{"id":17318,"date":"2026-03-10T14:07:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T14:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/uncategorized\/elizabeth-sherrill-70-years-a-guideposts-icon\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:03:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:03:26","slug":"elizabeth-sherrill-70-years-a-guideposts-icon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/inspiring-stories\/stories-of-faith-and-hope\/elizabeth-sherrill-70-years-a-guideposts-icon\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Sherrill: 70 Years a Guideposts Icon"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have known Elizabeth Sherrill<\/a> since I started at Guideposts<\/em> in 1984, but I knew her by reputa\u00adtion before that. To say I was in awe of her gifts as an editor and writer would be only a slight over\u00adstatement. She was the toughest edi\u00adtor I ever wrote for.<\/p>\n

When you thought you had done your best on a manu\u00adscript, Tibby\u2014as we know her\u2014was just getting started. She\u2019d take your opus and cut it down to a one-pager. \u201cThis works nicely now, Rick.\u201d Ouch! A hard way to learn but probably the best. And Tibby was the best.<\/p>\n

For all the lasting influence Tibby imparted to Guideposts<\/em> in her nearly seven decades as a contributor, retir\u00ading only recently, she was thoughtful and reserved in her manner, quiet-spoken for a writer of such editorial and spiri\u00adtual conviction. Tibby was as kind and compas\u00adsionate<\/a> a person as she was tough as an editor.<\/p>\n

Behind that unassum\u00ading exterior is the heart, faith and voice of Guideposts<\/em>. Amazing then that she was not a person of faith when she arrived at Guideposts<\/em>. (More on that in a bit.) She was a writer looking for a gig.<\/p>\n

That was in 1951, just six years after Norman Vincent Peale<\/a> founded the magazine with his wife, Ruth Stafford Peale, and one year before he would publish The Power of Positive Thinking, <\/em>that best seller of spiritual well-being.<\/p>\n

For most of those seven decades, Tibby worked alongside her beloved husband, John<\/a>, also a longtime contributor. Do you love Guideposts<\/em>\u2019 vivid first-person stories full of heartfelt spiritual struggles and lessons? Do you feel as if you are right there with the writer when you read a Guideposts<\/em> story? Do stories move you to tears or inspire you to take a step forward in your own spiritual life?<\/p>\n

Thank Tibby Sherrill.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s the one who shaped and mod\u00adeled Guideposts<\/em>\u2019 distinctive voice and approach to storytelling. She shared her own often deeply personal stories, and she helped countless others do the same. Generations of writers and editors learned from her at the Guide\u00adposts Writers Workshop, of which she was a founding editor and lead teach\u00ader. And what a teacher!<\/p>\n

Today, at 93, Tibby\u2019s vision loss prevents her from doing much writ\u00ading or even reading e-mails. We felt it was high time to do what she would never do herself: pay tribute to her dis\u00adtinguished career and shine a light on how she shaped the Guideposts<\/em> you know and love today.<\/p>\n

Like many other Guideposts<\/em> edi\u00adtors and writers, I first got to know Tibby at the Writers Workshop in Rye, New York. In 1984, I was about to start my job with the magazine as an assistant editor. All new staff editors are required to attend the workshop, so there I was, alongside the winners of that year\u2019s contest, in the Wain\u00adwright House library. I stared at the book-lined shelves and the frayed rug on the floor, not quite sure what I was doing there.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d graduated from Princeton Uni\u00adversity a few years earlier and done a fair bit of writing. I figured I didn\u2019t have much to learn.<\/p>\n

Tibby proved me wrong.<\/p>\n

I had to listen carefully to hear ev\u00aderything she said. She spoke softly and deliberately as she laid out a clear and deceptively simple vision of what made a great story.<\/p>\n

Tibby\u2019s lessons seem obvious, yet you would be surprised by how many writers\u2014even professional writers\u2014fail to observe them. She taught that a Guideposts<\/em> story should begin when a narrator\u2019s problem is most acute and show, step by step, scene by scene, how the problem is resolved with God\u2019s help<\/a>. She called that starting point the contract with the reader and reminded us that the reader had an expectation of a story in Guideposts<\/em>. It was our mission as writers and editors not to disappoint.<\/p>\n

To Tibby, that con\u00adtract had almost the same weight as a legally executed one. She taught that much of a writer\u2019s work is trimming away extraneous filler\u2014like shards of marble\u2014to reveal the story hidden inside a block of stone. No wonder one group of her students refers to itself as the Marble Shapers.<\/p>\n

Tibby\u2019s most insistent lesson: The heart of every Guideposts<\/em> story should be a helpful piece of spiritual wisdom<\/a>, one that the reader can take away and apply to their own life. How many other magazines have such a service-oriented mission?<\/p>\n

I called Tibby not long ago at the retirement community in Massa\u00adchusetts where she lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI listen to books now,\u201d she says. \u201cI find I actually read even more than I used to because I can listen to an audio book as I make the bed and do chores.\u201d<\/p>\n

I suspect her discernment and in\u00adsight into other people\u2019s lives was fostered by her father, who worked as a private investigator. Her natural reserve became an asset when she embarked on a career as a writer. She was the quiet, attentive, patient inter\u00adviewer you just couldn\u2019t help reveal\u00ading your deepest self to.<\/p>\n

Her partner in work and life was her beloved John<\/a>. Outgoing, exuberant, an instant friend, he proved that op\u00adposites do attract.<\/p>\n

They met in 1947, just after World War II<\/a>. John had served in the march through Italy. He was returning to Eu\u00adrope to study. Tibby, also a student, was on board the same transatlantic liner. It was love at first sight.<\/p>\n

