As a young woman, Ann Hasseltine’s interest in religion, particularly in missions, grew.  One evening, her family hosted a dinner for twenty-eight ministers who came to her town to discuss church issues.  One of those ministers was Adoniram Judson. 

Adoniram Judson’s interest in missions excited him as a student at Andover Theological Seminary.  He and other ministers met to plan an organization through which missionaries would travel to other places in the world.  He came to Ann’s hometown to ask this group of ministers to encourage their churches to support missionaries.  Adoniram and his friends organized the first mission society, a group of churches committed to sending missionaries to foreign lands.  

Ann impressed Adoniram when they met at her home, and he wrote to ask her to marry him.   But Adoniram was going to be a Christian missionary in a foreign country.  Ann’s father did not want her to marry Adoniram.   He said that he would tie her to a bedpost before he would let her live in another country!

Ann prayed for God’s guidance in making her decision.  She wrote:

I am a creature of God, and he has an undoubted right to do with me, as seems good in his sight.  I rejoice, that I am in his hands – that he is everywhere present, and can protect me in one place as well as in another….But whether I spend my days in India or America, I desire to spend them in the service of God.

An Excerpt from Portraits of Courage: Stories of Baptist Heroes by Julie Whidden Long

www.baptisthistory.org/catalog.htm

What humility!  What insight! What commitment!

May Ann Hasseltine Judson’s prayer be our own as we seek to live out our days in God’s service.