For the past few months I’ve been hosting conversations about my most recent project, Elisabeth Elliot: A Life, which is the first full-length single-volume biography of that remarkable and complex woman.
I've read No Graven Image, and appreciated the honest portrayal of "missionary life." I thought it aligned well with her description of the day to day frustrations and distractions in These Strange Ashes.
I've always been sort of amused by Elisabeth's silence around Rachel Saint. And it was mutual! I've heard recordings of Rachel talking about Dayuma and her days with the Aucas and she always sounds as if she worked alone. I suppose they're practicing the "if you can't say something nice..." rule they were taught as children. Having homeschooled a litter of children, I certainly sympathize with Elisabeth's need for civilization and infrastructure for Valerie's schooling, and it would have been wonderful if that were the only reason she left the mission field. Sadly, interpersonal conflict often sends missionaries packing for home.
Yay, another NGI reader! One thing I especially found interesting that there wasn't space to cover in detail in the book was comparing Margaret Sparhawk's struggles writing her prayer letters to supporters with the evolution of EE's prayer letters to supporters over time. When EE (still Betty Howard at that point) writes about the people on the ship she tries to witness to or the college student in Quito who she tries to minister but who quickly loses interest in meeting with her, I saw Margaret's struggles to find evidence of spiritual fruit to share with the folks at home.
Practicing "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all" makes sense. I have wondered, though, if the Waorani would have had the New Testament twenty years sooner had EE seen the idea of "preferring one another as better than yourselves" a little differently, and been willing to make a scene for the sake of the gospel.
I'm glad to hear you're planning to read NGI and would love for you to share your thoughts when you do! I appreciate that refusal of tidy endings, too--it doesn't always feel good but it's true to life and, I think, to the Bible.
And yes, while I do wonder what might have been if she had done things differently, my hat is off to her for being remarkably gracious in a very, very difficult situation.
I found this period of Eliot’s life to the one where I’ve “liked” her the best. Her openness and curiosity are so refreshing. It makes curious to keep reading and learn about how she became the Elliott I first became aware of in the 90s. The 1960s Elliott does not match that version I have in my memory. I read No Graven Image and really enjoyed it. I wish more people had space for its questions and lack of answers.
Yeah, retroactively diagnosing historical figures through a modern lens is a fraught exercise but it's interesting to consider. I'm glad you liked NGI! I'm on a one-person campaign to get everyone to read it. :) And I hope you'll comment again next time on how you see her changing. I, too, appreciated a lot of things about her thinking in this period.
Man, this section of her life. I loved her mostly because I find her SO relatable. I’m still on the field and I’m married, but I find her relatable because I struggle so with the evangelical culture. When I read Vaughn on this period of her life I had just seen my own team experience something similar to the interpersonal conflict between Elliot and Saint, and I am in the middle of your chapter now (bought your book last month!).
From personal observation of similar people on the field, I wonder if Elliot had actually made a scene if it would have ended up any better? Saint probably would have stayed there stubbornly on her own even if her own org had asked her to leave, because her identity was tied up in her work there. I respect that Elliot was able to go and adjust to being a whole person in an entirely different life, away from that pioneering missionary story. Or at least, it seemed for a while that she effectively did that, and later on when in her third marriage it seems to change some.
Thanks for commenting, Kacie! That's a great observation. Kathryn T. Long's book God in the Rainforest shows that's almost exactly what did happen when SIL/Wycliffe eventually put their foot down at the insistence of a male SIL missionary years later. When they asked her to leave to make room for missionaries who would work in a team, Saint left Taewano and SIL and moved back in with the Waorani in another location, where she spent the rest of her life. But even that small bit of movement did make room for a translation team, and the Waorani finally got a New Testament in their language in 1992. And who knows if the org would have listened when Elliot spoke up in the way they did when Jim Yost did. It's easy to second guess in hind sight and very hard to see a clear path in the present, and as you point out Elliot did a very hard thing with a lot of grace in choosing to reinvent her life.