They married in Geneva, where they were attending school, and Tibby got a preview of what was in store when she became a Guideposts<\/em> writer inter\u00adviewing celebrities.<\/p>\n

A few days before the wedding, an important visitor arrived in Geneva to give a speech about the United Nations: Eleanor Roosevelt<\/a>. Tibby and the former First Lady wound up talk\u00ading for more than an hour. \u201cShe want\u00aded to give John and me her blessing,\u201d Tibby recalls.<\/p>\n

The Sherrills returned to the U.S. in 1950. They had a young child and college debts. \u201cWe needed to find work,\u201d Tibby says. John tried freelanc\u00ading travel articles but found that they didn\u2019t pay, so he took a job writing for Guideposts.<\/em><\/p>\n

The irony? At that time, John and Tibby were not people of faith. The job was a paycheck, nothing more. John, the son of a seminary professor, figured he could wing it.<\/p>\n

Tibby struggled with her role as a housewife. She wanted to write, and she began to help John with his sto\u00adries. Len LeSourd, Guideposts<\/em>\u2019 editor-in-chief at the time, had no idea that more than a few of the stories handed in were Tibby\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I was in Los Angeles by my\u00adself doing an interview\u2014I think it was Alfred Hitchcock<\/a>,\u201d Tibby says. \u201cLen called and told me he needed the story right away. I wrote it up and sent it to him. He seemed a little stumped. \u2018You <\/em>wrote this,\u2019 he said. \u2018Without John.\u2019 \u2018Yes,\u2019 I said.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps now it\u2019s a humorous story about sexism. At that time, however, the professional barriers deepened Tibby\u2019s lifelong struggle with depres\u00adsion<\/a>. The mother of three children by this point, she felt isolated and torn between her desire to be a good parent and her sense of vocation. The conflict drove her into a deep depres\u00adsive episode.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn understood what I needed better than I did,\u201d she says. \u201cHe gave me two hours a day in my room to myself. We could hardly afford it, but a caregiver would come in for two hours and give me a break. Over time, I became myself again.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what about faith? A few years after starting at Guideposts<\/em>, John discovered a skin growth on his ear. A doctor removed it. John and Tibby thought everything would be fine. But a biopsy revealed he had melanoma.<\/p>\n

The couple drove to the LeSourds\u2019 house in the New York City suburbs, looking for comfort. Len\u2019s wife, writ\u00ader Catherine Marshall<\/a>, knew about John\u2019s spiritual ambivalence, and she did not mince words. \u201cYou must be\u00adlieve that Jesus was God,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

On their way back home, \u201cat a stop sign,\u201d Tibby recalls, all at once John said, \u201cI believe that Jesus is God<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does it feel like?\u201d Tibby asked\u2014the quintessential reporter.<\/p>\n

\u201cA little like dying,\u201d John said. They visited their neighborhood church and talked to the pastor. He led them into the sanctuary, put his hand on John\u2019s head and read a prayer for heal\u00ading from the prayer book.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like a bolt of electricity went through John,\u201d Tibby says. \u201cI could feel it too.\u201d<\/p>\n

When John returned to Sloan-Ket\u00adtering Memorial Hospital for surgery, there was no tumor left. He had been healed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

John and Tibby started attending that church and remained there until they moved to Massachusetts, a little more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Tibby speaks of her own, quieter revelation of faith, which came into focus after one of the Guideposts Writers Workshops. Driving away from Wainwright House, she was sud\u00addenly overcome with a profound sen\u00adsation of joy, one she had never known before and had never even imagined could exist\u2014as if it came from outside this world. \u201cNothing existed but that joy,\u201d she now recalls. It was the joy that comes from knowing and feeling God\u2019s love<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tibby says writing for Guideposts<\/em> helped her discover that great love and make it real. Helping other peo\u00adple tell their stories of faith opened her eyes to how God was working in her own life. Their struggles were her struggles, their triumphs hers. Her spirit was nourished by their faith, and it grew.<\/p>\n

She was a natural writer, the way some musicians are born with perfect pitch. Endlessly curious, she noticed everything and knew how to ask the questions that prompted people to open up. She put herself inside the minds and hearts of the people she wrote about. She could feel what they felt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She taught her first workshop in 1967, shortly after Len LeSourd and Catherine Marshall conceived of the workshops as a way to boost the qual\u00adity of faith-based writing in America. Her last workshop was in 2010. Those of us editors who have tried to take her place realize that her gifts as a teacher equaled her gifts as a writer. No one has labored so generously to pass on the verities of good Guideposts<\/em> writing.<\/p>\n

John\u2019s and Tibby\u2019s partnership last\u00aded for 70 years. Shortly before what would have been their seventieth an\u00adniversary, they were in the midst of planning a road trip through Europe when John fell ill. He died that Decem\u00adber<\/a>, five years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think of him every day,\u201d Tibby says. Then, correcting herself, she says, \u201cEvery moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

She takes great comfort in the vivid faith John had in a life eternal, one in which she knows she will join him. She herself has a vibrant prayer life<\/a>, remembering her children, grandchil\u00addren and great-grandchildren. In fact, that day she and I spoke on the phone, she had just dialed into the morning prayer service at her church, some\u00adthing she does every day.<\/p>\n

I will have to read this story to Tib\u00adby over the phone, the way she would read stories she\u2019d written for others, making sure every detail was right. What will probably be hardest for her to take in, though, is being the center of attention.<\/p>\n

I will remind her that she should please sit still for it the way we writ\u00aders sat still for her editing and teach\u00ading. Guideposts<\/em> would not be what it is without her.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For more inspiring stories, subscribe to <\/em>Guideposts<\/strong><\/a> magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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