Rosalind's Engagement Ring

One Saturday Rosalind sat in the Toronto Mission Union waiting to play the organ. A few days earlier she had met a rather shabbily dressed young man named Jonathan Goforth. Just as the meeting was about to begin, Jonathan Goforth was called out of the room. He had been sitting across the corner from her with several people between. When he rose, he placed his Bible on the chair.

Suddenly, Rosalind felt literally impelled to step across four or five people, take up the Bible and return to her seat. Rapidly she turned the leaves and found the Book worn almost to shreds in parts and marked from cover to cover. She closed it and quickly returned it to the chair. Returning to her seat, she tried to look very innocent. As she sat there, she said to herself, "That is the man I would like to marry!"

She and Jonathan were both chosen to be on a committee formed to open a new mission in Toronto. In the following weeks, she had many opportunities to glimpse the greatness of the man that a shabby exterior could not hide. So when he asked, "Will you join your life with mine for China?" she immediately responded, "Yes."

But a few days later he said, "Will you give me your promise that always you will allow me to put my Lord and His work first, even before you?" She gave an inward gasp but remembering this was the kind of man she had prayed for, she replied, "Yes, I will, always."

A few days later the first test in keeping her promise came. She had been dreaming about wearing a beautiful engagement ring. Jonathan came to her and asked, "You will not mind, will you, if I do not get an engagement ring?" He went on to tell with great enthusiasm of his distribution of pamphlets on China. Every cent was needed for this important work. As she listened and watched his glowing face, her visions of a beautiful ring vanished. Instead, a deep desire to be a worthy life-partner of one so wholly yielded to his Divine Master began to form.

Give us wisdom, Lord, to live for what has true value.

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18).