Her name was Elizabeth Cracken, though most who knew her called her Liz. Neither particularly pretty nor ugly, she was eleven years old and lived comfortably with her family in the heart of London in East England in 1899. Her father and 18-year-old brother Peter made a decent living for the family, working for the manager of a shoe store in England.

Elizabeth went to school nearly every day studying carefully and diligently as her mother, Susan Cracken, and her father, Joe Cracken, had taught her to. She played with friends whom she had known almost her whole life and others whom she had recently met. She helped her mother clean, cook, wash, dry and fold laundry. Her mother had faithfully cared for the family for years and was teaching her daughter to do the same. Strong and godly, Elizabeth’s mother was everything Elizabeth hoped to be someday: loving, caring, kind, beautiful, and faithful and obedient to her husband.

And so day after day the routine of life continued, with the exception of her mother expecting a baby (which excited the whole family very much). Elizabeth was very content and happy with her simple life in England. It was all she had ever known and she wanted none of it to change! Her life was secure, safe and happy, and she loved it.

Yet as you and I know, life doesn’t always stay the same. Changes come, and challenges enter our paths that we don’t always like or want to face, but we must face them. For they make us into the person God wants us to be. God loves us too much to let us stay the way that we are. If our lives never change then neither will we. Elizabeth Cracken had yet to learn this. She lived happily in England, little knowing God had bigger plans for her. It all started when Elizabeth’s father made an important announcement to the family…