Dios es Amor It seems your publication isn't ready to go worldw | Page 96

Called By God
her second vision, Ellen had a view of the trials she must endure to relate to others the
truths that God would share through her. She was assured that God’s grace would
sustain her throughout.
Ellen emerged from this vision in a troubled state of mind. Since childhood when her
face had been struck with a rock hurled by an angry playmate, Ellen had been so frail that
she could not attend school. Now, at 17, she was unaccustomed to society, so shy and
retiring that meeting strangers was a painful experience. (From White, Life Sketches, 69.)
As she prayed for the burden to be removed from her young shoulders, Ellen sensed
instead the repeated directive from God that she should share with others what He was
revealing to her. So impossible did the challenge appear, so fraught with certain failure in
her eyes, that she cringed in terror and would have welcomed death as a release.
Through a signal demonstration of divine power during a prayer session, (Ibid., 69-71.
See appendix A, 7.1.) Ellen recovered her trust in God’s leading. Then she was troubled
for fear she might become proud when placed in a special role, even in a religious setting.
She prayed that if she must go out to relate what God was showing her about salvation
and truth, He would somehow protect her from self-exaltation. Satisfied that this request
was granted, Ellen committed herself to follow God’s leading wherever that might be.
Opportunities came for her to bear her testimony in Portland, Maine, 30 miles away,
and then in eastern Maine. Her voice, hoarse and weak, became strong and clear as she
spoke to the congregations that gathered.
Soon she traveled to New Hampshire to address people who were so bitter over the
1844 disappointment that they now denounced as a delusion the movement in which
they had participated. Fanaticism of several sorts had set in. At Orrington through
mutual friends she met Elder James White, a young minister who was doing a similar
work to her own. James and Ellen together exposed incorrect practices and beliefs,
calling their listeners back to the purity of Bible truth. While working together they
developed a close relationship.
Ellen Harmon and James White united their lives in marriage on August 30, 1846.
Their ministry for the Lord formed the focal point in their union. Together they traveled,
seeking to bring souls into Christ’s kingdom. Before long they were convinced that the
seventh day was the Sabbath and incorporated that truth into their teaching and living.
Ellen gave birth to a son, Henry, on August 26, 1847. While James and Ellen traveled
and moved frequently to share the good news of Adventism, for five years a family by
the name of Holl and cared for Henry. (Ibid., 120. See appendix A, 7.2.) Naturally it was
painful to Ellen to leave her baby in someone else’s care and see him only occasionally.
But this was the way she understood her commitment to carry the message of truth
wherever God called.
James and Ellen’s second child, James Edson White, was born July 28, 1849. When
he was six weeks old his parents took him to Paris, Maine, for a meeting at which the
power of God was invoked against fanaticism.

96