These are some of my favorite quotations from Ellen Vaughn's biography of Elisabeth Elliot:
"I loved her matter-of-fact way of living by daily dying for Christ. It was a no-nonsense way of looking at things. Just pull-yourself-up by the grace of God, hoist your cross on your shoulder, and follow your Savior down the bloodstained path to Calvary. And don't complain about it." Joni Eareckson Tada's Forward (xiii)
"Her [Elisabeth Elliot's] story conveys all the discipline and patient suffering for which she was well-known in the often-repeated stories about the violent death of her first husband. But her most noble accomplishment was not weathering that excoriating loss. It was practicing - through both the high dramas and the low, dull days that constitute any human life - the daily self-death required for one's soul to flourish. It is this theme of death that gives the narrative arc of her life. This is not particularly cheerful, but if there is one empowering, paradoxical element within Elisabeth Elliot that defined her core, it was a healthy willingness to die. Again and again, if God so willed, always believing in His promise that real, robust, exhilarating life comes out of every death." Ellen Vaughn (Page 13)
"At age twenty, Elisabeth Howard had led a disciplined, hard-working, spiritually rigorous life. She loved nature, music, poetry, books, and word play. She'd developed standards on dating and physical affection that were unique in her Christian college. She had lived exclusively among other believers. She kept meticulous schedules with timeslots for everything from devotions to study to work to exercise, 7 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., except for days she got up earlier . . . She budgeted money carefully, writing about a train trip to visit friends: 'I could afford to go . . . but the question is if it would be right to spend so much on mere pleasure. As yet, I'm not sure what the Lord would have me do.'" Ellen Vaughn (Pages 58-59)
"Our young men are going into [other] fields because they don't 'feel called' to the mission field. We don't need a call; we need a kick in the pants." Jim Elliot (Page 60)
"'I have been musing lately on the extremely dangerous cumulative effects of earthly things. One may have good reason, for example, to want a wife, and he may have one legitimately. But with a wife comes Peter’s (the pumpkin eater’s) proverbial dilemma—he must find a place to keep her, and most wives will not stay on such terms as Peter proposed. So a wife demands a house; a house, in turn, requires curtains, rugs, washing machines, and so on; a house with these things must soon become a home, and children are the intended outcome. The needs multiply as they are met: a car demands a garage; a garage, land; land, a garden; a garden, tools; tools need sharpening! Woe, woe, woe to the man who would live a disentangled life in my century, if one insists on a wife. I learn from this that the wisest life is the simplest one, lived in the fulfillment of only the basic requirements of life: shelter, food, covering, and a bed. And even these can become productive of other needs if one does not heed. Be on guard, my soul, of complicating your environment so that you have neither time nor room for growth!' [Jim Elliot] . . . Suffice it to say, two very different, yet strikingly similar, souls had come together. Two intense, articulate, unconventional people who saw themselves as perpetually single, serving God on the mission field, found themselves simmering and sleepless, surging with a love they had thought they'd never know. Their individual torrents of prose and poetry brim with the same biblical imagery - altars, crosses, sacrifices for the glory of God. They were strong, stubborn people who shared a radical, intentional submission to Christ. Stunned by love, they were both determined, if God so willed, to sacrifice it for Him." Ellen Vaughn, Jim Elliot (Pages 61-62, 64)
"During his senior year, Jim served as president of the Student Foreign Missions Fellowship. He made a prayer chart divided into fifteen-minute segments; students could sign up to pray for the Wheaton College campus, asking God to stir men and women there to commit themselves to foreign missions. One tangible result of that prayer effort, Dave Howard reported, was that 'in the 150-year history of Wheaton College, more students from the classes of the late 1940's and early 1950's went to the mission field than at any other period.' Jim also recruited in more direct ways. His friend Ed McCully was a football player and track star, tall, handsome, senior class president, and winner of the national collegiate oratory championship his senior year. He planned to go on to law school. One day when Jim and Dave were in the locker room after a workout, they saw Ed. Jim grabbed him by the neck, and said, 'Hey, McCully! You won the national championship, didn't you? Great stuff, McCully. You have a lot of talent, don't you? You know who gave you that talent, don't you? So what are you going to do with it - spend your life making money for yourself? You have no business doing that. You should be a missionary, and I'm praying that God will make you one!' The determined Ed did go off to law school for one year . . . but then he believed that God was indeed calling him to become a full-time missionary. He quit law school to study missions, and eventually went to Ecuador . . . where he would serve - and die - with his buddy Jim Elliot." Ellen Vaughn (Page 69)
