“I will cling to Christ like a burr on a topcoat.”
Katherina von Bora was born in Germany on January 29, 1499. With a name that would have befitted a queen or a baroness perhaps, Katherina – or “Katie” as she would be called – would become a very important woman at least to one man (her husband Martin Luther), and she would influence her children and many others, creating a God-glorifying ripple effect on Christian history forever.
Katie’s mother died when she was a little girl, and her father quickly remarried, sending five-year-old Katie to live in the Roman Catholic Church. She was raised by the nuns – two of which were her aunts – and it was assumed that surely Katie would grow up to become a nun just like them. So she did! When Katie was 16 years old, she took the vows – or promises – of a nun.
The more Katie studied the Catholic religion, the more she wondered if she could really believe every part of it. Katie actually made plans with some of the other nuns to run away from the church, but she did not feel right about running. Running could bring a punishment of death. So the nuns created another plan.
The German monk Martin Luther was already growing popular for his reformed beliefs – for how he spoke up against the parts of the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings that taught that salvation could be earned by good works or that deliverance and relief from judgment could be bought by purchasing candles or pieces of paper from Roman Catholic Church officials. Martin Luther was instead coming to believe from the Bible that salvation belonged to the Lord, that justified people are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Instead of sinners earning their own way to heaven, Jesus Christ died to save them and to offer grace and mercy by His own perfect life and perfect sacrificial death.
Martin Luther wanted to help monks and nuns who were changing their minds about Roman Catholic teachings. One day, just before Easter, a local fish seller arrived at a Catholic convent to deliver food to the nuns. It had been arranged for the fish seller to hide any nuns who wanted to escape in barrels the back of his fish wagon. This man helped the nuns escape. When they escaped, they went straight to find Martin Luther. He helped each of the nuns find marriages, homes, and jobs – each and every one of them… except Katie.
Martin Luther married Katie himself. She was a godly woman, a wife, a teacher, a nurse, a farmer, and a mother to ten children! She woke up every morning at 4am to get all of her work done and did not rest until it was finished.
Katie was a devoted disciple of Jesus and a diligent worker, among many other things. Do you do your best at what you do? Are you faithful to follow truth and committed to cling to Christ?
1 Thessalonians 4:11 – That you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you.