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A review by meredith_mccaskey
A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lilias Trotter by Miriam Huffman Rockness, I. Lilias Trotter
4.0
5 stars for the subject matter, 3 stars for the writing.
I watched the documentary on Lilias's life ("Many Beautiful Things") about a year ago, and I feel like putting it together with this book helps make a more rounded view of this beautiful Christian soul. Much more than this book, the documentary emphasizes Lilias's artistic talent and all that she gave up in terms of worldly success in choosing to move to Algeria to be a missionary. The focus of this book is the over forty years she spent there.
The writing is rather dry– Ms. Rockness tends to offer tidy summaries instead of vivid details, so it's much more a feeling of being told events rather than shown them. Then again, she didn't have a wealth of source material to work with. I admire her for tackling this project and trying to shed light on the life of this mighty woman of God about whom so few know.
What has stuck most with me are some of Lilias's own words (this book quotes extensively from her diaries, which is one of its strengths.)
Other workers may come later; meanwhile we can be loving them and praying for them. I have been thinking lately what a work for God it is, just loving people. He says in Deut 22: 'If an ox or an ass has gone astray, thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee till thy brother seek after it.' I think He gives us sometimes a little service for souls– wandering souls that we cannot bring back to Him; sometimes all we can do is to keep them near us, and show the kindness of God to them, and hold them in faith and prayer till He comes to seek them.
The martens have been reading me a faith lesson. They come in flights this time of year– lovely things with blue throats & feathered claws– one slept in my room last night and another darted in at the open window before I was up, swept round & out again.
Their faith lesson is this– that their wings need the sense of an "empty void" below to give them a start– their leg muscles have no spring in them and when they perch by accident on a level place they are stuck fast– poor things we did not know that natural history fact in the past & when we have found them on our flat Alger roof with its parapet protection, we have though they had got hurt somehow, & more than once we have tried to feed them till they died, instead of doing the one thing that they needed- tossing them off into emptiness.
So we need not wonder if we are not allowed to stay long in level sheltered places– our faith wings are like the martens & mostly need the gulf of some emergency to give them their start on a new flight. We will not fear when we feel empty air under them."
I watched the documentary on Lilias's life ("Many Beautiful Things") about a year ago, and I feel like putting it together with this book helps make a more rounded view of this beautiful Christian soul. Much more than this book, the documentary emphasizes Lilias's artistic talent and all that she gave up in terms of worldly success in choosing to move to Algeria to be a missionary. The focus of this book is the over forty years she spent there.
The writing is rather dry– Ms. Rockness tends to offer tidy summaries instead of vivid details, so it's much more a feeling of being told events rather than shown them. Then again, she didn't have a wealth of source material to work with. I admire her for tackling this project and trying to shed light on the life of this mighty woman of God about whom so few know.
What has stuck most with me are some of Lilias's own words (this book quotes extensively from her diaries, which is one of its strengths.)
Other workers may come later; meanwhile we can be loving them and praying for them. I have been thinking lately what a work for God it is, just loving people. He says in Deut 22: 'If an ox or an ass has gone astray, thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee till thy brother seek after it.' I think He gives us sometimes a little service for souls– wandering souls that we cannot bring back to Him; sometimes all we can do is to keep them near us, and show the kindness of God to them, and hold them in faith and prayer till He comes to seek them.
The martens have been reading me a faith lesson. They come in flights this time of year– lovely things with blue throats & feathered claws– one slept in my room last night and another darted in at the open window before I was up, swept round & out again.
Their faith lesson is this– that their wings need the sense of an "empty void" below to give them a start– their leg muscles have no spring in them and when they perch by accident on a level place they are stuck fast– poor things we did not know that natural history fact in the past & when we have found them on our flat Alger roof with its parapet protection, we have though they had got hurt somehow, & more than once we have tried to feed them till they died, instead of doing the one thing that they needed- tossing them off into emptiness.
So we need not wonder if we are not allowed to stay long in level sheltered places– our faith wings are like the martens & mostly need the gulf of some emergency to give them their start on a new flight. We will not fear when we feel empty air under them."