I thought these were fascinating chapters. The conflict with Rachel Saint was very hard to read about, and I felt a sense of relief when Elliot made the decision to leave Ecuador, even though it was a hard decision. I was really struck by the quote (bottom 373 hardcover) how she had "a new sense of rest in God's love. 'The Lord is my Shepherd. I know this now and do not melt and quake within, wondering if I've made a huge mistake...'" and on 374 how she realized that God's ways being higher than our ways meant God's ways were better but "not in contrast to our natural desires by any means." I liked this Elisabeth Elliot so much.
I agree with Ann’s comment. I appreciated the Elliot of this section a lot, especially her approach in writing No Graven Image, which is now on my to-read list! I loved the way she refused to accept “tidy” endings and explanations for life and God’s work in it, and I appreciated her calling out of American Christianity’s penchant for this as idolatry. I loved her allusions to Job.
It seems like her move back to the US gave her space to flourish, but it was sad to watch her leave Ecuador under such discouraging circumstances. I wish she and Rachel Saint would have had additional eyes on the situation and voices to intervene. I wish Elisabeth might have had more encouragement to stand up for herself. The whole situation sounded crazy-making, and I honestly don’t know how she survived it mentally.
I'm enjoying all the comments about the book. I'm especially enjoying reading both your book and Ellen Vaughn's. There is so much to learn about EE through reading both books. Technical question - How much more primary sources did Ellen Vaughn get that you did not get, due to EE's daughter's request to have Ellen write her biography? What is in the archives at Wheaton that neither you nor Ellen got to access ( material to be opened a certain amount of years after EE's death)?
I'm glad to hear that! As far as I'm aware, Ellen Vaughn had access to Elliot's full journals (with the exception of what she reports has been destroyed) while I had access to the partial journals that are publicly accessible at the Billy Graham Center Archives at Wheaton College. Otherwise Elliot's existing papers are largely held either at the BGCA, where they're publicly accessible. By the time my manuscript was due there were still two files from the early 1980s remaining sealed. However, there have been extensive accessions to the EE files at the BGCA recently, so there's no knowing what might emerge in the future!
TY! I thought that you'd like to know, in addition to buying my personal copy of your book, I requested it from my public library and it is there in the new biography section. Just another way to try to get ppl reading quality biogs and to hear about an important figure in history. Do you happen to know what happened to EE's mom's unpublished manuscript that is referenced in your book. Were you able to use that , or does a family member hold it? Is this something that would ever be published?One final question for now: Do you have any idea why there are portions of Jim's journals cut out. I'm referring to the ones in the Wheaton archives. Is this a common practice? Did EE do this very much in her own journals?
That's great, Constance, thank you very much! I love to hear that.
I was able to view and use information from Katharine Gillingham Howard's unpublished manuscript, which was held by a family member at the time. I don't know what has happened to it in the intervening years. It would be a fun read for anyone interested in the history of the family, the American Keswick/Holiness movement, missionary history, but I don't know if it would have a wide enough market otherwise for a publisher to be interested--but maybe! EE does excerpt parts of it in her book Shaping of a Christian family.
It appears that EE cut out the portions of Jim's journals after editing them for publication and prior to donating them to the BGC Archives. I can only assume that there were portions that she didn't want future researchers to see/use. One of the things that's interesting about it, however, is that sometimes she cut out passages that she included at least part of in the published journal. It would be nice if we knew why! I haven't seen the physical copies of the EE journals, only photos of portions of them, so I can't speak to whether/how much of this she did in her own journals. I hope the family will eventually donate them now that the authorized biography has been published.
I am interested in reading the chapter about Israel that was edited from the final version of the book . I’m left wondering if any other significant sections were cut.
It was a section of the chapter in which she visits Israel, not a whole chapter, but there were some other portions of various lengths like that that didn't make the finished product. Some, like the one on Israel, provided more detail about her intellectual environment--the evolution of evangelical thought over the years and the shift from "offensive" to "defensive" thinking, race, more information about her books--and some were interesting things about her that there weren't room for, like all her mountain-climbing expeditions in Ecuador. It's good to know that's of interest to you; I'll take a look at it and see if it's worthwhile as a stand alone post.
