A Richer Life

 

The first time I heard the name Lillias Trotter was in a message that Dr. Euler preached one Sunday morning years ago, and I remember the fascination I felt learning about a missionary whom I hadnot heard of before. Lillias was born into a wealthy family in 1850s London. As part of the upper class, she rubbed shoulders with authors and artists of the day; writer Anthony Trollope was her next-door neighbor at one point, whose guests included Robert Browning and Mark Twain.

 Lillias had a gift for art, and the famous art teacher and critic John Ruskin admired her work, befriended her, and became her mentor. Lillias saw beauty all around her in nature and had a great talent for capturing the beauty in her drawings and watercolors. In one of her visits to Ruskin’s home, he told her that if she devoted herself to art, she could become the most well-known artist of the day whose works would become immortal.

 Fame lay before her along with the ability to pursue her passion and joy in this extraordinary gift she had.Yet Lillias also had great faith in God and devoted much of her time to serving others, especially at Welbeck Street Institute, a hostel for young women who worked in London. There she taught Bible classes, helped meet the women’s needs, and assisted as secretary in the administration of running this

home that later became part of the YWCA. She was passionate about the Lord and her walk with Him, often attending conferences with the aim of growing in her faith. What she learned she would then pass on to others. She once wrote, “A flower that stops short of its flowering misses its purpose. We were created for more than our own spiritual development; reproduction, not mere development, is the goal of matured being – reproduction in the lives of others.”

 So now, at age 26, Lillias had a choice to make: devote herself fully to art as Ruskin was encouraging her to do or let art just become a hobby on the side so that she could more fully devote herself to service. The choice weighed on her; she prayed much over it, seeking what the Lord would have her to do. And she came to a conclusion that would direct the rest of her life. She would not devoteher time to perfecting her art; instead, she would devote her time to serving, possibly knowing that the circles in which she would serve might cost her social standing as well as the opportunity for marriage.

 In her book Parables of the Cross, she would one day write the following: “Have we learned the buttercup’s lesson yet? Are our hands off the very blossom of our life? Are all things – even the treasuresthat [God] has sanctified – held loosely, ready to be parted with, without a struggle, when He asks for them?” Lillias also declared that, “It is loss to keep when God says ‘give’.” And, having made her choice, she felt “the liberty of those who have nothing to lose because they have nothing to keep.” Lillias eventually moved to the Muslim country of Algiers, where she served forty years, sharing Christ with the people there.

 So, how does this strike me, living over 150 years after this sister in Christ? As I read her biography, I am challenged by a life that truly understood what it means to seek first God’s kingdom. I am so prone to getting caught up in the trivial day-to-day! I am prone to lose sight of what really matters. I am prone to finding excuses to satisfy my desires, to take the comfortable route rather than the path that must die to self. I struggle with the day-to-day choices: getting up in the morning early enough to spend time with the Lord, not getting caught up in the petty arguments of the day, choosing to reach out to others or show hospitality when I’d rather sit on my couch and read a book. What would it look like to truly understand, as we heard this morning in the message at church, that “to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21), not “to live is to enjoy myself and be comfortable”? How would we live differently if we really believed that our calling is to be “a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:2)? I believe Lillias Trotter understood these things; my prayer is that I, and you, would as well.

 “Look at the expression of abandonment about this wildrose calyx as time goes on, and it begins to grow towards the end for which is has had to count all things but loss: the look of dumb emptiness has gone – it has flung back joyously now, for simultaneous with the new dying a richer life has begun to work at its heart.” (Lillias Trotter, Parables of the Cross)

 -- Amy O’Rear

 (All quotes and information about Lillias Trotter is taken from the biography A Passion for the Impossible by Miriam Huffman Rockness.)