1951 Love’s Longing

1951 Love’s Longing

Love’s Longing

My father’s prose was as poetic as his poems. I find myself rejoicing with him in this next selection from mid-January 1951, where he celebrates the view of evening light and the sense of God’s surrounding presence and beauty. I share that same amazement when awed by the glory and splendor of creation, but I don’t have his ability to express it.

All day the sun dropped hints of spring, and at dusk, returning from the shop, I exulted in the distinct wall of purple—the Ozark foothills—close guarded by the unblinking Venus. The night spread black and blossomed brilliantly with stars.

I walked out to the hill just now. It is exalting, delicious. To stand embraced by the shadows of a friendly tree with the wind tugging at your coattail and the heavens hailing your heart, to gaze and glory and to give oneself again to God, what more could a man ask? Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth. I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him.

But the way he closed this excerpt takes me even deeper into the praise of our Creator.

Mayhap, in mercy, He shall give me a host of children that I may lead through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose fingers’ ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, smell His garments, and smile into my Lover’s eyes, ah, then, not stars, nor children, shall matter—only Himself.

God gave him only one child—me—and yet gave my husband and me eight children, with a little one already in heaven, named Joy, whom I’m hoping he’s met. Each of them knows God as the Lover of their souls, the Giver of all good things. They are, like all children, one of God’s blessings as a heritage, and are part of Jim Elliot’s heritage as well.

But of course he couldn’t know all this yet in 1951. Nor could he know, except in his keen mind’s eye, the many challenges and adventures awaiting him hundreds of miles nearer the earth’s equator in South America, where he so wished to be. His being a missionary, for now, looked more like laboring for Jesus in the small Mississippi River town of Chester on the Illinois-Missouri border, fifty miles southeast of St. Louis.

January 11

Ed and I bought a ’38 Chevy and came here after New Years. We have a $40 per month, two-room efficiency (whatever that may mean) apartment. I am cook. We could use anything any normal young couple of bachelors would find helpful by way of household hints. We have taken a job selling loaders to feed mills—so far no sales. If worst comes to worst, I may have to get to painting again.

Today we contacted the radio station owner, and tomorrow we will meet him to sign a contract D.V. [Deo volente: “God willing”] We will have a fifteen-minute program on Friday morning and a half-hour program on Sunday afternoon.

It wasn’t going to be easy, as he went on to observe in this same January letter.

These things I write for your prayers. Ed and I are enjoying the work here, although adjustment to small-town thinking is different from what I supposed. There is nothing of any account for God in town—much formalism and joining of churches, but no life in its fullness, richness, depth, and reality as we have found it in Christ. It is as in the days of Samuel—the word of the Lord is rare, precious. Pray that it might run in us and be glorified.

Ed has enjoyed a brief introduction to our dear A.C. It is amazing how many I have found who light up and thrill at “Make Me Thy Fuel” or “Hast Thou No Scar?” Bless God for the sweet gift to His church.

Nearly midnight. Good night, Betts—

Jim

But as the month wore on, he and Ed were running on empty. A week later, he wrote in his journal:

January 18: No sales or income thus far, just draining resources, and those will not last more than another week. I have had hopes of laying by some money for the field, but selling is not going to be able to do that at our present rate. Desired to share in the work of financing the radio here and other evangelical efforts otherwhere, but God has hemmed me in to nothing, that I may have nothing, do nothing, want nothing, save Himself.

His wanting to be “nothing” reminds me of Paul, who said he counted “all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8).

He wrote this poem also in January:

Jesus, Thou art now my end;Thou my starting, too, hast been,Oh, be Thou my present friend,I would walk and on Thee lean.

My mother, meanwhile, still at home, was tutoring two high school girls privately, leading children’s Sunday school and afternoon Bible clubs, and also working part-time on the sales floor of a women’s department store in Philadelphia. Though it wasn’t exactly where she saw herself headed—still eager for the self-sacrifice of foreign missions—she received these current tasks as blessed opportunities from God’s hand. She’d written the previous fall:

She feared this picture “might turn out to look just like me, and then of course I wouldn’t have sent you one!”

The Lord, true to His Word, has guided me once more, when every possibility which I could see failed. It is when we cannot conjecture as to what He will do, that He most thrillingly exposes His plan—exceeding abundantly! Not that that which I can demonstrate to others, of His leading, is so unusual. But the soul knows. The apparent disappointments are His new opportunities to love us and hold us by the right hand.

