Monday, October 15, 2012

From Thorns

 In 1879, the artist John Ruskin said "she would be the greatest living painter and do things that would be Immortal."  But to do so, he said she would have to give up her pursuit of spiritually-focused social work and devote her life to developing her art.  After a great deal of prayer, Lillias Trotter decided. She gave up a promising career as an artist.  Instead, she spent the next four decades living in North Africa among the Arab people as a missionary.  Her paintings are hidden away in the archives of the Asmolean Museum in England, viewable only upon request.  Her canvas became the hearts of the culture-cloistered Arab women of Algiers.  Her paints - the vibrant love of a God they wouldn't have otherwise known.  But Ruskin was right.  Lillias indeed did things that were immortal.  We'll see the masterpiece in heaven.
This is taken from a little devotional book she penned about 100 years ago.
I am captivated.

See this bit of gorse-bush. The whole year round the thorn has been hardening and sharpening. Spring comes: the thorn does not drop off, and it does not soften; there it is, as uncompromising as ever; but half-way up appear two brown furry balls, mere specks at first, that break at last--straight out of last year's thorn--into a blaze of fragrant golden glory.
"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby." Never mind if the trouble shews no sign of giving way: it is just when it seems most hopelessly unyielding, holding on through the spring days, alive and strong, it is then that the tiny buds appear that soon will clothe it with glory. Take the very hardest thing in your life--the place of difficulty, outward or inward, and expect God to triumph gloriously in that very spot. Just there He can bring your soul into blossom!



Excerpt and painting from The Project Gutenberg EBook of Parables of the Cross, by I. Lilias Trotter
www.gutenberg.org
[EBook #22189]
Biographical details taken from A Blossom in the Desert, compiled and edited by Miriam Huffman Rockness.
Discovery House. 2007.


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