Sarah Jane Kelly was born on March 15, 1946, in Nashville, Tennessee to parents Douglass (Levine) Kelly and Tom Kelly, both educators. She graduated from E. C. Glass High School in Lynchburg, Virginia. Young pursued her higher education at Wellesley College, earning a degree in philosophy in 1968, and later obtained a master’s degree in child development from Tufts University in 1974. While in graduate school, Young, a lapsed Christian, encountered the work of evangelical theologian Francis Schaeffer. She later reported that Schaeffer’s work profoundly impacted her spiritual journey. She visited L’Abri, an evangelical center in Switzerland, where she had a spiritual encounter and converted to Christianity She decided to become a Christian counselor, and enrolled at Covenant Theological Seminary in Creve Coeur, Missouri, where she met her husband, Stephen Young, a third-generation missionary. They married in 1977, and served as Presbyterian missionaries near Yokkaichi, Japan for eight years. While in Japan, Young gave birth to her two children.
Young began maintaining a devotional journal in 1992. She practiced “listening prayers,” writing down what she thought God was saying to her, rather than what she wanted to say to God. This journal eventually formed the basis of her most famous work, Jesus Calling. Young prepared a manuscript but was Initially rejected by publishers, and gave up on publishing in 2001. However, her writings eventually caught the attention of an executive at Integrity (later part of Thomas Nelson), who offered her a contract. Jesus Calling, published in 2004, started modestly but surged in popularity following a renewed marketing effort by Thomas Nelson. The devotional book, composed of daily spiritual readings purportedly written in the voice of Jesus Christ, became a bestseller in the Christian literary world.
The success of Jesus Calling led to the release of sequels, including Jesus Always and Jesus Today, along with various related products such as calendars, journals, and children’s editions. Additionally, the Jesus Calling brand expanded into podcasts, an app, a magazine, and a television show, collectively selling over 45 million units as of August 2023.
