Stepping Heavenward

Elizabeth Payson Prentiss (Portland, Maine, October 26, 1818 - August 13, 1878) was an American author, well known for her hymn "More Love to Thee, O Christ" and the religious novel Stepping Heavenward (1869).
Stepping Heavenward is the journal of a girl named Katherine Mortimer. She struggles with very ordinary things like you and me. Katy meets a young man who she loves & wants to marry but her mother is very much against their plans. Then Katy gets sick and she finds out just how much her fiancée really loved her! Then, there is pain and heartache over the broken engagement; sorrow that she had not listened to her mother.
But Katy's life goes on through her marriage to a Godly man & motherhood and many tragedies. Her life is a constant struggle to "step heavenward", and poor Katherine, like so many of us, takes one step forward - two steps backward. - Excellent!