Lord, If I Can Ever Do Anything For You, Just Let Me Know!


For the last few days, I’ve been working on a writing project for Turning Points Magazine, and during the research I came across the inspiring story of Lillian Trasher. In 1910, she was engaged to be married, but just before the wedding she heard a missionary speaker whose sermon challenged her to the core of her being.

Breaking her engagement, she booked passage on a ship headed to Egypt. Arriving there with less than a hundred dollars, she immediately started looking after neglected and unwanted children. Lillian went on to establish the first orphanage in Egypt, then she started schools and evangelistic ministries. By the time of her death in 1961, she had cared for more than 8,000 orphans and touched thousands of others. She invested more than a half-century’s service in Egypt without a furlough; and her memory is beloved in Egypt to this day, where she is still known as the “Nile Mother.”

For me, the touching part of the story was the prayer Lillian had offered to the Lord when yet a child. She never forgot it, nor did the Lord. She said: “Lord, I want to be your little girl. If ever I can do anything for You, just let me know and I’ll do it.”

Can you think of a simpler prayer than that?

Lord, if ever I can do anything for You, just let me know and I’ll do it.

That kind of prayer solicits God’s direction for our lives, for He has promised: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).