By the time Madame Guyon was 28 years old, her father died. That same month her little three-year-old daughter died from a cerebral hemorrhage. She took this loss as stoically as she had the death of their second son: it was the will of God. But when her friend and spiritual counselor Sister Genevieve Granger died a few months later, she was deeply affected. Now with both her parents and Sister Granger gone, there was no one for her to lean upon in time of perplexity. (p. 61)

There seemed to be a desperate void in her relationship with the Lord. Where previously she had found happiness and personal satisfaction in serving God and ministering to others in the name of Jesus, now she went about doing good without feeling God's presence and blessing upon her efforts.

She entered a Convent in a spiritual retreat to receive help from a Sister Garnier who seemed to understand her current problem. It was commonplace their to experience methodical practice of mortification - the use of instruments of penance. In those days the devout believed penances of this nature enabled the human soul to attain a closer relationship to God.

Madame Guyon would fast for unbearably long periods, taking only small quantities of juice into her system. She scourged herself across the shoulders, arms and legs with knotted cords until blood came to the surface. She even resorted to wearing a broad belt of horsehair and nettles braided together, a girdle set with sharp nails poking into her bare flesh, and knee and elbow bracelets studded with blunt chunks of metal. But try as she did, there was absolutely nothing spiritual gained by such self-discipline. She left the convent disappointed. (p. 63)

That same year, her husband died. She was unable to cry-unable to utter a word for that matter. She was expecting this for many weeks. She closed herself in her room and knelt in prayer with a rosary clutched in her hand. There, before an image of her Heavenly Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ, she renewed her marriage covenant to Jesus, adding to it a vow of chastity. Such radiant euphoric joy came into her soul at that moment as she had never before experienced. She thought she could see hovering angels smiling their approval from the he clouds in the bright blue sky overhead.

True to her commitment, she regarded herself as belonging entirely to Christ. Now she recognized that the time had come to devote her life exclusively to His work. But being left a rich young widow, only twenty-eight years old, did not free her immediately to follow the Lord, no matter how certain she was of His call. Besides the three children, her mother-in-law and the servants, she was now responsible for the family business and her late husband's estate, all of which had to be dealt with first. (p. 65)