For some research for the novel I’m writing, I’ve been loving this week spent with I. Lilias Trotter. Lilias Trotter was a missionary to Algeria in the late nineteenth century into the early twentieth century. She spent most of her life among the Muslims of North Africa, giving up a life spent for herself. Proclaimed by art critic John Ruskin as one of the potentially best artists of the nineteenth century, Trotter instead painted and wrote books about her experiences in North Africa.
Those books are almost impossible to find nowadays. About ten years ago, I found one on Abebooks.com, called Between the Desert & The Sea, but her most famous (made so by Elisabeth Elliot’s continued writings about Trotter in Elliot’s own books), Parables of the Cross, has been almost unfindable. Imagine my surprise this week when I went looking for it and found it in the UK, for less than I paid for Between the Desert and the Sea. It’s on it’s way and I cannot wait.
Anyway, so a small press has reprinted Parables of the Cross.
What I think
This is a great way for everyone to be able to read the wonderful book that Trotter wrote, and that Elisabeth Elliot then introduced to the world. I love it. Trotter served overseas for over 38 years where she also died. Just an amazing woman.
Then her biography, A Passion for the Impossible, by Miriam Huffman Rockness, is a great introduction to Lilias’ life and work.
What I think
Her story is inspiring to me in that she was perfectly content where God placed her. True, she could have had the art world at her feet, but that wasn’t where she was supposed to be. It reminded me that even though I press forward with my writing and my plans, if it isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing, I don’t want it.
Not that I’m giving up my dreams (for those who aren’t entirely sure the will of God is something you want to follow, I understand where you’re coming from). I will still work for them, however, having faith that those dreams will come true doesn’t mean hanging on to MY VISION of how I think that will happen, but relinquishing control to God (for you, it may be relinquishing control to the universe, karma, whatever you believe) so that I’m not left waiting for a certain thing to happen and thus miss the other better thing that comes (often how God works in my life; your mileage may vary).
Anyway, great week with Lilias and I’m so glad her approach to life and to the world will be present in my novel, folded into a character that very quietly, almost silently, influences the story for the good of everyone involved. 
Have a great weekend!
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