The “deleted scenes director’s cut” material would interest me too. After this series, I would enjoy another post or more with your favorite material from the cutting-room floor.
I agree, too. I’d love to read the Israel section. I thought what did make it in the book offered a lot of food for thought—the way in which Elliot ultimately adopted a spiritual lens of the region, didn’t seem to do a lot of research into the history of the conflict beyond personal testimonies, and sympathized with the Arab position as kind of a devil’s advocate to the majority evangelical view (if I am remembering this section correctly). Elliot’s approach raises a lot of questions that seem very relevant to our present moment.
Yes, I was so startled to find no evidence of specialized research on the background of the region given how incredibly complex it is--it felt a bit like rushing in where angels fear to tread. I think you're right, that the same questions are relevant still. I thought that about several of the periods in her life, in fact!
Sorry I’m late to the party. Since I was an early reader of the book, I needed time to review the chapters and my highlights. Thank you for the glimpse into your meticulous research methods as you worked out exactly when and for how long Elliot and Saint were both in Taewano. That attention to detail and commitment to historiography are evident in the finished product.
A few disorganized thoughts…
I wondered if Elisabeth did so well with the Waorani because she was somewhat used to feeling an outsider? She was such an attentive observer by temperament that I could easily see her time with them as leaning into that strength. Sometimes if we feel we don’t exactly fit in with a group of peers where we should, sometimes (or maybe this is just me) we feel more at home when we really are outsiders and that is the expectation. (I think of her personality clash with Olive Fleming earlier in her life and how some of her debating and intellectual tendencies might have set her apart from the other wives.) That theme of being an outsider (even “inside” a group) was further developed in your presentation of her re-entry culture shock and the people who came to her as one a bit ahead on the same path.
In her attitudes toward money and decisions, it seems to me that Jim’s death and the subsequent changes during her time in Ecuador brought home to Elisabeth the need to look out for Valerie and act as head of the household. If I recall correctly, this was also the period when her family of origin benefitted from her financial assistance, which could also have altered her thinking about aging and provision for the future. That’s guesswork, but her actions appear consistent with one embracing the unsought position of head of a household.
So many of her positions shifted during these years after Jim’s death. She appears to loosen her grip on her previous social imaginary and continues to search in Scripture and prayer for guidance and clarity on her decisions. As she wrote in The Savage My Kinsman (p.146 in my edition), “How we long to point to something—anything—and say, ‘This works! This is sure!’ But if it is something other than God Himself we are destined for disappointment. There is only one ultimate guarantee. It is the love of Christ. The love of Christ. Nothing in heaven or earth or hell can separate us from that, and because God is God and loves us He will not allow us to rest anywhere but in that Love. We run straight to Him when other refuges fail. Our misconceptions are corrected in Him, our failures redeemed, our sins cleansed, our griefs turned to joy. But first ‘the life also of Jesus must be manifest in our mortal bodies.’ First the drama must be played out—through suffering, weakness, failure, death, and resurrection.”
The good news for us but perhaps unfortunately for her, her “writing as personal discovery” and a life so thoroughly inscribed on the page means that we observe the shifts and inconsistencies from the distance of time (and our own cultural shifts and the unfolding of unintended consequences of her words).
In the New Hampshire season, she seems so free and in her right place, compared to other seasons of life. Her bosom friendship with Van must have been such a balm after the insurmountable difficulties with Rachel. Throughout the book, but especially here, I felt her delight (and your delight in her delight) in making a home. Each of her homes were their own characters in those chapters of her story, and she loved the ones she helped to make.