Having finally filled the pages of her little five-year diary, she turned now to keeping “a series of notes, perhaps as a journal, that I may record only those days or thoughts which appear worthy of remembrances.” Among the first of the year was this one:

January 19: Since I last wrote, I have read the biography of Frances Ridley Havergal. It did what other Christian biographies have done—deepened my hunger for knowing Christ in His fullness, for living wholly “unto Him who died for us.” I am impressed, always, upon reading of someone who lived a holy life, with the reflection, “What would be written of me, were I to die today?”

God alone knows how very, very little I know of true holiness, Christlikeness, and Calvary love. My closest friends know that there is very little that could be truthfully said of my “Christian character.” But, oh, let me cease from myself, to behold the beauty of the Lord, to inquire in the tabernacle. For Christ is my righteousness. He is my joy, my peace, my salvation. He is forever, unchangeably, and altogether lovely. Praise Him! I will trust Him with my whole heart. He will lead me, by His Spirit, into all truth. He will do whatever His lovingkindness dictates.

From this humble, spiritually attuned heart, she composed her first letter of the year to my father. It contained, once again, a sisterly tone and message.

February 1

At last I have returned to the actual realization that you are still a person, and not just a Letter-Every-Month. Do you know the feeling? Especially when it goes way beyond a month, as it so often does nowadays, it is hard to keep fresh the memory of the real person.

As before, she seemed to catch herself at this point, adding, “I find this to be true with anyone—not just with you, Jim!” I think she didn’t want to give a wistful impression, as though longing for him, but wanted simply to say . . .

How very good it is to hear from you. The Lord has answered prayer, and led you forth by the right way. (Is it not wonderful to know that whatever other adjectives may be applied to our appointed path, this one invariably fits perfectly, for we are in His hands, whose ways are forever right!). And I am thankful.

She wrote freely, flowingly. She picked up a train of thought he’d begun in his previous letter, concerning the importance of seeking the Word of God rather than the word of man. “I think now we, you and I, are beginning to reckon this paramount,” she said, commenting that it was another one of those areas where they were feeling drawn toward the same spiritual emphasis at the same specific time.

She made further observations on current events, particularly the rather apocalyptic feel of the escalating war in Korea, following so soon on the heels of World War II. My dad was a declared 4E draft classification—conscientious objector, on religious grounds—which left him unclear on what the Selective Service would demand of him. As he described it, “Waiting is living these days.”

She also said she was “glad that you felt at rest concerning me, Jim,” referring to what he’d written in December about his comfortable, trusting feelings toward her. One can tell from her letter that she was mainly just enjoying talking with him, sad only that she felt “straitened by the use of words—further by the condensing of them to fit a little 2 x 4 letter!”

But there will come a time when you and I will have no need of words—for I believe that in Paradise we shall express exactly what we feel, effortlessly and perfectly. How could words do that? Well, it’s fun to try, anyway. And it is always good to share what we are able to share.

One thing about his current situation, however, was truly arousing her curiosity.

I have been wondering especially how the radio work is going. What a difficult thing this must be—to keep always in mind, when there is no visible audience, that “the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power” (1 Cor. 4:20).

This radio ministry was a puzzle to both my parents. It was such a new, untried medium for religious broadcasting. Who was your audience? How could you know who was listening? What would cause those who were already believers to make time for tuning in? And who of the non-churched would care to listen or feel led to respond by mail? Interesting to read her quizzical comment in hindsight now, aware of how her own radio ministry would occupy a treasured fifteen minutes of each weekday for thousands of Gateway to Joy listeners throughout twelve flourishing years—and still be airing currently on Bible Broadcasting Network stations.

“Teach the believers, Darling.” It was the last thing my father said to her, as he left on the plane with Nate Saint for the beach where he would be killed. When she’d asked, “What shall I do if you don’t come back?” he answered, “Teach the believers, Darling, teach the believers.” Yes, and she’s doing it yet today!

(Speaking of her curiosity, she also mentioned in this letter “a perfectly maddening taste for the study of nuclear physics, stimulated by a friend of ours who is a Ph.D., and who has shown me around his lab at Rutgers University. I spent last weekend with him and his wife.” A month later, she’d be talking about a free clinic she visited in the inner city, sponsored by the Christian Medical Society. “If I had had the managing of my life,” she said, “I should most certainly have been a doctor.” She was just eagerly curious by nature, about everything. And she’d love knowing her youngest grandchild, Sarah, is currently in medical school.)

