We Shall Be Like Him (By: Betty Stam)

(Betty Stam and her husband John were young missionaries to China in the 1930's. About one year after arriving, they were captured by Communists, along with their new baby girl. John and Betty were marched through the streets and then beheaded. Betty had chronic health problems, and she just had a baby. It was hard for her to walk through the streets. Their baby survived and was raised by her parents, because Betty hid her from their captors.
John's last words in a letter written while in captivity were, "May God be glorified whether by life or by death!"
There was renewed energy and zeal for foreign missions and a remarkable growth as God used the great courage and faith of John and Betty Stam. Many people were influenced by their lives and still are today.)

Betty Stam wrote this poem at age ten:

I cannot live like Jesus,

Example though He be,
For He was strong and selfless

And I am tied to me.
I cannot live like Jesus;

My soul is never free.

My will is strong and stubborn
;
My love is weak and wee.
But I have asked my Jesus
To live His life in me.

I cannot look like Jesus
;
More beautiful is He.

In soul and eye and stature

Than sunrise on the sea;

Behold His warm, His tangible,

His dear humanity.
Behold His white perfection

Of purest deity.

Yet Jesus Christ has promised

That we like Him shall be!

As a young woman of eighteen, Betty wrote this, a poem which Elizabeth Elliot learned as a 12-year-old and copied into her Bible:
Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes

All my own desires and hopes

And accept Thy will for my life.

I give myself, my life, my all

Utterly to Thee to be Thine forever.

Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit

Use me as Thou wilt, send me where Thou wilt

And work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost now and forever.



We Shall Be Like Him (By: Betty Stam)