There were many surprises, good and bad, in these chapters, but one of the good ones was the window into her further growth in the craft and profession of writing. I appreciate her commitment to watch, wait, and observe, and then to tell the truth (come what may) about what she sees (p. 382). This means her vantage points and vistas will change as she journeys through life, which looks like inconsistency to us but was in its way very consistent with her understanding of the writer’s job. One of my favorite bits in the whole book appears at the end of p. 392. You paraphrase from her Wheaton talk “Writing as Personal Discovery,” “that we can only write with integrity about what we have learned through experience. The writer’s task is to faithfully portray the things she has seen. This requires a posture of uncertainty and active searching in order to be able to see. It requires openness to change—it will mean that ‘we don’t think the same way we thought last year’—and to messiness.”
On the next page (393), I had to stop and ponder Elisabeth’s own words about her reexamination of unquestioned beliefs and assumptions: “He has never promised to solve our problems. He has not promised to answer our questions. He has certainly not answered mine. He has promised to go with us in this life. He has revealed Himself in His Word to be a sovereign, and at the same time to be an inexorably loving God. I can testify this morning that He has been that to me. But time and again I have had to acknowledge that nothing I knew about Him was adequate to cover the things which in honesty I had to face.” That conveys so, so much of the seasons you cover in these chapters that it seems a fitting place to stop.
OK, so maybe that’s not “a few” thoughts, however disorganized. {Grins sheepishly} Thanks for the additional discussion in these posts. I’m enjoying them even when I don’t comment.
All good thoughts! And that's the beauty of the online conversation--I'm not sure late really exists!
What you say about expecting to be an outsider makes a lot of sense to me, as do your ideas about why her position on finances changed. I wholeheartedly agree that the sheer quantity of writing she leaves behind gives us a bird's eye glimpse of her ups and downs and rights and wrongs in a way we don't have in our own lives. It can make it easier to pick on her but I hope it can also make it easier to understand and hold space for her, and for each other and ourselves.
This line you quote really resonates for me: “How we long to point to something—anything—and say, ‘This works! This is sure!’" I think one of the things I've been learning over the decade and counting since starting the biography is to rest in the trust of God's character and God's love that she describes here.
I've read No Graven Image, and appreciated the honest portrayal of "missionary life." I thought it aligned well with her description of the day to day frustrations and distractions in These Strange Ashes.
I've always been sort of amused by Elisabeth's silence around Rachel Saint. And it was mutual! I've heard recordings of Rachel talking about Dayuma and her days with the Aucas and she always sounds as if she worked alone. I suppose they're practicing the "if you can't say something nice..." rule they were taught as children. Having homeschooled a litter of children, I certainly sympathize with Elisabeth's need for civilization and infrastructure for Valerie's schooling, and it would have been wonderful if that were the only reason she left the mission field. Sadly, interpersonal conflict often sends missionaries packing for home.
Yay, another NGI reader! One thing I especially found interesting that there wasn't space to cover in detail in the book was comparing Margaret Sparhawk's struggles writing her prayer letters to supporters with the evolution of EE's prayer letters to supporters over time. When EE (still Betty Howard at that point) writes about the people on the ship she tries to witness to or the college student in Quito who she tries to minister but who quickly loses interest in meeting with her, I saw Margaret's struggles to find evidence of spiritual fruit to share with the folks at home.
Practicing "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all" makes sense. I have wondered, though, if the Waorani would have had the New Testament twenty years sooner had EE seen the idea of "preferring one another as better than yourselves" a little differently, and been willing to make a scene for the sake of the gospel.
I'm glad to hear you're planning to read NGI and would love for you to share your thoughts when you do! I appreciate that refusal of tidy endings, too--it doesn't always feel good but it's true to life and, I think, to the Bible.
And yes, while I do wonder what might have been if she had done things differently, my hat is off to her for being remarkably gracious in a very, very difficult situation.
I found this period of Eliot’s life to the one where I’ve “liked” her the best. Her openness and curiosity are so refreshing. It makes curious to keep reading and learn about how she became the Elliott I first became aware of in the 90s. The 1960s Elliott does not match that version I have in my memory. I read No Graven Image and really enjoyed it. I wish more people had space for its questions and lack of answers.