But nothing captured her attention more completely than both the present and eternal reality of life with God. Writing in her journal, she said:

February 11: So long as we are in the flesh, I think we shall never be loosed from the things of time. Of course we shall not. Else how should we learn to be “overcomers.” This thought came to mind as I came to my room to seek the Lord’s face, and, upon seating myself at my desk, found myself reading over one of J’s letters—from 1948, at that! Ah, joy in its purest form shall never be found there. Fellowship with Christ alone rests the heart, cools earthly desire, “satisfieth the longing soul.”

Watching these thoughts crystallize in her mind, as she continued letting go of my father’s affections, stirs in me the memory of my own “falling in love” as a teenager. I recall her telling me how feelings come and go, that I was probably too young to be absolutely sure this was the person I would marry, and that I needed to trust in God for His appointment and timing.

But of course, I thought I knew His mind already. I knew God had brought the two of us together. Here was a guy with whom I enjoyed a lot of laughter and who I thought was just plain fun. I was certain he must be the right one. But her wise counsel proved true. I saw this young man in a new light once we entered the same college. I realized I hadn’t thought seriously enough about what it meant to wait and trust the Lord to lead me toward the husband He’d chosen for me.

Reading her thoughts on the page now, from this distance, I see a young woman who’d been in the furnace of waiting much longer than I ever thought could be possible. Yes, she lived with questions; yes, she felt her longings. But her sincere desire was to go only where the Lord wanted, and only to marry if He had chosen someone for her.

Finishing the thought, she quoted a stanza from the hymn “My Faith Looks Up to Thee”:

O may my love for Thee Pure, warm, and changeless be,A living fire.

Her love for God, made possible by His unchanging love for her, was the only reason for waiting and trusting. It remains our only reason, too. The silence of waiting is the crucible of our faith.

And in February 1951, the crucible was as active in Chester, Illinois, as in Moorestown, New Jersey. My father’s next letter:

February 22

Things are not any easier here. Discouragement has hemmed us sharply this past week, for although we have known no lack in the outward things, there has been a strong sense of not having possessed boldly as we should have. Ed grows depressed more easily than I, and the scarcity of blessing hereabouts has not been easy to take. He said yesterday, “Brother, everything I do here is putting out the fleece; if souls aren’t saved and this isn’t my calling, I see no point in putting my life into it.” I couldn’t find words somehow, and there was a long silence after.

The radio work, a joy in itself, has yielded only one card of encouragement, and that from believers. We have asked, and are asking, for a witness that will divide the whole city on the TRUE ISSUE. But as yet, there is no sign. . . .

There is a certain despairful loneliness snooping about these days, and I can almost hear the streets and building bristling with the note that haunted David—“Where is thy God?” I don’t mean to sound dismal, but there is a certain bleakness about a place like this where no liberating truth is being sounded out. The “synagogues” are full, but still hollow with unreality. Oh, Bett, if earth in its brighter shades be so drear, what must its denser ones be? Thank God for that sense of “looking for a city which has foundations,” which prevails when one sees the basis of these.

As if the lean ministry times weren’t wearying enough, he was finding the business world “a crude one, almost animal in certain aspects, and powerfully affecting to a newcomer, as I regard myself. The very principle of making money by selling things at a profit is distasteful at times, yet it seems to be my job for now.”

One way he sought to combat the tug of both discouragement and tent-making duties was by treading fearlessly into the slums one Monday night to declare the gospel.

Not easy, but comforting to be among those blessed poor—with Jesus in a sense that we are not when among the self-sufficient. We must go again soon. It makes one scornful of vanity and not much I love with life—especially this life of banks and bills and rates and percentages.

In addition, desperate for some way of sharing Jesus effectively, they’d gotten access to a little storefront space along the river.

We hope to use it for children’s meetings, but it must have some work done on it first. It has fallen into a terrible state, and will probably take some time to recondition. There are many of the little “raggedies” about, who will be our first fruits in Chester, we trust.

My dad wasn’t giving up, obviously. But he was uncharacteristically low. He mentioned Ed’s parents passing through for a day or two. They’d been an encouragement, he said. But as he meekly admitted in the next breath, “Almost anyone from outside would be now.”

Integrity, simplicity have been our guides under God and are now our defense before Him. This Jericho must fall or I shall be unable to go on in the path of faith. Pray for us, as Jesus for Peter, that our faith fail not.

