Messenger of the Lord

Knew Discouragement

Ellen White knew the bleakness of discouragement as she fulfilled her role as God’s messenger. Throughout her life, discouragement, at times, flirted with temporary depression. No doubt her physical weaknesses, her heart condition and respiratory problems, made her susceptible to discouragement. And being a messenger for the Lord, striking out ahead of her contemporaries on the battlefield of the cosmic conflict, also invited Satan’s constant attacks. How did she relate to this black shadow that so many people from the beginning of time have experienced? Her counsels to others who are discouraged, even in depression, come bathed in her own personal trials. MOL 74.1

Throughout her ministry Ellen White faced both the fire of fanaticism and the ice of indifference. ⁴⁰ Her words of counsel, often reproof, frequently were countered with gossip and slander. This affected her physically. Of her experience when she was only 18 and still greatly diminished physically, she reported: “Discouragements pressed heavily upon me and the condition of God’s people so filled me with anguish that for two weeks I was prostrated with sickness.” ⁴¹ MOL 74.2

Those reading her letters and diary entries have the privilege of almost “listening” to her heart beat as she recorded her responses to those moments of discouragement from various causes. How she beat back the “hellish shadow” of the evil one may be just the insight some reader needs today! MOL 74.3

Although eight months pregnant in 1847, she wrote a cheery letter to Joseph Bates, noting that “my health is quite good for me.” Then she bared her heart: “I have had many trials of late, discouragement at times has laid so fast hold upon me it seemed impossible to shake it off. But thank God, Satan has not got the victory over me yet, and by the grace of God he never shall. I know and feel my weakness, but I have laid hold upon the strong arm of Jehovah, and I can say today I know that my Redeemer liveth, and if He lives I shall live also.” ⁴² MOL 74.4

Trials? Not many people have known the kind of hard times faced by the Whites. These servant-leaders had been given a divine commission, and they dared not turn to a life of ordinary pursuits. MOL 74.5

But think, here was a young family in the winter of 1847-1848 (Henry was born on August 26, 1847) trying to speak and write as God opened the way, yet determined to be financially independent. James, at 26, hauled stone at a railroad cut near Brunswick, Maine, until his hands were bloody, and he cut cord wood, working long hours for 50 cents a day. On a limited “budget,” Ellen, now 20, could afford only a pint of milk per day for herself and Henry. Then she had to eliminate the milk supply for three days so that she could buy a piece of cloth to make Henry a simple garment. MOL 74.6

The day came when “their provisions were gone.” James walked three miles and back in the rain to his employer for either his wages or needed supplies. When he returned with a bag of provisions, Ellen recalled: “As he entered the house very weary my heart sank within me. My first feelings were that God had forsaken us. I said to my husband, ‘Have we come to this? Has the Lord left us?’ I could not restrain my tears, and wept aloud for hours until I fainted.” MOL 74.7

In other words, “Lord, why is life so hard when we have committed ourselves unreservedly to Your cause?” MOL 74.8

Through her account of this experience we get a glimpse of how she climbed out of this deep pit of discouragement. She regretted that she had sunk so low; she reminded herself that her first desire was to “follow Christ and be like Him; but we sometimes faint beneath trials and remain at a distance from Him. Suffering and trials bring us nigh to Jesus. The furnace consumes the dross and brightens the gold.” ⁴³ MOL 75.1

In Rochester, New York, late June, 1854, Mrs. White was seven months pregnant with her third son. But other problems faced her daily. Key workers in Rochester were dying of consumption (tuberculosis). Husband James appeared to be sinking also, not only with the signs of consumption but with the lack of sympathy from fellow workers, plus the strain of his usual traveling, speaking, and writing. Try to imagine the full range of concerns facing the young wife and mother! MOL 75.2

“Trials thickened around us. We had much care. The office hands boarded with us, and our family numbered from fifteen to twenty. The large conferences and Sabbath meetings were held at our house. We had no quiet Sabbaths; for some of the sisters usually tarried all day with their children. Our brethren and sisters generally did not consider the inconvenience and additional care and expense brought upon us. As one after another of the office hands would come home sick, needing extra attention, I was fearful that we should sink beneath the anxiety and care. I often thought that we could endure no more; yet trials increased.” MOL 75.3

What does a young mother of two, seven months pregnant, do under such conditions? “With surprise I found that we were not overwhelmed. We learned the lesson that much more suffering and trial could be borne than we had once thought possible. The watchful eye of the Lord was upon us, to see we were not destroyed.... If the cause of God had been ours alone, we might have trembled; but it was in the hands of Him who could say, No one is able to pluck it out of My hands. Jesus lives and reigns.” ⁴⁴ MOL 75.4

In the weeks preceding the Minneapolis General Conference of 1888, Ellen White was burdened with the “unbelief and resistance to reproof” that prevailed against her ministry, much of it developing while she was in Europe, 1885-1887: “The brethren did not seem to see beyond the instrument.... I had also been told [in vision] that the testimony God had given me would not be received, because the hearts of those who had been reproved were not in such a state of humility that they could be corrected and receive reproof.” MOL 75.5

Discouragement seemed to overwhelm her, and she became very ill. Recalling the event, she wrote: “I felt no desire to recover. I had no power even to pray, and no desire to live. Rest, only rest, was my desire, quiet and rest. As I lay for two weeks in nervous prostration, I had hope that no one would beseech the throne of grace in my behalf. When the crisis came, it was the impression that I would die. This was my thought. But it was not the will of my heavenly Father. My work was not yet done.” MOL 75.6