I also wondered if Saint might be on the autism spectrum?? Might explain some of her rigidity…
Yeah, retroactively diagnosing historical figures through a modern lens is a fraught exercise but it's interesting to consider. I'm glad you liked NGI! I'm on a one-person campaign to get everyone to read it. :) And I hope you'll comment again next time on how you see her changing. I, too, appreciated a lot of things about her thinking in this period.
For sure! It was just something I kept wondering as I read. We always love a nice answer to a sticky problem 😊
Man, this section of her life. I loved her mostly because I find her SO relatable. I’m still on the field and I’m married, but I find her relatable because I struggle so with the evangelical culture. When I read Vaughn on this period of her life I had just seen my own team experience something similar to the interpersonal conflict between Elliot and Saint, and I am in the middle of your chapter now (bought your book last month!).
From personal observation of similar people on the field, I wonder if Elliot had actually made a scene if it would have ended up any better? Saint probably would have stayed there stubbornly on her own even if her own org had asked her to leave, because her identity was tied up in her work there. I respect that Elliot was able to go and adjust to being a whole person in an entirely different life, away from that pioneering missionary story. Or at least, it seemed for a while that she effectively did that, and later on when in her third marriage it seems to change some.
Thanks for commenting, Kacie! That's a great observation. Kathryn T. Long's book God in the Rainforest shows that's almost exactly what did happen when SIL/Wycliffe eventually put their foot down at the insistence of a male SIL missionary years later. When they asked her to leave to make room for missionaries who would work in a team, Saint left Taewano and SIL and moved back in with the Waorani in another location, where she spent the rest of her life. But even that small bit of movement did make room for a translation team, and the Waorani finally got a New Testament in their language in 1992. And who knows if the org would have listened when Elliot spoke up in the way they did when Jim Yost did. It's easy to second guess in hind sight and very hard to see a clear path in the present, and as you point out Elliot did a very hard thing with a lot of grace in choosing to reinvent her life.
I thought these were fascinating chapters. The conflict with Rachel Saint was very hard to read about, and I felt a sense of relief when Elliot made the decision to leave Ecuador, even though it was a hard decision. I was really struck by the quote (bottom 373 hardcover) how she had "a new sense of rest in God's love. 'The Lord is my Shepherd. I know this now and do not melt and quake within, wondering if I've made a huge mistake...'" and on 374 how she realized that God's ways being higher than our ways meant God's ways were better but "not in contrast to our natural desires by any means." I liked this Elisabeth Elliot so much.
Yes, indeed. That sense of rest in God's love is what I want for us all. Thank you for sharing, Jeannie.
I agree with Ann’s comment. I appreciated the Elliot of this section a lot, especially her approach in writing No Graven Image, which is now on my to-read list! I loved the way she refused to accept “tidy” endings and explanations for life and God’s work in it, and I appreciated her calling out of American Christianity’s penchant for this as idolatry. I loved her allusions to Job.
It seems like her move back to the US gave her space to flourish, but it was sad to watch her leave Ecuador under such discouraging circumstances. I wish she and Rachel Saint would have had additional eyes on the situation and voices to intervene. I wish Elisabeth might have had more encouragement to stand up for herself. The whole situation sounded crazy-making, and I honestly don’t know how she survived it mentally.
I'm enjoying all the comments about the book. I'm especially enjoying reading both your book and Ellen Vaughn's. There is so much to learn about EE through reading both books. Technical question - How much more primary sources did Ellen Vaughn get that you did not get, due to EE's daughter's request to have Ellen write her biography? What is in the archives at Wheaton that neither you nor Ellen got to access ( material to be opened a certain amount of years after EE's death)?
I'm glad to hear that! As far as I'm aware, Ellen Vaughn had access to Elliot's full journals (with the exception of what she reports has been destroyed) while I had access to the partial journals that are publicly accessible at the Billy Graham Center Archives at Wheaton College. Otherwise Elliot's existing papers are largely held either at the BGCA, where they're publicly accessible. By the time my manuscript was due there were still two files from the early 1980s remaining sealed. However, there have been extensive accessions to the EE files at the BGCA recently, so there's no knowing what might emerge in the future!