What I see next is a marker, a turning point in the development of my parents’ story. He’d never been the one in real need of encouragement. Even during his “Renaissance,” when my mother had challenged him roundly, both in print and in person, he took it, dealt with it, and moved on to the next thing. He didn’t let it slow him down much. But the wheels were really grinding at this point. His faith, though still incredibly strong, was being put to an extreme test. Some of the doubts which Ed had expressed out loud were now showing up more regularly in my father’s journal, in my father’s voice.

February 24: Was much cast down in spirit last evening. Ed and I have been here in Chester six weeks, with so little evident blessing from God.

March 5: Evening. Too weak even to demonstrate weakness. Have come to such a state that I must desire to desire! The tears of my heart are frozen in the cold of my intellect.

March 17: Sterile days. The past few days have been very trying and difficult. . . . Have had thirty-two nights of “Youth Rallies” in Sparta with fifty to sixty-five out in the public school gymnasium. There is little interest, and very few young people are reached in this way. . . .

There has been a sense of discouragement and doubt come over me through this. I prayed, simply, earnestly, believingly, insofar as I knew how, and did not receive what I asked for, namely, 150 people and six conversions. I know all the old reasons for not being heard and getting better answers and so on, but all that does not solve this difficulty.

Up until now, in all his correspondence with my mother, he’d often been the strong one who felt called upon to rally her spirit, exhorting her to sail forward on the winds of kingdom ideals—with him or without him. But now, as a true sister, my mother was the one who really stepped up, delivering just the right balance of encouragement and coaching. Seeing him in this state, I think she understood him better than ever before. She knew what he truly needed from her. And because the Lord had met her so richly in recent days, she wanted my father drinking from the same well of divine sufficiency that she, too, had been surviving on.

She didn’t stop until she’d written “one paragraph of three pages! I feel that I could write a book, just about now. Forgive me.” (For our sake, I’ll insert a few paragraph breaks so we won’t tire at a word of it!)

March 15

It was not hard to detect the discouragement in your last letter—it seemed to drag each word back. In a letter from your mother, she says she sensed the same in your letters home. [Yes, at my father’s prompting, she’d begun writing to my grandmother again, with better results this time!]

Jim, dear brother, it is just here that the nature of your consecration—which is the same as saying the nature of your love to God—is tested. The decisions which are made in “green pastures” are tested (a good word, isn’t it? Think of the test tubes in a lab, etc.) in the “valley of the shadow,” for it is here that He is most vitally with us, if I may use the expression, although He is forever equally “with us,” since He tabernacles within us.

You say, “This Jericho must fall or I shall be unable to go on in the path of faith.” Surely you were not really thinking when you made that statement. The very principle of faith precludes any and all necessity of dependency upon anything but God Himself. . . . Do you love God for Himself alone? Or do you love Him for His gifts, His conscious presence, His love to you, His evident blessing upon what you do, etc.?

This next part could hardly be in greater contrast to the spiritual expectations of most people in our day, and needs to be clearly expressed and communicated for this reason alone, if for no other.

Jim, I truly believe there comes a time in the progress of the soul who truly desires to be comformable to Christ’s image, when God strips him not only of earthly props in the form of friends, possessions, talents, or whatever he may have outside of God—but also a time when the all-wise, all-loving Father strips that soul of even His own conscious and evident blessings and gifts. (These may include an infinite variety of forms—joy, a sense of His nearness, conscious grace in prayer, fruits which may be seen or definitively enumerated, etc. etc.) This process, however devastating it may seem, must be recognized as another further providence. Another gracious answer to our sincere cry of faith, “Thy will be done.”. . .

When we ask in the most entire honesty of our hearts to be made like Christ, we ask usually with certain more or less vague ideas as to just what that means. But Christ takes us at His word—indeed, why shouldn’t He, for it is He that inspired that very prayer in our hearts—and does exceeding abundantly above all that we asked or thought. He purposes holiness—nothing less—in His child. So He sets about to produce just that in us, by His own methods. . . .

It is the duty of the Christian to receive. He receives the initial step of salvation, which of course includes the scriptural truth of immediate sanctification, but he also receives just as truly thereafter each new step in his progress of conformity to Christ. It is wonderful to know that it is not only required that we love God with a pure heart, but is also possible. The soul who loves God only for Himself, apart from His gifts, knows indescribable peace.

She closed with an uplifting spirit, sharing in his struggle.

