Place of Sacrifice

"Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."  -Matthew 6:33

Lilias Trotter writes in her journal about her hen :  "She suddenly determined to sit--and sat on her one solitary egg a whole day.  By evening she had plucked her breast bare to make a nest for it.  So we got a 'sitting' for her and arranged it in a native basket in the corner of the hen house and she just glided down onto the eggs and will hardly move even to eat.  Such a consuming passion over those eggs has laid hold of her, and such a transformation they have wrought in the restless creature.  The only thing that can get a cry out of her is if we try to get her away from her place of sacrifice."

Lilias sacrificed a great deal to answer the call to be a missionary to the Muslims in North Africa.  John Ruskin, a leading figure in the art world in Britain had told her she could be one of England's greatest living artists if she'd devote herself to it completely.  But her heart had been awakened to the down and out in London and eventually for the Arab people in Algiers.  She left her beloved England to live the remaining 40 years of her life serving in a land very different from her own.

I am grateful for those who have come before me setting examples of how we might serve the cause of Christ.  Lilias continued painting in journals and writing about her experiences with the Arab people.  Only recently has her work been rediscovered and published and her life story made into a film to encourage us to open our hearts to those who are not like us, but need Christ.