TY! I thought that you'd like to know, in addition to buying my personal copy of your book, I requested it from my public library and it is there in the new biography section. Just another way to try to get ppl reading quality biogs and to hear about an important figure in history. Do you happen to know what happened to EE's mom's unpublished manuscript that is referenced in your book. Were you able to use that , or does a family member hold it? Is this something that would ever be published?One final question for now: Do you have any idea why there are portions of Jim's journals cut out. I'm referring to the ones in the Wheaton archives. Is this a common practice? Did EE do this very much in her own journals?
That's great, Constance, thank you very much! I love to hear that.
I was able to view and use information from Katharine Gillingham Howard's unpublished manuscript, which was held by a family member at the time. I don't know what has happened to it in the intervening years. It would be a fun read for anyone interested in the history of the family, the American Keswick/Holiness movement, missionary history, but I don't know if it would have a wide enough market otherwise for a publisher to be interested--but maybe! EE does excerpt parts of it in her book Shaping of a Christian family.
It appears that EE cut out the portions of Jim's journals after editing them for publication and prior to donating them to the BGC Archives. I can only assume that there were portions that she didn't want future researchers to see/use. One of the things that's interesting about it, however, is that sometimes she cut out passages that she included at least part of in the published journal. It would be nice if we knew why! I haven't seen the physical copies of the EE journals, only photos of portions of them, so I can't speak to whether/how much of this she did in her own journals. I hope the family will eventually donate them now that the authorized biography has been published.
I am interested in reading the chapter about Israel that was edited from the final version of the book . I’m left wondering if any other significant sections were cut.
It was a section of the chapter in which she visits Israel, not a whole chapter, but there were some other portions of various lengths like that that didn't make the finished product. Some, like the one on Israel, provided more detail about her intellectual environment--the evolution of evangelical thought over the years and the shift from "offensive" to "defensive" thinking, race, more information about her books--and some were interesting things about her that there weren't room for, like all her mountain-climbing expeditions in Ecuador. It's good to know that's of interest to you; I'll take a look at it and see if it's worthwhile as a stand alone post.
The “deleted scenes director’s cut” material would interest me too. After this series, I would enjoy another post or more with your favorite material from the cutting-room floor.
Good to know, thank you!
I agree, too. I’d love to read the Israel section. I thought what did make it in the book offered a lot of food for thought—the way in which Elliot ultimately adopted a spiritual lens of the region, didn’t seem to do a lot of research into the history of the conflict beyond personal testimonies, and sympathized with the Arab position as kind of a devil’s advocate to the majority evangelical view (if I am remembering this section correctly). Elliot’s approach raises a lot of questions that seem very relevant to our present moment.
Yes, I was so startled to find no evidence of specialized research on the background of the region given how incredibly complex it is--it felt a bit like rushing in where angels fear to tread. I think you're right, that the same questions are relevant still. I thought that about several of the periods in her life, in fact!
Sorry I’m late to the party. Since I was an early reader of the book, I needed time to review the chapters and my highlights. Thank you for the glimpse into your meticulous research methods as you worked out exactly when and for how long Elliot and Saint were both in Taewano. That attention to detail and commitment to historiography are evident in the finished product.
A few disorganized thoughts…
I wondered if Elisabeth did so well with the Waorani because she was somewhat used to feeling an outsider? She was such an attentive observer by temperament that I could easily see her time with them as leaning into that strength. Sometimes if we feel we don’t exactly fit in with a group of peers where we should, sometimes (or maybe this is just me) we feel more at home when we really are outsiders and that is the expectation. (I think of her personality clash with Olive Fleming earlier in her life and how some of her debating and intellectual tendencies might have set her apart from the other wives.) That theme of being an outsider (even “inside” a group) was further developed in your presentation of her re-entry culture shock and the people who came to her as one a bit ahead on the same path.
