There will be no postings on the Elisabeth Elliot Newsletter for the next 6 weeks:( ....you could read over the past newsletters or look at the list of helpful sites on the left of the page!

Don't forget your loyalty here!:)

God bless.

1986 March/April issue Part 2

Struggling with Self-Esteem

Who has been telling people that they should always be "struggling" with things? Who came up with this self esteem notion? Another letter (I'm amazed at how many I get about this business) says, "I'm so tired of not accepting myself. I can't seem to let go of my standards of what a woman should be." It looks to me as

1986 March/April issue Part 1

Mary Pride's Book

In the July/August and September/October Newsletters of 1985 I mentioned Mary Pride's book, The Way Home. I have received several inquiries as to my views on some of the things Mrs. Pride says. Other NL readers may have wondered about the same things, and lest my mentioning the book be taken as an unconditional endorsement let me say that I did not intend it to be quite unconditional. While I say Brava! to her disavowal of feminism, and applaud the strong encouragement to understanding motherhood as a high form of service to the Lord and her urging women to stay home, I recognize that she is both a young woman and a fairly new Christian. More years and more experience may modify some of her assertions. I would take issue with her on the following subjects:

1986 January/February issue Part 8

Letter from a Reader

"Several years ago you sent me the prayer of Betty Scott Stam on a small piece of parchment. It is a prayer of dedication and commitment and has turned my life around. I still carry it in my wallet and read it from time to time. I also share it with others whenever I feel it is appropriate. "I prayed that prayer nearly every day: 'Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes.. : until I could say it all and truly agree in my heart. The last part, 'at any cost,' took six months to achieve. Once I did, things moved quickly. My husband of twenty-three years divorced me to marry a younger woman. But God was gracious. [The writer tells the story of how He has led and provided.] Today, four years later, I am praying that prayer again, and I'm feeling a call I've felt since I was twelve-to the foreign mission field." Often, as Jesus told us (Lk 9:24), finding life (in heavenly terms) entails losing life (in earthly terms). What we had depended on gives way. "Thy will be done" means mine be undone. Betty Scott Stam could not have known that in a few years she would be beheaded by Chinese Communists when she prayed, Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all, utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt. Send me where Thou wilt. Work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever. Amen.

1986 January/February issue Part 7

Drastic Obedience

"One reads tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit when one five-minutes of drastic obedience would make things as clear as a sunbeam." Oswald Chambers: My Utmost for His Highest.

January/February issue Part 6

What Do You Want Your Biographer to Say about You?

My brother Tom gave me a collection of essays on the writing of biography, to help in the work I am at present engaged in. There's a lesson for all of us, I think, in this paragraph from an essay written in 1932 by Claude M. Fuess, headmaster of Phillips Academy: "If [Gamaliel] Bradford [a famous biographer] were, in some whimsical mood, to turn his analytic gaze in my direction, what should I like him to notice: that golden Phi Beta Kappa key or that unpaid laundry bill; that ten-dollar check sent to an indigent cousin or that towel pilfered from the Pullman Company; that unprinted ode to spring or that kick furtively bestowed upon a stray cat?"

1986 January/February issue Part 5

The Spirit of Renunciation

Francois Coillard, missionary of the Zambesi, wrote, "When we see missionary festivals so run after-when we hear these stirring hymns, these sublime and moving protestations of our compassion for the perishing Heathen, and of our entire devotion to Him whom we acknowledge as King, should we not expect to see a whole crusade on the march for the conquest of the world, singing'Onward, Christian Soldiers? One might suppose that, all we have and all we hope for had been laid on the altar, waiting for nothing but the fire from heaven. And, in reality, what have we done? What have we given? What have we sacrificed? Where does this spirit of renunciation show itself in the details of daily life? What discipline are we willing to submit to? What ease, what luxuries have we denied ourselves? "Have we not indeed often grudged to God's service what we could spare? And alas even this half-hearted zeal soon evaporates. The fit of spasmodic devotion once over, we take back from God what we had professed to give Him; we return to the idols of our hearts, refuse His claims, and leave the Heathen to perish without compunction." (Quoted by Amy Carmichael in a private letter, May 2, 1899)

1986 January/February issue Part 4

The Golden Rule for Roommates

If you open it, close it.

If you turn it on, turn it off.

If you unlock it, lock it up.

If you break it, admit it.

If you can't fix it, call in someone who can.

If you borrow it, return it.

If you value it, take care of it.

If you make a mess, clean it up.

If you move it, put it back.

