Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Gladys Aylward: God's Second Choice


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One day while cleaning a wealthy couple’s house, Gladys Aylward came across a Christian magazine. She flipped through the pages and read an article written by a 72-year-old female missionary serving in China. The missionary pleaded for anyone willing to come to China to help spread the Gospel. That article changed Gladys' life, for she knew at that moment God was calling her to China. But how? She was just a poor maid with little education.

She applied to become a missionary to China, but she failed missionary training school. The director of the school told her she wasn’t smart enough to learn Chinese, and they would not accept her. But Gladys was determined. If the mission board would not send her to China, she would find her own way there. She got her pocketbook and pulled out the few coins she owned and prayed, “Oh Lord, here’s my Bible! Here’s my money! Here’s me.”

Gladys began hoarding every cent to purchase passage to China. She could not afford to go by boat, so she decided she would travel by train across Asia. On October 15, 1932 she left England for China. Her journey took several weeks, because halfway she was thrown off the train by Russian soldiers. She was forced to walk or ride a donkey the rest of the way.

Gladys arrived just a few days before the aging missionary she was going to assist died unexpectedly. There she was thousands of miles from home with no one—except God. Gladys didn’t know what to do next, so she prayed, “Lord, show me your will.” The Lord opened a door she could have never opened herself.

For many years, the feet of Chinese girls were wrapped tightly at birth to keep them from growing big. The Chinese thought small feet were prettier. However, the Chinese government created a new law which said that all foot-wrapping must end. The Chinese government was looking for officers who would go from village to village telling people that foot-wrapping was now illegal. Gladys applied for the job and go it.

She immediately recognized the opportunity to spread the Gospel. Gladys traveled thousands of miles going into small towns taking off foot bandages and telling Bible stories. Through her efforts many people started coming to faith in Christ. In the process, she adopted over 100 orphans and the Chinese people gave her a nickname, “The Virtuous One.”[1]  

Gladys Aylward died in 1970 after touching thousands of lives for Christ. Yet, she never saw herself as a hero. She wrote, “I wasn't God's first choice for China. I don't know who it was. It must have been a well-educated man. I don't know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn't willing. All I know is God looked down and saw little Gladys Aylwardand God said, “Well, she’s willing.”[2]

We often despise the thought of failure, but Aylward’s story encourages us that even our failures lead to success when we follow the Lord’s leading. God uses the weak as opposed to the strong, those who are willing to look beyond adversity, those who are willing to let God work in them and through them completely, those who are daring enough to trust God with the unknown. -DM


[1] Robert J. Morgan, On This Day (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1997), October 15.
[2] Fern Neal Stocker, Gladys Aylward (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1988), 108.

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