"It is not what we set ourselves to do that really tells in blessing, so much as what He is doing through us when we least expect it, if only we are in abiding fellowship with Him." Hudson Taylor (Page 71)
"Jim's most famous quote of this sort, one that has inspired and galvanized thousands of young people toward Christ's service, comes from his journal of October 28, 1949. At the time the twenty-five-year-old had likely been reading selections from Matthew Henry, the well-known Bible commentator and preacher. In 1699, Reverend Henry wrote fondly about his father, Philip, who often said, 'He is no fool who parts with that which he cannot keep, when he is sure to be recompensed with that which he cannot lose.'" Ellen Vaughn (Page 73)
". . . It is said that it takes a bold man to venture to take a wife . . . What you need above all else then, is to be encouraged, admonished, urged, incited, and made bold. Why should you delay, my dear and reverend sir, and continue to weigh the matter in your mind? . . . Stop thinking about it and go to it right merrily. Your body demands it, God wills it, and drives you to it . . . It is best to comply with all our senses as soon as possible and give ourselves to God's Word and work in whatever He wishes us to do." Martin Luther (Pages 74-75)
"The soul who loves God only for Himself, apart from His gifts, knows indescribable peace." Elisabeth Howard (Page 80)
"Alone. Jim has gone . . . I feel absolutely empty, hollow, aching with loneliness. I want Jim. I love him strongly, deeply, powerfully. He is my life . . . Our passions and natural affections are awakened, vivified, channeled by the love of God." Elisabeth Howard (Page 82)
"I want her more today than any day since leaving her. I need her to purify my desires, to lift me above lust. I need her counsel, her attitude, her strength, her fingers, her forehead, and her breasts. My God in heaven, how am I made! Oh, that I had never tasted woman at all, that thirst for her should not be so intense now, remembering. It is not good that man should be alone - not this man, anyhow." Jim Elliot (Page 83)
"The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances." Elisabeth Elliot (Page 84)
"Sometimes I feel that I cannot stand it any longer, that I literally cannot live without him. . . . I cry at the drop of a hat. . . . When I am in bed, I want him desperately. It is as though every inch of my body just aches for his." Jim Elliot (Pages 95-96)
"People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives . . . and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted." Nate Saint (Page 134)
"Nate took some time behind closed doors, as his sister Rachel - oblivious to the Waodani plans - was staying with them. He wrote a long letter to be sent out after the men's expedition into Waodani territory. It described his discomfort at the disparity between his own celebration of Christmas, and the situation of those who had never heard the gospel. He was thinking of 'two hundred silent generations who have gone to their pagan graves without a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ . . . these who . . . survive by killing and die by counter killing . . . these have no Christmas! . . . as we weigh the future and seek the will of God, does it seem right that we should hazard our lives for just a few?' Nate answered his own question, that the men's foray to the dangerous few was in realization of the Bible's 'prophetic word that there shall be some from every tribe in His presence in the last day and in our hearts we feel that it is pleasing to Him that we should interest ourselves in making an opening into the Waodani prison for Christ. As we have a high old time this Christmas, may we who know Christ hear the cry of the damned as they hurtle headlong into the Christless night without ever a chance. May we be moved with compassion as our Lord was.'" Ellen Vaughn (Pages 148-149)
