Life & Limb; The Story of Dr. Eleanor Chesnut
Last Monday I mentioned my adventure researching a footnote I’d lost.
Found it.
This fits into a book I started writing off and on (mostly off) about 15 years ago. It’s a book about divine guidance called If God Leads Me, Why Do I Run In Circles.
The book looks at ways God guides people. It draws on incidents from Scripture, incidents from the lives of notable Christians, and incidents from my own 30+ years worth of diaries. And, as I said Monday, “I really hesitate to ever pontificate saying, “God Led Me To…”. I feel more comfortable saying, “It seemed like a good idea at the time”.
But I’m delighted to have found the references I searched for to quote from Dr. Eleanor Chesnut. Here is an excerpt from my manuscript:
Life And Limb
Dr. Eleanor Chesnut
The Lord God promised the Prophet Isaiah, “I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them”.
Jesus once said, “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth”.
Throughout the ages men and women of God have actually staked life and limb on such Scriptural promises of divine guidance.
Life and limb?
Yes.
Life and limb.
Take Dr. Eleanor Chesnut for example:
Her father deserted and her mother died when she was little so the Iowa girl was raised in extreme poverty by charitable neighbors. She begged her way into Park College by appealing directly to the president of the school. She was allowed in as a charity student and dressed herself from the school's mission barrel for needy students. She became a Christian at college.
In 1888, she entered the Woman's Medical College in Chicago where she excelled in her studies. She did volunteer work in a women's prison and she also enrolled in the Moody Bible Institute.
In 1893, she applied to the Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board in New York.
“I am willing to be sent to whatever location may be deemed fittest,” she said. “But being asked if I had a preference, my thoughts turned to Siam... I do not, however, set my heart on any one place, but rather pray that wherever it may be will be the appointed one, that what powers I posses may be used to the best advantage”.
The board assigned her to South China.
In 1898 as she served as the only physician at a hospital in Lien-Chou, a man was brought in with a severe infection. She found a volunteer to help hold the patient down (I think this was in the days before chloroform) and with no other help, Dr. Chesnut amputated the leg.
Unfortunately, the flaps of flesh covering the amputation did not mesh as the surgery healed.
A skin graft proved necessary.
When none of the man's relatives nor anyone else would volunteer, Dr. Chesnut cut a large patch of skin from her own thigh and used it for her patient.
Did God lead her to do that?
Dr. Chesnut heard no voice from Heaven commanding her to do it; she relied on the promises of Scripture concerning God's will, guidance and leading.
She wrote a friend at home, “Every morning I have a choice little time all to my lonesome. First I read the new quotation on the calendar, then the thought for the day in 'Daily Strength For Daily Needs' and finally play and sing a hymn.”
Was it only on the basis of a quote from a Scripture calendar and a little Scripture passage in a page-a-day devotional book, that this woman decided that it was the will of God for her to risk her own leg to gangrene?
How did she know what God was leading her to do?
In a letter before she left for China she told a friend about her reasons for wanting to be a missionary in the first place:
“I have had developed in me a liking for medical study, although I did not seriously think of the matter until of late. It seemed to me such an utter impossibility to carry out the design, as I am without means and without friends to assist. But I do trust that I am by divine appointment fitted for this work. My age—twenty-one next January. Oh! I just long to do this work.”
She liked medical studies; she wanted to do useful work. Were her personal likings and wantings the voice of God leading her?
On October 29, 1905, at the height of anti-foreign sentiment in China, three new missionaries arrived at the Lien-Chou hospital; a single woman and a married couple with their 11-year-old daughter.
Less than 48 hours later a Chinese mob attacked the hospital. The little girl was stabbed to death and thrown in the river. Her parents and the single woman were clubbed to death. Four men from the mob threw Dr. Chesnut into the river then one of them speared her with a pitchfork—“once in the neck, once in the breast, and once in the lower part of the abdomen”. The other men jumped in the water and held Dr. Chesnut under till she drowned.
What can we make of this?
Would God led three new dedicated missionaries and an innocent child to be on station for less than two days then allow them to be murdered?
Was it God's will for an experienced physician who loved Him and desired to serve Him to be forked to death?
Did God guide His people to this point?