In her attitudes toward money and decisions, it seems to me that Jim’s death and the subsequent changes during her time in Ecuador brought home to Elisabeth the need to look out for Valerie and act as head of the household. If I recall correctly, this was also the period when her family of origin benefitted from her financial assistance, which could also have altered her thinking about aging and provision for the future. That’s guesswork, but her actions appear consistent with one embracing the unsought position of head of a household.
So many of her positions shifted during these years after Jim’s death. She appears to loosen her grip on her previous social imaginary and continues to search in Scripture and prayer for guidance and clarity on her decisions. As she wrote in The Savage My Kinsman (p.146 in my edition), “How we long to point to something—anything—and say, ‘This works! This is sure!’ But if it is something other than God Himself we are destined for disappointment. There is only one ultimate guarantee. It is the love of Christ. The love of Christ. Nothing in heaven or earth or hell can separate us from that, and because God is God and loves us He will not allow us to rest anywhere but in that Love. We run straight to Him when other refuges fail. Our misconceptions are corrected in Him, our failures redeemed, our sins cleansed, our griefs turned to joy. But first ‘the life also of Jesus must be manifest in our mortal bodies.’ First the drama must be played out—through suffering, weakness, failure, death, and resurrection.”
The good news for us but perhaps unfortunately for her, her “writing as personal discovery” and a life so thoroughly inscribed on the page means that we observe the shifts and inconsistencies from the distance of time (and our own cultural shifts and the unfolding of unintended consequences of her words).
In the New Hampshire season, she seems so free and in her right place, compared to other seasons of life. Her bosom friendship with Van must have been such a balm after the insurmountable difficulties with Rachel. Throughout the book, but especially here, I felt her delight (and your delight in her delight) in making a home. Each of her homes were their own characters in those chapters of her story, and she loved the ones she helped to make.
There were many surprises, good and bad, in these chapters, but one of the good ones was the window into her further growth in the craft and profession of writing. I appreciate her commitment to watch, wait, and observe, and then to tell the truth (come what may) about what she sees (p. 382). This means her vantage points and vistas will change as she journeys through life, which looks like inconsistency to us but was in its way very consistent with her understanding of the writer’s job. One of my favorite bits in the whole book appears at the end of p. 392. You paraphrase from her Wheaton talk “Writing as Personal Discovery,” “that we can only write with integrity about what we have learned through experience. The writer’s task is to faithfully portray the things she has seen. This requires a posture of uncertainty and active searching in order to be able to see. It requires openness to change—it will mean that ‘we don’t think the same way we thought last year’—and to messiness.”
On the next page (393), I had to stop and ponder Elisabeth’s own words about her reexamination of unquestioned beliefs and assumptions: “He has never promised to solve our problems. He has not promised to answer our questions. He has certainly not answered mine. He has promised to go with us in this life. He has revealed Himself in His Word to be a sovereign, and at the same time to be an inexorably loving God. I can testify this morning that He has been that to me. But time and again I have had to acknowledge that nothing I knew about Him was adequate to cover the things which in honesty I had to face.” That conveys so, so much of the seasons you cover in these chapters that it seems a fitting place to stop.
OK, so maybe that’s not “a few” thoughts, however disorganized. {Grins sheepishly} Thanks for the additional discussion in these posts. I’m enjoying them even when I don’t comment.
All good thoughts! And that's the beauty of the online conversation--I'm not sure late really exists!
What you say about expecting to be an outsider makes a lot of sense to me, as do your ideas about why her position on finances changed. I wholeheartedly agree that the sheer quantity of writing she leaves behind gives us a bird's eye glimpse of her ups and downs and rights and wrongs in a way we don't have in our own lives. It can make it easier to pick on her but I hope it can also make it easier to understand and hold space for her, and for each other and ourselves.
This line you quote really resonates for me: “How we long to point to something—anything—and say, ‘This works! This is sure!’" I think one of the things I've been learning over the decade and counting since starting the biography is to rest in the trust of God's character and God's love that she describes here.
I appreciate you taking time to comment.