The Lord has been so merciful in leading me, in teaching me to trust in a way I never dreamed possible. I want you to trust Him wholly, Jim, for the accomplishment of His will in you there in Chester. He will be glorified—only believe.

I am trusting for you and Ed. Perhaps the Lord does not purpose that you should ever see “results”—(oh, earthy word! not in Scripture!)—in order that you may the more clearly see Him, who is “before all things.” So long as the object of your faith does not fail, your faith need not fail. If that object, however, is the visible gifts of God, it may fail. If the object is God Himself, it will never fail!

I thank God for your friendship, and I praise Him over and over for the way in which He has directed our paths and our relationship. I can’t get over how wise and loving and merciful and Father-like He has been!

Because of Him, Betty

I love reading that again. Closing my eyes, I can picture her lips forming every syllable. And from the sound of it, my father received it with equal, and humble, appreciation.

April 16

Your last letter was like Paul’s to the Corinthians, at once rebuking and comforting, and I am grateful for it.

He then summarized her points in the language of his own translation.

This trial of faith, a courtroom drama constantly in session for believers, is more precious than gold, Peter says. It has been that here. Faith has been under fire—I think its Source is Christ—and it has been strengthened and proved precious. New problems have arisen and combined with some unsettled ones sufficiently to dishearten me, but God is faithful and the prayers of His Son effectual when He prays that my faith fails not.

Yet even with the ongoing challenges, he had a good many intriguing news items to report. “This letter has been congealed up in the barrel of my pen for some weeks,” he declared. His writing sometimes astounds me with its wild creativity in images and metaphors. I love it!

First item: Wedding Bells?

Ed has had two long jaunts up Michigan way to see Marilou Holboth, youth and music director for Robert Savage’s Baptist church. Just between you and me, Betts, don’t be too surprised to hear about old Ed giving a ring soon. It isn’t official yet, but this Moody grad has sure been piling the letters into Box 242 at least one per day! He is “worse” than I’ve ever seen him.

Second item: Tidmarsh?

Word that Dr. Tidmarsh and wife are arriving in New York this week. They were to have left England the eleventh. I have been hoping you might have an opportunity to meet them, but have only now gotten any idea of where you could contact them. . . . I feel sure you would be stimulated by getting in touch with them. You will meet them before I do, if you see them now, and I have not told them anything about you, but your contacting them now may be helpful in future reference.

“Future reference”? Was this a hint at an unspoken prayer request? Or was it merely unintended foreshadowing?

Third item: Ecuador? Soon?

I filed my passport for Ecuador last week. The brother I think I mentioned in my letters to you from Wycliffe, Dave Cooper, was drowned three weeks ago. . . . He went out for a late afternoon swim in the ocean and never returned . . . . His work and vision for the unreached, smaller tribes of Ecuador has got to be carried on. I have given myself to the Lord for it, if He wills.

But as of yet, he still didn’t know what the upcoming months (or years?) truly held.

Everybody is considering July marriages, but no one has given public notice. Bill C., Bob W., and Ed Mc. are all sorta working on me to stay in the Midwest until then, but I don’t let it out until I can give official dates. I had hoped to be home by July, but don’t know what the next few weeks will decide.

He was starting to feel conspicuous in his singleness—brought on, of course, by the hard line he’d drawn for himself in college, which he steadfastly maintained until he was almost twenty-five. But now, through continual contact with his best friends who were getting married or engaged, he was feeling the brunt of his own choice.

Perhaps that’s why he sealed this letter with a closing he hadn’t used in a long time.

Love, Jim

I think he just couldn’t help himself in his impulsiveness. It’s something we’ve rarely seen, and won’t see a lot again in their yet-unclaimed future. But . . .

“Love, Jim.”

I’m sure she instantly noticed it.

And I’m sure it brought a mixture of agony, hope, and consternation to my dear mother.

Spring and Summer

Mid-year brought more specific direction from God, bringing much encouragement as she waited for a clear leading on her mission purpose. The balance of the year would provide even more.

May 2: New guidance from my Shepherd—praise to Him. Miss Haines called last night to ask me to be pianist again for the Inter-Varsity conference at Keswick [a nearby retreat center] in June. Although this gives light for just one week of the summer, it is light! And I need know only one step. How many times since college graduation God has seen fit to teach me this.

Furthermore, I have been offered the job of pianist at the Hepzibah Heights Conference in the Berkshires of Massachusetts for July and August. Of God’s will in this I am not yet sure. He will show me.