Should the missionaries have gotten out to safety when they saw the anti-foreign riots begin in the Boxer Rebellion years before?
How did Dr. Chesnut and her friends decide what was the will of God for them? Why did she think God was guiding her to stay on duty at the hospital? Was she positive that God was leading her?
The same day she died, the Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board received a letter from Dr. Chesnut who wrote weeks earlier; in it she wrote a poem concerning her own questions concerning divine guidance:
Being in doubt, I say
Lord, make it plain!
Which is the true, safe way?
Which would be in vain?
I am not wise to know,
Not sure of foot to go,
My blind eyes cannot see
What is so clear to Thee;
Lord, make it clear to me.
Being perplexed, I say,
Lord, make it right!
Night is as day to Thee,
Darkness as light.
I am afraid to touch
Things that involve so much;
My trembling hand may shake,
My skilless hand may break—
Thine can make no mistake.
Notice the words Dr. Chesnut uses: doubt, blind, perplexed, afraid, trembling. I like this lady! I can identify with her questions about recognizing God's guidance for sure.
She is confidant of God's trustworthiness, positive that God won't make a mistake; but she is not at all sure of her own ability to see His will and follow His way.
I think I know how she feels in this poem.
I feel exactly the same way.
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posted by John Cowart @ 4:05 AM
4 Comments:
As I am reading this I call to mind a very close friend thirty-something years ago. We discussed how we would know the will of God. He was of the opinion that if he were properly attuned, like a radio on the right station, God would continually lead him moment by moment. He frequently condemned himself for what he called "missing God" about something when he made what he perceived to be a mistake. We got into some arguments about this. It seemed to me that God, in his perception, was unable to get through on His own. Anyway, some time after we parted and grew apart, I was reading in Acts, I think it is chapter 16 where it states that Paul, the great apostle, "assayed" to go, I think, into Bythinia. To assay means to determine something by trial and error. Interesting that an apostle should have to do this. But is seems, until there is definite leading ("Come over to Macedonia and help us") God is content for us to bump around like rats in a maze until we find the right path to take -- or get run over or killed.
Wes
Thanks for this wonderful post!
I adore your questions throughout and can relate to questioning.
I know that sometimes I hear the voice of God and it sounds just like any other thought in my head, only I feel that it is a God thought. Sometimes I feel like He leads me through His Word. Sometimes I feel like He uses circumstances and serendipitous events. Sometimes He uses wise counsel form godly people or even good ideas that spark my heart from someone who doesn't know Him. But sometimes....I just don't know.
I'm glad that God is so much bigger than all my circumstances, my sins, my doubts and my mistakes. That ultimately, if things go well or bad, He is still in charge of the universe and I can trust my life to Him.
Wow! Dad. We think so differently. I'd see this happening as a sigh of hope. Yet you seem to see it as a point of doubt in yourself.
I can only say that there is no death. The body alone dies and yes, it is fearful. But We live on forever.
Folks tell me that the end time is coming in 2012 or maybe it's 2013. ;) I think the Mayan's got tired and said what the hell.
"we've done this much, they can figure it out".
Maybe the times are changing and we younger pups hold more hope?
I'm not all that young at this point, but perhaps the attitude applies.
I often wonder if I'm heading down the wrong path. And I pray I'm not.
Proof is in the pudding I suppose.
Love you Dad.
Johnny.
Well, john. I have to hand it to you. no matter what you always find the good in what you do. why is it that people who have nothing, expect to find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There is always those that say why do I have to work and provide and not do anything other than spread my legs and I will get another increase in my welfare check. How bout this. Write Wellfair, and welfare and then try and figure out why it comes out as a type-o when you write it. is it something to do with how the GOV is making it out to be a good thing?
Why do people try to find the good in so much bad? why do people feel it's ok to say that some people have a right to be angry? and yes I am talking about the blacks. who is really racist? white? or Black? you tell me, I know that most white people feel to blame for the black man. but why? did I say if you have a problem just blame it on the white dude and it will be ok. no
Oh and by the way. let a black dude walk through a white hood, it's ok. he will make it. but let a white dude walk through a black hood. and yes he will have a cap busted in his ass. Trust me on this.
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