Options - Henriette Odin Feller

1800–68

It’s the early 1800s. You’re a young woman, born to a wealthy family in Switzerland. What do you expect to be when you grow up? A wife, of course.

Henriette Feller followed the same path most of her contemporaries did—she married and began a family. Her only child died young. Henriette’s husband, Louis, died also, leaving her single and childless.

We don’t know how she felt about those circumstances, but we do know that after her husband died she was granted “independent legal status.” Before she married, she was a dependent of her father. After she married, she was a dependent of her husband. It seems insulting, but that’s the way it was in Europe at that time: to make her own decisions, she needed an official court action.

Henriette used her freedom for all it was worth, doing the things she believed God wanted her to do. She preached the gospel in Quebec and later in the United States, using an interpreter (she spoke French). She distributed Bibles in France. She taught school.

Feller’s longest-lasting efforts were educational. In 1854, she established Institute Feller, a school for girls. A second school she helped build years later would eventually merge with Institute Feller and educate both girls and boys. That school existed until 1967.

Being married and having children is a wonderful thing, and it seems as if that was Henriette’s first choice. When she found herself widowed and childless, she realized that her new situation had its opportunities too.

We all have certain responsibilities and certain freedoms. Sometimes people wish they were married, or wish they weren’t. They wish they had kids, or wish they didn’t. If only my life were different, then I could do things that really matter. On the other hand, there are widows, divorcées, and empty nesters who struggle with their change in status. What am I supposed to do now?

You are more, much more than your relationship status. Whatever your family responsibilities are, God wants to use you to do things that matter—in your home, in the wider world, or both. Whether you’re married, unmarried, with kids or without kids, how are you running with the freedoms that your status provides?

You are free, yet you are God’s slaves, so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil.

1 Peter 2:16