McLaughlin, R.R. 1868. Michigan camp meeting grounds, 19th century. Database online. Courtesy Center for Adventist Research.
“[We] stood side by side in our ministerial work,” she reflected. How could she bear alone the burdens they had always shared together?
In late August 1882, she was struck by a severe chill and fever, a condition that lingered for weeks. Her condition remained frail into the autumn. Yet, in this state of weakness, Ellen White chose to attend the California Conference camp meeting in Healdsburg, held October 5–17, 1882.
Friends from across the country sent word they were praying for her recovery. On the first Sabbath, October 7, she remained too weak to leave her bed. But at noon she requested, “Prepare me a place in the large tent where I can hear the speaker. Possibly the sound of the speaker’s voice will prove a blessing to me. I am hoping for something to bring new life.”
That afternoon, J.H. Waggoner spoke on the development of the Seventh-day Adventist movement and the growing threat of Sunday law — an issue absent from the political discourse in America just 25 years earlier. Ellen White, pale and frail, was brought onto the platform on a couch. Observers whispered that she looked like a “candidate for the grave.” No one expected her to speak.
But when Waggoner finished, she turned to her son W.C. White and assistant Jenny Ings. “Help me onto my feet,” she said. She wanted to say something.
What followed astonished everyone. “Her voice and appearance changed,” Waggoner recalled, “and she spoke for some time with clearness and energy.” At the moment she began to speak, her strength returned. Uriah Smith, also present, wrote that “she was immediately and wonderfully strengthened, so that she was able to attend meetings thereafter as usual.”
Calling people to commit themselves to God and His service, she invited those ready to take a stand to come forward. Many did. The following Sabbath, October 14, she renewed her appeal. “Over seventy came forward,” Waggoner recounted. On Monday, 35 were baptized, with others choosing to be baptized later at home.
By the end of the camp meeting, Ellen White had spoken six times — more than any other speaker.
Ellen White’s experience at the 1882 Healdsburg camp meeting reminds us that God often meets us in our weakness and restores us for His purposes. Her healing was not just for her own comfort — it was for the blessing of others and the advancement of His work. When we are at our lowest, God may be preparing us for our most fruitful service.
Denis Kaiser is an associate professor of church history at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University.
