The story of Lilias Trotter (1853–1928) has become one of the most fascinating and beautiful that I have recently learned. She challenged the world’s meaning of success and fulfillment. Her personal devotion to Christ is inspiring for all who desire to live for the glory of God.
Lilias was born into a wealthy Victorian family. She was also a talented artist, attracting the attention of John Ruskin, the noted Victorian art critic and Oxford lecturer. (If you haven’t seen her artwork, then you need to immediately do a Google search and look up her stunning watercolors.)
In 1874, Lilias experienced a powerful encounter with the Lord and she felt called into full time Christian service. In radical obedience, she left the promising artistic career that Ruskin offered her and the comforts of England for a life of missionary service in Algeria. Trotter wrote that she could not give herself “to painting and continue still to ‘seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness.’”
For the next forty years, this creative, dynamic woman poured out her life, her artistic abilities, and her linguistic skills to make the Gospel known to Muslim women. Her journals tell of her daily experience of desperately depending on the divine resources of the Holy Spirit.[1]
Art and text by Lilias Trotter
Besides her art and the souls she impacted directly, one of her greatest contributions is the inspiration behind a beloved hymn. Trotter had been reading Heb. 12:2 in her morning devotions, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith..." and thinking of how Christ can turn our weariness and trouble into peace and joy. Trotter recorded the following thought in her journal, “Turn your soul’s full vision on Jesus and look and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from Him and the divine attributes by which God’s saints are made, even in the twentieth century, will lay hold of you.” Later, some of Trotter’s artwork and her writing was made into a pamphlet.
In 1924 a song writer named Helen Lemmel was reading that pamphlet written by Lilias Trotter when she came across the above quotation. Lemmel was touched and wrote of that experience: “Suddenly as if commanded to stop and listen, I stood still. Singing in my soul and spirit was the chorus of the hymn. ‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace.’ Since its composition, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus has become a favorite in Sunday morning worship, especially for invitationals and altar calls. In a sad irony, Lemmel actually became blind after writing the hymn and her husband left her. Despite her adversity, Lemmel continued serving the Lord and wrote over 500 hymns.[2]
Lilias Trotter faithfully served the Lord in an obscure place facing all kinds of adversity as well. She completed hundreds of sketches and watercolor paintings. Confined to bed during her last years, Trotter devoted herself to prayer, writing, and sketching. As her body failed, her mind remained clear, even at the end asking prayer for the strength to dictate a letter to Amy Carmichael of India, with whom she had regular correspondence. While attendants sang a hymn, she exclaimed, “A chariot and six horses.” “You are seeing beautiful things,” someone asked. “Yes,” she said, “many, many beautiful things.”
-DM
What a beautiful, beautiful account. Thank you!
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