If it belongs to someone else and you want to use it, get permission.

If you don't know how to operate it, leave it alone.

If it's none of your business, don't ask questions.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

If it will brighten someone s day, say it.

1986 January/February issue Part 3

There Is No Other Way

In order to get to a place called Laity Lodge in Texas you have to drive into. a riverbed. The road takes you down a steep, rocky hill into a canyon and straight into the water. There is a sign at the water's edge which says, "Yes. You drive in the river." One who has made up his mind to go to the uttermost with God will come to a place as unexpected and perhaps looking as impossible to travel as that riverbed looks. He may glance around for an alternative route, but if he wants what God promises His faithful ones, he must go straight into the danger. There is no other way. The written word is our direction. Trust it. Obey it. Drive in the river and get to Laity Lodge. Moses said to Israel, "I offer you the choice of life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life and then you and your descendants will live; love the Lord your God, obey him, and hold fast to him: that is life for you." When you take the risk of obedience, you find solid rock beneath you-and markers, evidence that someone has traveled this route before. "The Lord your God will cross over at your head... he will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not be discouraged or afraid" (Dt 30:19, 20; 31:3, 8 NEB). It's what the old gospel song puts so simply:

"Trust and obey, for there's no other way

To be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey."

1986 January/February issue Part 2

Instructions for Shepherds (and Sheep)

St. Paul's second letter to the young pastor Timothy is packed with practical advice. Most of it applies to all of us who call ourselves Christians. Check this sampling:

1986 January/February issue Part 1

Rules for Courtship

The following, which I wish we could shout from the housetops, was published in 1962 as a small leaflet entitled "Rules for Keeping Company." No author's name is given. It is reprinted here by permission from Liguori Publications, Liguori, Missouri 63057. "A serious problem is presented to parents and other directors of youth in the wrong views of courtship that are prevalent today. Courtship usually means: the association between a marriageable man and a marriageable woman as a mutual tryout of one another's character for marriage. It is so fraught with moral danger that the rules governing it should be strictly enforced:

1985 November/December issue Part 6

Prayer 

Give me a pure heart
that I may see Thee,
A humble heart
that I may hear Thee,
A heart of love
that I may serve Thee,
A heart of faith,
that I may abide in Thee.
(Dag Hammerskjold)

Please pray for help as I continue to work on the biography of Amy Carmichael. Sometimes progress seems fairly rapid, at other times I feel like the wheels of the Egyptian chariots, which "drave heavily" (Ex 14:25).

1985 November/December issue Part 5

Candied Grapefruit Peel

Don't throw away those rinds! Take four halves, after you've eaten the insides,

1985 November/December issue Part 4

If Hurt, Bless

A friend writes of problems in the church and of the tough battle she has fought with the powers of darkness as she has prayed for her husband during certain crucial church meetings. He was not the pastor but happened to be in a place of responsibility, so he bore the brunt of the troubles. "Have been reading up on blessing," she wrote. "It has been clear that Joe and I would have to bless the ones who have hurt us so badly-at least that's what I kept finding in the Word. I realized I had no idea how to bless someone. I can pray for him, commend and commit him to the Lord, forgive him, etc., but how do I 'bless' him? When Christ took up the little children to bless them it doesn't say He taught or admonished them-He. blessed them. I think blessing means turning a person so that God falls upon him Blessing people faces them the right way to perceive God's goodness falling on them. The definition works interpersonally, too. If I bless Jill before others, I am illuminating those aspects of her character which reflect God, instead of agreeing with the whisperers."

November/December issue Part 3

My Mother

Some of you have written to say that you've been praying for my mother. Thank you so very much. Since she broke her hip she has needed twenty-four-hour care, and it has become clear that it is out of the question for her to leave the Quarryville Presbyterian Home. We were able to bring her here for a few days' visit in July. Her disorientation was even more marked, her anxieties exacerbated. (She kept wondering how she would get "home, wherever that is," and whether she ought to try to make "train reservations.") Nothing I said could reassure her, for the brain mechanisms for receiving new information seem to be gone. Her trouble is a common one-arteriosclerosis. When we drove her back to Pennsylvania we saw a room full of women much worse off than Mother is, and I have been pondering how God may be glorified in such lives. I don't know. I only know He loves them, He has promised that those who trust Him will bring forth fruit in old age, and the mystery of suffering was dealt with on the Cross. I think of the wonderful words of the hymn; "Crown Him with Many Crowns":

Who every grief hath known that wrings the human breast,

And takes and bears them for His own, that all in Him may rest.