Following the Great Disappointment (October 22, 1844), when Jesus did not return to earth as Adventist believers had expected, individual Christians picked up the pieces of their shattered lives and started all over again. The small group found encouragement in each other’s company. Rededicated to understanding the Bible, to praying for guidance, to doing their best in this world, they continued to meet together to study and pray.

On a cold December morning in 1844, five young women were having worship together on the second floor of a country house in South Portland, Maine. While the women were praying, one of them, Ellen Harmon, felt incredibly overpowered by the Holy Spirit.

“I was wrapped in a vision of God’s glory,” she later recalled, “and I seemed to be rising higher and higher; far above the dark world.” 

During this “vision,” which Seventh-day Adventists believe was a miraculous gift from a loving God, Ellen saw the discouraged Advent believers walking along a path which led to heaven. Behind the travelers was a light, identified as the events they had just experienced. Ahead of them, at the end of the path, was the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city where they would enter eternity.

Whenever the believers would become disheartened, Jesus would, encourage them by raising His right arm. A glorious light would shine on the pathway, and the Advent people would shout, “Hallelujah!”

The message of the vision was clear. Ellen shared her understanding later: “If they kept their eyes fixed on Jesus, who was just before them, leading them to the city, they were safe.” 

It wouldn’t be the last time God sent encouragement through Ellen. For the next 70 years Ellen listened to God’s voice and spoke to the growing church of His will for our lives. Ellen and her husband, James White, became leaders in the church. They traveled around the world, preaching, teaching, helping to establish schools and hospitals, writing dozens of books and scores of magazine articles, and sharing their vision for Seventh-day Adventists.

At every step of the way, through acceptance and opposition, through endorsement of her ministry and misunderstanding of her purpose, Ellen’s message stayed the same: keep your eyes on Jesus.

“Do not allow your minds to be diverted from the all-important theme of the righteousness of Christ,” Ellen cautioned us in 1892.

“There is one great central truth to be kept ever before the mind in the searching of the Scriptures — Christ and Him crucified. Every other truth is invested with influence and power corresponding to its relation to this theme.”

“I can never doubt my mission,” she wrote in 1903, “for I am a participant in the privileges and am nourished and vivified [made alive], knowing that I am called unto the grace of Christ. Every time I set forth the truth to the people, and call their attention to eternal life which Christ has made possible for us to obtain, I am as much benefited as they with most gracious discoveries of the grace and love and the power of God in behalf of His people.”

—Taken from Walking On the Edge (Lincoln, NE: AdventSource, 1996), 24, 25.


Notes From Ellen’s Life

1. Ellen Gould Harmon and her twin sister, Elizabeth, were born on November 26, 1827 in Gorham, Maine.
2. Ellen’s and Elizabeth’s parents, Robert and Eunice Harmon, already had six children when twins were born. The Harmon family attended the Chestnut Street Methodist Church.
3. When Ellen was nine years old, a schoolmate threw a rock in anger, which struck her in the face,  causing a concussion and breaking her nose. Ellen was in a coma for three weeks. Most people thought she would die. When she recovered and first saw her disfigured face in a mirror, she wanted to die.  Later in the school year, Ellen attempted to return to school. But her health had been permanently weakened; she dropped out of school, ending her formal education.
4. Ellen married James White in Portland, Maine on Sunday, August 30, 1846. James was 25, Ellen was 18.  James and Ellen had three children, all boys: Henry, Edson, and Willie.
5. Ellen died on July 16, 1915 at Elmshaven in northern California.

1.    Arthur L. White, Ellen G. White: The Early Years, Vol. 1, 1827-1862 (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1985), 55.
2.    Ellen White, Early Writings, 13.
3.    Ellen White, The Day-Star, Jan. 24, 1846.
4.    Ellen White, Review and Herald, April 5, 1892.
5.    Ellen White, MS 31, 1890 (Ellen White Comments on the Bible Commentary, 1084).
6.    Ellen White, MS 174, 193 (Selected Messages, Volume 3, 76).
7.    Arthur L. White, Ellen G. White: The Early Years, 18, 32.
8.    Ellen White, Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 2, 9.


“From: ABZ’s of Adventist Youth Ministry”
© 2000 John Hancock Center for Youth and Family Ministry
Permission to copy for use in the local congregation or group.