"There's no question that these were five dedicated young men . . . But lest we think that the missionaries lived on a plane none of us can attain, it is perhaps helpful to consider Jim Elliot's final journal entry, written dejectedly on the last day of the year, 1955. His heart and intentions firmly set on Christ, he was nonetheless battling a temptation common to all of us, the lure of the flesh. 'A month of temptation. Satan and the flesh have been on me hard on the dreadful old level of breasts and bodies. How God holds my soul in His life and permits one with such wretchedness to continue in His service, I cannot tell. Oh, it has been hard. Betty thinks I have been angry with her, when I have simply had to steel myself to sex life so as not to explode . . . my unworthiness of her love beats me down. I have been really low inside me struggling and casting myself hourly on Christ for help.' Though they have sometimes been presented as such, Jim Elliot and his fellow missionaries were not spiritual superheroes . . . Jim Elliot's last days were not those of some sterile plastic saint, but a flesh-and-blood man experiencing a cloud of distractions. But the last words in his journal, from that last day of 1955, shed light on his confidence in the ultimate outcome ahead. '. . . though the flesh conspire,' he wrote, '. . . Let spirit conquer.' The Spirit would." Ellen Vaughn (Pages 149-150)
"Several decades later, some who participated in the attack spoke of a strange, additional presence beyond the human beings who were killing and dying on the beach that day. Kimo and Dyuwi, among others, described strange lights above the trees . . . 'foreigners' dressed in white cloth . . . and the sound of chanting, which is how the Waodani described singing. Were they angels? God only knows. In the agony of their dying moments, in the pain of those last shallow breaths, what flashed through the five Americans' minds? God only knows that as well. All that the brave widows and families, and the rest of us down through the decades, can know for sure is that when they passed through that thin veil separating this life from eternal life, those five missionaries' next enormous, exultant breath was in the actual presence of God. They had gained what they could not lose." Ellen Vaughn (Page 158)
"Better those two perfect years of belonging to such a man than fifty with a run-of-the-mill man!" Elisabeth Elliot (Page 165)
"I long now to go to the Waodani. The two things - the only things - to which I can look forward now are the coming of Christ and my going to the Waodani. O, if Christ would only come - but how can He until the Waodani are told of Him. . . . Or if only I could die - what a blessed release. But I do not ask to be released. I ask to be made Christ-like, in the inmost part of my being. . . . Before, I feared to place all before Thee - now, the most precious has been stripped from me. Does this mean I have not so much to put at stake now? I guess it does. But O Lord, Thou knowest. Accept me, in Thy name. And, oh, if it be possible, send me soon to the Waodani!" Elisabeth Elliot (Pages 165-166)
"Every time she read the words 'Mr. and Mrs.' or heard reference to 'husband and wife,' . . . another stab. 'They are allowed to be together . . . and I? Then the Lord shows me that my lot is not to be compared with others . . . I have no one now to take care of the lawn and garden . . . Other women have a man to do these things . . . and they will have heaven too! Lord - forgive me. I write it because I thought it. I cannot hide it from Thee." Elisabeth Elliot (Page 166)
"My heart almost cries out for those dear Waodani - how I long to go! Prayed that God either send me there, or take me Home." Elisabeth Elliot (Page 169)
"Evening. I am left with a vast loneliness for [Jim], for his love - the only answer it seems, for me is that He take me soon. How can I live without Jim, Lord? Thou didst make us one - how go on alone? O Lord, if it be possible, take me to be with Thee. Nevertheless, not my will . . ." Elisabeth Elliot (Page 170)
"She continued to dream of Jim constantly. 'Sex hunger is overwhelming very often. O Lord - Thou knowest all. How long? Evening (and a full-moon-lit one at that) I sit at my desk . . . I realize I am shivering and my flesh is all goosed. If I had Jim here, he would get into bed, warm it, and then take me beside him, warming me with his great strong arms, huge chest and thick thighs . . . Oh, it was so easy then, so simple, so lovely. And now.' 'How can this go on? This desperate wanting, aching desire, only to be with him, to share one single thought, to touch his forehead, to know his love as I once knew it. Dreaming night and day . . . .'" Elisabeth Elliot, Ellen Vaughn (Page 186)
"The Waodani are a constant weight to me. Who is to go, and when? . . . But I am praying, 'Here am I, Lord. SEND ME . . . if I were successful, nothing could make me happier on earth. If they killed me, better still." Elisabeth Elliot, letter to parents, 1957 (Page 190)
"On a humbler note, a U. S. farmer wrote, 'We've named our five cows after you five dear girls, and pray for you as we milk them each day.'" Ellen Vaughn (Page 199)
