Chapter Fourteen—The Smiles of God

She was now a very old lady. She had started to work for the Lord when she was just a girl, and she had worked for Him all these years. She had traveled and preached, she had written books and taught, and she had given counsel how to live and how to make the work greater. When she started she was very ill and poor, but the Lord blessed her and helped her so that she grew better, and she lived a long life.SWhite 116.1

In her home at Elmshaven her rooms were upstairs. But she always came down to family worship in the evening. She was very deaf then, so that to make her hear, one had to speak loudly in her ear. Brother Crisler would sit down next to her, and read from the Bible, and then he would pray, close by her side. After he had prayed Sister White would always pray. And she prayed the most beautiful, simple prayers. It seemed as though she were talking to Jesus right there in the room, and we could almost hear Him answering. After worship she would go alone upstairs to her room. One evening as she walked to the stairway with her quick, light step, I walked along by her side with my hand on her elbow. And I offered to help her up the stairs. But she turned to me, and said:SWhite 116.2

“Oh, no, thank you! I don’t need anyone to help me up the stairs. Why, I am as spry as when I was a girl. As when I was a girl?”—she paused. “Well, I should say so. When I was a girl I was weak and sick, and they thought I would die. But the Lord has blessed me all these years, and given me health, and now I am better, much better, than when I was a girl.”SWhite 117.1

One day she took my arm and led me outdoors. “I want to show you my garden,” she said. She always loved the beautiful things that God had made. When she was a girl, twelve years old, you remember, the day she was converted she went out into the garden, among the flowers. And as she put her hand lovingly under a rose of Sharon, and lifted up its face to hers, she thought, “If God so loves and cares for the flowers He has decked with beauty, how much more tenderly will He guard the children who are made in His image.” And she said softly: “I am a child of God. His loving care is around me. I will obey Him, and never displease Him. I will praise His dear name and love Him always.”SWhite 117.2

Now for seventy-five years she had kept that vow. Always she had loved the Lord Jesus, and she had obeyed Him and done His will. He had blessed her, and made her a great blessing to others. And ever she studied more deeply into the beautiful things He had made, and daily they drew her near to God.SWhite 117.3

Now out in the garden she took me from flower bed to flower bed and from shrub to shrub. Some of the things she had planted with her own hands, and nearly every day she came out to watch them grow, and through them to look into the face of God and listen to His teachings.SWhite 118.1

We stopped before a beautiful bed of pansies. You know, pansies look almost like human faces, with their great velvety eyes. They seem to be smiling at you, and you want to stoop down and kiss them. Sister White knelt down before the pansy bed. She put her hand under one and then another, and turned their faces upward. And quietly, almost so low I could not hear, she murmured, “The smiles of God! The smiles of God!”SWhite 118.2

Yes, God is smiling to us through the flowers He has made. And of all the flowers, perhaps the pansy seems the sweetest of His smiles. The roses too bring messages from Him. Not only do they bring the smiles of God in their lovely buds and petals, but they smell so sweet they shed abroad the fragrance of His presence. And the lilies, tall and stately, white as the purity of God’s love, bring messages from Him. Some of the lilies are little and short, and some are colored and spotted like sprinklings from the brush with which God paints the rainbows. There are so many flowers, with so many different shapes and colors and perfumes, we wonder where God gets them all. But though we may know more and more about God, we can never find out the fullness of His knowledge and His love.SWhite 118.3

Sister White loved the gardens. She enjoyed working in them. She liked to plant the seeds—those round or flat or many-cornered bundles of the life of God. Down in the dark, warm, moist earth they would feel the touch of God’s hand, and stir to life. Soon their little green heads would peep above the ground. Their roots would go down and down and out and out, and their tiny mouths would suck in food, to send in the sap through all the plant, and make it grow and flower and bear fruit. So is the life and love of God in us, when God touches our souls and brings us to bear fruit for Him.SWhite 119.1

But not only the quiet, lovely gardens tell us of God. The earth is filled with His goodness. The great trees that lift their leafy arms above the earth are praying, and praising their Creator. The rounded hills, the lofty mountains, the running brooks and the thundering waterfalls, all carry messages from God our Father. And the sea—the great waste of ocean spread round the earth, in its many storms and in its smiling calms—is held in the hand of God.SWhite 119.2

Sister White loved too these grand tokens of the power of God. Sometimes in her busy life she had gone to rest amid the mountains and the forests. While her husband, James White, lived, they had sometimes gone together into the bosom of the mountains, and there they talked with God together, praying and listening in the groves and under the deep blue sky. After he died, though she was very lonely, she found it precious to go back and talk with Jesus there.SWhite 119.3

At times she rode in the ships upon the sea. And when the wind blew and the waves rose and the ship was tossed about, she would remember the days and the nights the disciples spent with Jesus on the Sea of Galilee, and how because He was there, they were safe with Him. He commanded the sea, and it obeyed Him; He stilled the waves, and they were calm. So on the stormy ocean she felt His presence with her, and rested in His care.SWhite 120.1

But oh, how sweet it was to come back to the lovely garden, and live among its trees and shrubs and flowers. How happy she was to listen to the singing of the birds and to smell the fragrance of the roses, to kneel down before the pansies and murmur, “The smiles of God! The smiles of God!”SWhite 120.2

So did she when she was a girl; so did she when she grew to be a woman. Thus she talked with God while her husband was at her side; thus she comforted her soul after she was left alone. Now in her last years, when she was an old, old lady, she walked and talked with God in His garden.SWhite 120.3

Elmshaven was a haven under the elms. The last time she left it for a long journey was in 1909, when she was eighty-two years old. That year she journeyed the thousands of miles across the land to the General Conference at Washington. And on the way she stopped in many places, and taught the people.SWhite 120.4

But she was glad to come back to Elmshaven to her garden and to her books. She wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages telling the people what God had shown to her in visions. And her helpers would gather together things she had written in years gone by, and which were filed away in the office. They would bring these to her, and she would put them into articles for the Review and Herald and the Youth’s Instructor, or into books for the people.SWhite 121.1

And many people came to see her. She could not talk with all who wanted to talk with her, for the work had grown through all the world, and there were thousands who would have taken up all her time if they should come. But she was always kind and helpful, and she sent out messages of cheer to the workers and to the parents and to the young people and to the children.SWhite 121.2

So passed the last years and the last days of her life at Elmshaven. God was very near to her, and Jesus was precious to her soul. She walked and she talked with her heavenly Father, and with her Saviour and Friend, and always she felt upon her the smiles of God.SWhite 121.3