Conclusion

As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him. PSALM 18:30

We have covered a good deal of ground in these chapters — her life, God’s sovereignty, the next thing, suffering, acceptance and offering, obedience, discipline, love and purity, loneliness, womanhood, the Christian home, the idols of the mind, the way of the cross, the quiet heart, the question why, and gratitude. It would be easy to come away thinking that Elisabeth Elliot taught many things. In truth she taught one thing, from many angles, for nearly half a century. God is sovereign, and God is love. Because He is both, the believer can accept whatever He gives, obey whatever He commands, and offer everything back to Him.

One thread

Look back over the chapters and the thread is plain. Her teaching on suffering is that truth applied to pain. Her teaching on the next thing is that truth applied to an ordinary morning. Her teaching on discipline and obedience is that truth applied to the body, the mind, the diary and the will. Passion and Purity is that truth applied to desire; Loneliness to the empty room; Let Me Be a Woman to marriage; The Shaping of a Christian Family to the home. No Graven Image is that truth turned against our own images of God. A Chance to Die is that truth lived out in another woman’s life. Keep a Quiet Heart, On Asking God Why and her years of radio are that truth applied to fear, to questions and to praise.

For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. ROMANS 11:36

A teacher, weighed

We have tried to be honest. She could be stern, and some found her manner cool or her counsel austere. Her teaching on womanhood and submission is held by many faithful Christians and questioned by many others. Her refusal of tidy endings unsettled readers who wanted missionary stories to end in victory. Her strong temperament sometimes made acceptance sound easier than it is for gentler souls. None of this has been raised to diminish her. She would have insisted on it. She had no patience with hero-worship, least of all of herself, and she took pains to correct the legend that had grown up around her first husband’s death.

What stands, when all of that is weighed, is a body of teaching unusually close to Scripture and unusually tested by life. She did not teach acceptance from a sheltered place. She taught it as a widow, twice; as a missionary whose work had been stolen and set back again and again; and in the end as a woman whose mind was slowly failing. Her teaching was paid for.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. 2 CORINTHIANS 4:7

What to do with it

The danger for any reader of a book like this is that they will admire her and change nothing. She would have regarded that as a failure — hers, and theirs. So here is the plainest counsel this companion can give. Go back to the chapter that made you uncomfortable — not the one you enjoyed, but the one you would rather not read again. That is likely to be where God is at work. Take its points for reflection and act on them, slowly, one at a time. Then do the next thing.

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. JAMES 1:22

Two things to carry

Carry away, first, the everlasting arms. Every day of her radio ministry began with that promise, and it is the ground of everything else she taught. You can accept what God gives because His love for you is everlasting. You can obey Him because His arms are underneath. You can offer Him your losses because nothing laid in those hands is ever wasted.

Carry away, second, the offering. The single thing she asked of her readers, again and again, was that they would give back to God whatever He had given them — joys and sorrows, plans and disappointments, marriage and singleness, strength and weakness. She believed that nothing so offered is lost. In that she was simply repeating the teaching of the Lord, who said that the one who loses his life for His sake will find it.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. MATTHEW 16:25

A last word about the woman

In her last years she could no longer write, speak or remember much of what she had taught. Her husband Lars cared for her at home in Magnolia until she died on 15 June 2015, aged eighty-eight. Some who loved her found that ending hard to understand: that the woman who had taught so many to trust God in suffering should herself lose the mind with which she had trusted. But it fitted her teaching better than any triumphant final chapter could have done. The everlasting arms do not depend on our remembering them. They hold us when we can no longer hold on.

And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you. ISAIAH 46:4

The right response to her is not admiration but faith in the God she served.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Return to the chapter of this book that most troubled you. Read it again, and act this week on the first of its points.

2. Name one thing God has given you — a joy or a sorrow — that you have not yet offered back to Him. Offer it today.

3. Obtain one of her own books and begin reading it this month, beginning with the guide in the next chapter.

4. Ask what the next thing is that God has given you to do. Do it.

5. Pray for someone who is old, or failing, or no longer able to remember, and if you can, visit them.

A PRAYER

Lord God, Your way is perfect, and Your word is tried. You are a shield to all who trust in You.

Thank You for the servant whose teaching we have been considering, and for the many You have steadied through her.

Do not let me stop at admiring her. Teach me to accept what You give, to obey what You command, and to offer You everything.

When I am old, carry me. When I cannot hold on, hold me. You have loved me with an everlasting love, and underneath are the everlasting arms. Amen.