This Godly woman, Lilias Trotter, gave up her career in Art to serve God in Algiers, although unsupported by any mission board! She left London Luxury for the Saharan Desert. She had to deal with chronic health problems, conflicts, sadness, and challenges, yet saw them as openings for God's power and work.
She was a missionary in Algiers for 38 years, where she worked tirelessly and formed bonds with many people, sharing the Gospel.
In 1888, she founded the Algiers Mission Band, and in the 1960s, it became incorporated into Arab World Ministries.
She wrote and illustrated several books, including "Parables of the Cross" and "A Blossom in the Desert."
She wrote the following two quotes:
"It is easy to find out whether our lives are focused, and if so, where the focus lies. Where do our thoughts settle when consciousness comes back in the morning? Where do they swing back when the pressure is off during the day? Dare to have it out with God. . . and ask Him to show you whether or not all is focused on Christ and His glory.
Let us dare to test God’s resources …. Let us ask Him to kindle in us and keep aflame that passion for the impossible that shall make us delight in it with Him, till the day when we shall see it transformed into a fact."
"Have we learned so to give? Have we learned to give at all? It can hardly be called “giving” when God must plead and wait, and at last must loosen forcibly our clinging grasp from the treasure. Have we even learned the preliminary lesson of an instant blindfold “Yes, Lord,” when the Spirit points out a fresh act of sacrifice?
It is only as we go on in a life of surrender that the blessed joy of pouring forth upon Him our costly things dawns on us. The giving sets free, as has been well said, a spring of conscious love, and the love, in its turn, inspires to fresh giving; and though the pain involved is still pain, such a strange sweetness becomes interwoven
with it. Will He have to wait in vain?"
She wrote this poem and many others:
“Measure thy life by loss and not by gain,
Not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth.
For love’s strength standeth in love’s sacrifice,
And he who suffers most has most to give.”
One of her favorite verses:
“Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee." Psalm 73:25
2 comments:
I had not heard of Lilas Trotter and am glad to now. I really am inspired by Christians who have gone before us and lived a life worthy of the calling. She seemed to have kept a beautiful spirit despite her illnesses.
I am so inspired by them too! People miss out on major blessings from God when they never read about these Godly saints and learn from them.
Yes, I noticed too, that she had a beautiful spirit.
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