Elisabeth Elliot

On Monday morning, Elisabeth Elliot slipped from her earthly body into eternity to meet the God who she loved and served. 

I will always consider Elisabeth my teacher. No, I never met her, never sat in one of her audiences, but she was my teacher nonetheless. Through her books*, through her radio show Gateway to Joy, and through her newsletter, she passed along invaluable truths and wise, straightforward advice. 

Who can forget her low, soothing voice opening each radio show with these words:

"You are loved with an everlasting love -- that's what the Bible says -- and underneath are the everlasting arms." 

Oh, how I appreciated her gentle, quiet instruction! Her demeanor was calm and reassuring. When she advised us to "Do the next thing," it was with quiet authority and I believed that I could do that thing, whatever it was. No fretting or spinning my wheels...just doing the next thing. 

Elisabeth encouraged us to live a life of submission...primarily, submission to God and to His plan for our lives, but also to our husbands as God has set the order. 

She understood and taught the value of femininity, contrary to popular opinion. (But Elisabeth was not swayed by popular opinion!)

"A Christian woman's true freedom lies on the other side of a very small gate -- humble obedience --but that gate leads out into a largeness of life undreamed of by the liberators of the world, to a place where the God-given differentiation between the sexes is not obfuscated but celebrated, where our inequalities are seen as essential to the image of God, for it is in male and female, in male as male, and female as female, not as two identical and interchangeable halves, that the image is manifested."

She taught the Biblical principle of servanthood and how it looks in everyday life. Changing the baby's diaper. Preparing another meal. Cleaning the bathroom. Buying the groceries. And offering it all to the Lord as a sacrifice. The most mundane task is not demeaning, but holy when offered to the Lord. Servanthood is "a chance to die." 

And she taught acceptance, adopting Amy Carmichael's words, "In acceptance lieth peace" as her own guiding principle for living. We could accept these words from Elisabeth in the midst of our own hard things, because we saw her demonstrating them throughout her life. When she became a young widow after her husband Jim and his fellow missionaries were killed by the Auca tribesman, we saw her acceptance of God's plan, even returning to that same tribe to carry the Gospel of Jesus. We saw her acceptance of His will in the death of her second husband. Through her writings, we saw her acceptance of God's plan in big and small ways, in her encouragement to "keep a quiet heart" even when we don't understand what His purpose is.

She continued to demonstrate that truth to the end. She faced the final stage of her life as she had faced so many other things...with quiet acceptance and submission to her Heavenly Father who does all things well. In this article that appeared online early last year, Elisabeth's husband Lars Gren talked about her final years with dementia. I found this touching, and so encouraging.

Gren says Elliot has handled dementia just as she did the deaths of her husbands. "She accepted those things, [knowing] they were no surprise to God," Gren said. "It was something she would rather not have experienced, but she received it."

Hearing these words, Elliot looked up and nodded, her eyes clear and strong. Then she spoke for the first time during the two-hour interview, nodding vigorously: "Yes."

Although my teacher has stepped "through gates of splendor," her lessons live on. 

*Books by Elisabeth Elliot that I have read and recommend: 

• Through Gates of Splendor The beautiful story of the life of Jim Elliot. This book was influential in my son's life as a young adult. 
• Keep a Quiet Heart A compilation of essays, many taken from her newsletters. This is one of my favorites. I read it over and over, and have given many as gifts.
• Passion and Purity The story of Elisabeth and Jim's courtship. This is required high school reading in my homeschool.
• Let Me Be a Woman Letters to her daughter about what it means to be a Christian woman.
• The Christian Family The story of Elisabeth's family of origin.
• A Chance to Die  Elisabeth's biography of missionary Amy Carmichael.