Florence Nightingale ~ Deny the Self and Put Aside all Vanity!

Yes, deny the self and put all vanity aside. This is difficult for western women especially young women and including all those who think they are modest Christians. The story of Florence Nightingale is one worth reading to young women and old alike. Florence was born in Florence Italy in 1820 to wealthy British parents. She was expected to marry up and continue the upward mobility for herself and family. Advice we might expect to hear from parents today.

From a very young age, Florence Nightingale was active in philanthropy, ministering to the ill and poor people in the village neighboring her family’s estate. By the time she was 16 years old, it was clear to her that nursing was her calling. She believed it to be her divine purpose.

When Nightingale approached her parents and told them about her ambitions to become a nurse, they were not pleased. In fact, her parents forbade her to pursue nursing. During the Victorian Era, a young lady of Nightingale's social stature was expected to marry a man of means—not take up a job that was viewed as lowly menial labor by the upper social classes. When Nightingale was 17 years old, she refused a marriage proposal from a "suitable" gentleman, Richard Monckton Milnes.

Nightingale explained her reason for turning him down, saying that while he stimulated her intellectually and romantically, her "moral…active nature…requires satisfaction, and that would not find it in this life." 

It is in Matthew that we learn what it means to follow Christ. Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me. For you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” Then Jesus told His disciples, "If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.…Matthew 16:23-25.

Florence at a young age knew that this world of things, of marriage, prestige, wealth and status would pass away. She was committed to others and their comfort while in this world, as we in Christ are in it but not of it. "If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you" ~ John 15:19.Yes, do not run after things of this world... "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them" ~ 1 John 2:15.

"...those who weep, as if they did not; those who are joyful, as if they were not; those who make a purchase, as if they had nothing; and those who use the things of this world, as if not dependent on them, for this world in its present form is passing away" ~ 1 COR 7:30-31.


"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will" ~ Romans 12:2.

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