I seize this opportunity to speak of my mother’s love for music—not only for music, but for all kinds of art. She knew that God was the Creator of all beauty, and so she admired those extensions of His creation in classic art and music, often wishing she were more skilled in all of them.

But “skilled” she was, both on the piano and in singing. She had a clear soprano voice, and she taught me to sing from the time I was tiny. Being put to bed while she recited prayers and sang the great hymns she wanted me to learn was a true joy, and was instrumental in laying for me, early on, a foundation for my faith. As she often said to thousands, much of the theology she learned in life came from the hundreds of hymns her family sang as she grew up.

She knew also, however, the need for being very careful with the praise she received from others for her talents. From a journal entry back in the winter (again, following a day at Keswick), she’d written:

Oh, sometimes I wonder if I should not abstain from singing altogether until I know that Christ alone is my motive. Truly I do desire that my voice, as well as my life and will, be wholly given to His praise. But the flesh is ever with me—it manifests itself in the most singular forms at times. I discover that self-effacement, springing wholly from selfish motives, taints my very highest aspirations to act of God’s glory. So I am driven once again out of myself, for I am all unprofitable. . . . I am but a branch, and without Thee can do nothing.

A good word for all who excel at the creative arts.

My dad wrote from Chester on May 12, sounding more encouraged than he’d previously been. In fact, my mother had mentioned that even his April letter had been “brighter than the preceding one, and I was glad for that.” Not only had he been able to schedule his first face-to-face visit with Dr. Tidmarsh in Wheaton for the following Monday, but he and Ed McCully were finalizing preparations for a tent-meeting campaign they planned to conduct in the coming weeks. Getting the gospel out was such a passion to him.

May 12

The Lord heard us for a tent this week, and we will begin meetings May 19, Saturday, just one week from today. Please pray for us, Betts. I will be doing most of the preaching, and these every-night meetings are sapping to spiritual potency, especially when half the day is spent selling. We had fair interest in the High School rallies two weeks ago—but mostly “churched” people. Praying for an awakening among the business people and factory class.

He also described in more detail the work they were doing among the kids along the riverfront—their “River Rat” Sunday school, for which they’d coined the term “Club 66.” (My mother, when hearing only the name, had quipped, “What on earth is ‘Club 66’? Sounds like a nightclub, but I don’t think you and Ed are running one of those yet.” Although, she added, “It would take more than that to surprise me by now.”)

The “66” is for the number of books in the Bible, and also the number of points required for a first-class member. We have a steady gang of thirty “trustys” every Lord’s Day morning. . . . It’s the most encouraging thing here. Pray for several junior high kids who show definite interest and some understanding.

Their tent meeting would eventually run through the middle of June. As with all ministry efforts, it was “impossible to register the good that God has done in Chester,” he said. But at least “I can see several reasons for coming now that I did not see in January. Surely the Lord has led,” despite “nothing ‘big’ or extraordinary” taking place.

Or maybe it had. Bill Cathers had come during the last week of May, staying to preach for a couple of days at their tent revival.

May 23: Enjoyed fellowship with Ed and him together for the first time. Believe now that God is going to lead us into work together in Ecuador, and trust His grace to knit us and make us compatible. The Lord has answered, rather is answering, my prayer of August 9, 1950, for another man.

Father, preserve Ed and Marilou; preserve Bill and Irene; preserve me and prepare us all for Thy work in Ecuador. Many, many thanks for our leading to this moment. Lead on, O King Eternal.

Truly my parents’ sense of waiting and watching and seeking the Lord’s will is exemplary to anyone who’s searching for what God desires for them, no matter one’s age or place in life. My mother, of course, like my dad, was just as eagerly yet patiently seeking direction. She’d accepted a speaking engagement at a women’s missionary gathering in Philadelphia, with high hopes that it might shed light on her future.

May 22: I had felt all winter that perhaps God would open up a way for me to get to the field through someone at the conference, but He was pleased to keep the “cloud resting above the tabernacle.” It has not yet moved on.

Then, hearing of Sir John Anthony Clark’s desire to meet me, I was once again elated, thinking that he might be God’s channel this time. He is a veteran of many years of missionary work in the Congo, and has done much translation work. . . . Had a lovely talk with Mr. Clark, but still felt no constraint toward any definite place.

God has his reasons for this withholding of much sought light, and I trust Him absolutely. Having asked repeatedly that He would reveal any sin or failure which might be hindering His revelation of the way, I have trusted Him to do this. Nothing, so far as I know, is between my soul and my Master, so I rest in the peace that goes beyond.

