconnected, unsure where to turn next. The instinct is often to look for something immediate and definitive.

Her story doesn’t offer that.

Instead, it shows what it looks like to move forward without having everything figured out. To follow something that doesn’t come with guarantees. To rebuild a sense of meaning piece by piece.

That’s harder to package, but it feels more honest.

The Work That Continues

Marsha isn’t treating this book as a final destination.

She’s already thinking about what comes next. More writing, more ways to explore faith, more ways to connect with her local community. The tone isn’t rushed or overly ambitious. It feels steady, like someone who understands that this kind of work doesn’t happen all at once.

It unfolds.

And maybe that’s the real takeaway from her story. Not the dramatic moment of being called, not even the transformation during the retreat, but what she chose to do afterward.

She kept showing up.

Writing. Reflecting. Paying attention.

For readers, that might be the most relatable part. Not everyone will have a moment that feels like a calling. Not everyone will attend a retreat that shifts everything in a few days.

But anyone can start paying closer attention to their own story.

And maybe, like Marsha, begin to see something they didn’t notice before.

For more information, visit her official website: https://www.marshagauthier.com/ or find her book on Amazon.