Frugal Hands
Though always generous with others, Ellen White was frugal personally, possibly to a fault. On one of her visits to the Pacific Press Publishing Company, then located in Oakland, California, she noticed a large number of printed hat ads that were to be discarded because of some error. Since they were printed only on one side, with the reverse side blank, she asked that the discarded ads be made into writing pads for her to use. Soon, on the blank side of the sheets of paper, her hands were busily writing the manuscript for what became the 1884 edition of The Great Controversy.GOP 362.3
Surprising as it may be, given that Ellen’s formal education ended about the age of 9 because of her childhood injury, she came to advocate education, but not just any kind of education. The counsels that came from her pen, based upon the visions she had received, urged Adventists to establish schools featuring a Bible-based, Christ-centered focus coupled with practical work experience. Not only did she use pen and voice to urge the establishment of such schools, but the 68-year-old Ellen White used her own two hands to set in place the cornerstone for the first building of what today is Avondale College in Australia. Her approach to such things was to advise as well as to participate personally! Today, the hands, hearts, and minds of thousands of dedicated teachers are creatively involved in helping to educate students in more than 7,500 Seventh-day Adventist-owned and -operated schools worldwide, preschool through graduate school. GOP 362.4
Writing. Writing. Writing. Always writing. During Ellen White’s lifetime, quill pens gave way to dip pens and eventually to fountain pens. On one occasion she ended up sending her husband a very short handwritten letter after spilling ink, thus creating an unsightly blotch on the longer letter that she had originally written to him. One night her dorm room at South Lancaster Academy was so cold that when she awoke in the morning the ink had congealed in its bottle so it could not be used until it had thawed out!GOP 362.5
Writing, always writing. Estimates vary regarding how many handwritten pages she wrote during her lifetime. On July 16, 2015, the 100th anniversary of Ellen White’s death, the White Estate placed on its Web site—ellenwhite.org—free access to all of Ellen White’s thousands of pages of typed letters and manuscripts that are preserved in its vault.GOP 363.1
During 11 months in 1892, shortly after arriving in Australia, Ellen wrote 2,500 pages of letter-sized paper for publication, at a time when physically she was unable to do almost anything because of terrible suffering from a painful form of arthritis. Even so, her right hand from the elbow down was preserved so that she could write. And what book was she starting to write? Her classic volume on the life of Christ: The Desire of AgesGOP 363.2
While working on that spiritual masterpiece, Ellen White wrote to O. A. Olsen, then president of the General Conference:GOP 363.3
Oh, how inefficient, how incapable I am of expressing the things which burn in my soul in reference to the mission of Christ I know not how to speak or trace with pen the large subject of the atoning sacrifice. . . . I tremble for fear lest I shall belittle the great plan of salvation by cheap words. GOP 363.4
Tremble she might, but not her right hand. This time the trembling was for fear of writing words that fell short of rightly representing Christ and His mission.GOP 363.5
Sometimes Ellen White began her letters to people with exclamations of joy or thanksgiving; other times she expressed sorrow or concern. And almost always she shared counsel. About her letters, she once wrote to someone:GOP 363.6
Weak and trembling, I arose at three o’clock in the morning to write to you. God was speaking through clay. You might say that this communication was only a letter. Yes, it was a letter, but prompted by the Spirit of God to bring before your minds things that have been shown me. In these letters which I write, in these testimonies that I bear, I am presenting to you that which the Lord has presented to me. I do not write one article in the paper expressing merely my own ideas. They are what God has opened before me in vision—the precious rays of light shining from the throne. GOP 363.7
The same hand that on occasion had to write strong counsels also wrote words of empathy and understanding. To one recipient she wrote, “I do not consider your case hopeless; if I did, my pen would not be tracing these lines.” GOP 364.1
Hope among the words of counsel! In another place she wrote: “Even as I write, my eyes are filled with tears. I have tried to give you the words spoken by the One through whom I have often received instruction.” GOP 364.2
In late 1891, shortly after she arrived in Australia, God used Ellen White’s hands in a most unusual way. Nathaniel D. Faulkhead, a respected businessman who was also a prominent member of the Freemasons and several other secret societies, became an Adventist. His business abilities soon led to his employment as the Echo Publishing House treasurer, but his lodge responsibilities increasingly took precedence over his interests in the work of God.GOP 364.3
In a private interview Ellen White warned Faulkhead about the impossibility of his being deeply involved in his various organizations and a wholehearted Christian at the same time. While repeating words spoken to her by her angel guide, twice she made a movement with her hand. Faulkhead recognized that she had made two “secret signs,” the latter one known only to the highest order of the male-only organization to which he belonged—a sign therefore that no woman could know. After hearing that by such involvement he could lose his soul, he became convinced that her testimony to him was of God. In time he was able to write to Ellen White that his terms of office in the various societies had ended.GOP 364.4
Hands, busy hands. Whether used by God to give a secret sign to help save a person, working in her garden, picking fruit from fruit trees, or holding her Bible while leading out in family worship in her home after her husband’s death, Ellen’s hands were always busy.GOP 364.5
A White family story, dating probably from the 1860s, recalled James’s lack of enthusiasm for his wife’s interest in using her hands to braid rag rugs. Repeatedly he asked her to put out of sight the piles of various-colored rags that she had saved for making her rag carpets. Apparently in an act of total frustration, one day James walked home from the office singing:GOP 364.6
There’ll be no rag carpets there;
There’ll be no rag carpets there.
In heaven above, where all is love,
There’ll be no rag carpets there.GOP 364.7
Ellen got the point. She soon traded the piles of rags for balls of yarn that she used for knitting socks, because that was something else that her busy hands could be doing for others. In fact, it is said that while listening to Elders E. J. Waggoner and A. T. Jones preach during the 1888 General Conference session, Ellen White sat in the congregation knitting socks. Why not? After all, there were church workers in the northern parts of Europe who would soon be facing another cold winter. So while her heart was being warmed by the preaching of Elders Jones and Waggoner, her hands were busily knitting socks to warm the cold feet of our missionaries. Ellen White had a passion for mission everywhere—from the neighbor next door to people living in the remotest parts of the world. She also strongly urged comprehensive evangelism for the large cities of earth.GOP 364.8