She seemed to have an unusual ability to make her mind rest and wait—though she also said many times to her audiences that she was a “first-class worrier.” Thus she had that battle to fight, knowing how God commands us not to worry. Our natural tendency is to figure everything out, thinking God has given us a capable enough brain to do that. But as she often said to me, “It’s a matter of the WILL; you make a CHOICE”—emphasizing the words “will” and “choice” strongly—“not to worry or fret.” We must choose to obey, period.

Oh, for such steely devotion and courage.

Oh, to be dependent on Christ alone for our peacefulness.

She wrote my father only once more before spring melted into summer, finding time to write while she was away in Florida for her younger sister’s graduation from HDA. “As I write the date [May 31], I remember three years ago. It all seems very remote and detached from my present surroundings.” This whole visit, really, had struck her as being a surprising strain on her emotions, which she’d tried expressing in her journal a few days earlier.

May 28: HDA is to me the scene of the highest delights emotionally, sensuously. It is also the scene of agonizing conflicts of spirit, devastating fears. It is the scene of tenderest love for young people put to my charge during the short teaching days. It is now a place of indescribable longings and loneliness, in a sense. I do not exactly know why.

But she stowed away these private episodes of conflict, greeting my father with mostly cheery highlights and takeaways from her trip:

“Don’t get too organized, brother!”

May 31

In many ways I wish you could have been here for the commencement. I find that my attitude toward the school is very different from what it was seven years ago. I should like to know your reaction. I know many things about it which you would not like. I also know things about you which they would not like. So it is perhaps well that you could not have been here.

She also couldn’t suppress a “big sister” laugh at hearing of his multitasking efforts, from tent preaching to children’s outreach to Bible study leading and beyond.

You sound like a regular Y.F.C. leader now—conferences, retreats, schedules, etc. etc. Don’t get too organized, brother!

But within a few weeks, she too would be in organizer mode herself, wrangling a tent full of little boys at Pioneer Camp in Port Sydney, Ontario.

I had the “privilege” (?) of going to this camp for two weeks when I was ten. I’d never been away from my mother for that long, and was never so homesick in my life. I’m sure I was surrounded by much beauty and spiritual teaching there, but the only things I really remember well were the ice-cold lake water, flunking the swimming test, flunking the canoe test, and singing “We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing” before every meal. The only good part was my counselor, a sweet girl named Trish. I remember her comforting words more than her instruction.

According to my mother’s report, both in her journal as well as in a single letter to my father on July 29, the place didn’t sound a whole lot different in 1951. But for about six weeks, she said, while trusting God to “lead me to the field in His own time,” this campground became her mission field—“His chosen sphere for me.”

My dad, meanwhile, had headed home, following Bill and Irene’s wedding in Wichita, Kansas, as well as Ed and Marilou’s in Pontiac, Michigan. (“Yours truly feels more conspicuous by the hour!” he wrote.) But even returning home did little to put him at ease. Among his journal postings from those days was one that said:

July 12: Lack funds in hand to buy equipment now. Folks are not wholeheartedly for my going to Ecuador. Want me to be a preacher in the States, I fear, or else to join Bert in Peru.

He didn’t surface again on my mother’s visible radar until a letter he wrote from Washington State arrived while she vacationed with her family at their annual summer retreat in the White Mountains of northern New Hampshire. He wrote it with apologies for “this wretched ball-point,” remarking how he hadn’t remembered to fill his fountain pen when he’d left home for their own family vacation.

August 21

You’ll be at Gale Cottage by now with the Pioneer Camp experience a remembered blessing. I rather envied your time there, for though Nature sings loudly out here, it takes solitude to hear her, and I’ve had little enough of that since coming home. . . .

We came to this little cabin for a couple of days. . . . Up here there is a long peninsula with twelve miles of wide beach, good clam beds, and not a break of river mouth or mountain head shouldering the sea in the entire length. The drive is exalting to the spirit, but not so breathtaking as the more rugged Oregon coast. I never think of that without recalling Short Sand Beach with you. I haven’t been there since, and don’t know if I would want to go now—alone.

My first thought on reading this selection is imagining them together on the Oregon shore line two years earlier, pointing out sea anemones to one another or the way the water flowed over the rocks. She often did the same with me, always exclaiming about the details and designs of creation.

My second thought is the rather noticeable longing in that final line (final word, really) of the paragraph: “. . . don’t know if I would want to go now—alone.”