"In another vivid dream, she 'lay on Jim's chest in bed, thought "Oh, thanks Lord! If you'll just let me do this once in a while, I'll be able carry on. This is what I need." And Jim was so tender - I long for the shelter, haven of his love. O God - it still is my Desired Haven. I cannot stop loving and longing with all of my heart. Oh, what a punishment Thou has meted to me for my failures.' Did Betty really believe God had taken Jim because of all failures? It's doubtful. Her theology was stronger than that. But the comment shows how deeply she mourned her own failings." Ellen Vaughn, Elisabeth Elliot (Page 200)
"If a duty is clear, the dangers surrounding it are irrelevant." Elisabeth Elliot (Page 210)
"CHILD AMONG HER FATHER'S KILLERS: MISSIONARIES LIVE WITH WAODANI"
Life Magazine headline, November 24, 1958 (Page 210)
"It turned out that one of the women who'd come out of the forest was in fact Maruja, the young girl who'd been abducted by the Waodani a year earlier after they killed her husband, Honorario. 'In my opinion,' she told Betty cheerfully, 'you'll soon be eaten by vultures.' Maruja went on to share that she expected the Waodani to kill the Americans unless she returned with them - so Betty and Rachel should give her money to do so. They declined the deal. Maruja accompanied the group anyway." Ellen Vaughn (Pages 210-211)
"Early in August, the dam broke, if not in Betty's waking life, in her subconscious. She dreamed, as she did so often, of Jim. He was warm, alive, real. She was desperate to do whatever she could to stay with him. She knew, even in her dream, that it was God's will that Jim was in fact actually dead. But still, the dreaming Betty cried out for Jim. 'To hell, I said, with role as a "widow," as a "pioneer missionary," as a "testimony to the world." Give me womanhood again, give me back my husband. I don't care about anything else.' Betty shook herself awake. Words from on of her favorite writers ran through her mind: 'It is this terrible loneliness which opens the gates of my soul and lets the wild beasts stream howling through.' 'God alone knows whether the dream reflects the true state of my soul,' she wrote later in her journal. 'He knows that I do honestly try to accept what He has chosen for me - and He knows, too, the wild . . . aching loneliness for Jim. Well - may this hunger prove what is in my heart, and produce fruits of righteousness in the ultimate. I see little hopes of them now. Faith, faith.'" Ellen Vaughn, Elisabeth Elliot (Page 225)
"Betty and Val went for an extended visit to see Jim's parents in Oregon. Even though she was freed from the torture of writing, Betty's introspection and depression continued. As she 'relaxed' with family and friends, she felt utterly alone. 'I just don't manage to tune in, somehow. Great longing for vital reality, truth, understanding. I don't want to do anything these days, but just sit and observe. No desire to participate . . . prefer to sleep!'" Ellen Vaughn, Elisabeth Elliot (Page 230)
"Obviously, God has chosen to leave certain questions unanswered and certain problems without any solution in this life, in order that in our very struggle to answer and solve we may be shoved back, and back, and eternally back to the contemplation of Himself, and to complete trust in Who He is. I'm glad He's my Father. 'If heaven's not my home, Then Lord, what will I do?'" Elisabeth Elliot (Pate 233)
"Betty tumbled right into her familiar, circular pit of despair regarding Rachel. 'So depressed,' she wrote. '[T]otally lacking in any desire to do a single thing, longing only for death or escape of any kind.'" Ellen Vaughn, Elisabeth Elliot (Page 236)
"Now Betty didn't think of her life as a series of 'summits' to be climbed, all the way to heaven, a steady, 'triumphal' path toward victory, as it was sometimes presented in Christian circles. She thought more about Jesus than the particular outcomes or accomplishments He might have for her. It was all about walking with Jesus . . . and in a mystical way, He was both the journey and the destination." Ellen Vaughn (Page 253)
"For decades after her husband was killed, Elisabeth Elliot was constantly asked if the men's mission on Palm Beach was a 'success.' The word was like worthless currency. To her, the only measure of any human action came down to one thing: obedience. She'd look at an interviewer as if the 'success' question was dull. Yes, yes, of course. After all, they knew God wanted them to go to the tribe, and they were obedient to His leading. Next question?" Ellen Vaughn (Page 259)
"'As Jim pointed out to me years ago,' Betty journaled, 'God led Israel to Marah. He could have led them directly to Elim, but He has chosen to lead His people into difficulties in order that they may know Him, and He may know them.'" Elisabeth Elliot, Ellen Vaughn (Page 264)
"Do it immediately, do it with prayer,do it reliantly, casting all care.
Do it with reverence, tracing His hand
who placed it before thee with earnest command.
Stayed on omnipotence, safe 'neath His wing,
leave all resultings, do the next thing." Saxon poem Betty loved (Page 268)
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