Maybe it came from twice recently having to stand up for his friends on their wedding days. Maybe it came from feeling not quite as at home around his family and in his old familiar haunts as he’d once been so easily accustomed. Maybe it was the same gnawing of loneliness my mother had admitted to feeling as if out of nowhere on her brief visit to HDA, a loneliness that now clawed at him the same way on the opposite corner of the country.

Or maybe it was because, with his sailing date tentatively scheduled for December 1—departing “probably from Los Angeles,” he said—he’d already drawn a circle around one particular piece of business he needed to handle before departing for South America. “First, I’m coming East.”

Bill and I are scheduled for a meeting in the Jersey-New York area from September 21–October 12. Some ministry, some missionary, but mostly to get acquainted with the believers. I have a few days open in a rugged schedule and would certainly like to see you if the Lord would have it. Will you be at Birdsong?

My father and Pete Fleming, on the right.

He’d mentioned this prospect, somewhat offhand, in his previous letter two months ago (June 27), in discussing the potential plans for his embarkation.

There is a very strong possibility that I may be leaving from New York, and I am tentatively planning to spend a couple of weeks in the metropolitan area around October 1. This brings hopes that I may see you again, if you are to be at home. . . . I will make sure of a visit if you are there.

But who could know? His plans were constantly up in the air. Had she considered his visit likely, I think she would have written about it, whether excitedly or nervously—certainly prayerfully—which she did within hours of this more definite pronouncement in August. “Word came yesterday from two very different (significantly different) sources,” she wrote almost immediately in her journal.

She’d hinted at the first in her entry from a week prior, while still in New Hampshire.

August 19: The Lord seems to have been directing my thoughts to Dr. Northcote Dick’s work in the Solomon Islands. I saw him a few weeks ago when I was over at Campus-in-the-Woods, and he was very encouraging. I have written to ask for his literature, and am asking God to open or close this door, as He sees fit.

The requested packet of information, detailing the work and opportunities for service among the South Seas Evangelical Mission, apparently arrived in the same day’s post as my father’s letter, which accounted for the second “word,” for she added, “Jim also wrote, saying that he is coming east on September 21.” What did it mean, these two things converging on her, all at once?

August 26: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” This I believe. How very thankful I am that I am not my own. Since I am the Lord’s, He will show me the way. I know that I could never make the very weighty decisions which face me now. If the Lord directs me to the S.S.E.M., it means utter renouncement, and for this He alone is sufficient.

“Utter renouncement.” What heavy words. Though she’d long known this day was coming, she sensed now the finality of not sharing life with my dad. It was a window she’d already turned away from, allowing it to close, though imagining there might yet be a chance it could somehow open once more. The choices before her now, however, made “utter renouncement” nearly inevitable. Even so, her faith triumphed over her wishes and feelings.

The struggles my parents experienced in their relationship were heartrending and intense. The shadow of that cross knifing between them—the symbol of their own death to self—had been enormously difficult, a consternation. But as my father, too, had done, she was willing to say, “My life is Yours, dear Lord, do with it whatever You want.”

She’d known of Amy Carmichael’s leaving her dear family for the rest of her life by going overseas. She also remembered having met Betty Scott Stam, only to hear a few years later how she and her husband were beheaded in China. Each of these examples and many others were all pointers to her, declaring the high risk of following the truth, the high cost of discipleship.

She didn’t write my father back immediately. In fact, she wasn’t thinking so much about the thrill of seeing him but the torture of knowing she’d soon be saying goodbye to him—again.

August 27: Last night I was beginning to dread already the parting which must come when J. leaves. There have been four goodbyes so far—each one very difficult; but this, it seems, must be the last. I thought to myself that I could not go through another—better not to see him again than to meet only in part. But how foolish of me to expect grace in advance!

The sorrow of saying goodbye to one so dearly loved, when she was more sure now than ever that no future marriage was coming, would have been beyond heartbreaking if she hadn’t possessed such serious, intimate fellowship with God. I sincerely think there are very few people who could willingly submit to what she was preparing to do, knowing that one word from her lips could perhaps enable her to avoid the forever-ness of it. Countless people through the years have admired my parents’ courage to go stoically on, past what human will or choosing would ever do. Count me, their daughter, as one who highly admires them as well, for so willingly casting all their care and each other on the Lord.

As the summer of 1951 ended, with each day swirling down a funnel toward September 21 and my father’s visit, my mother more often took to paper, her thoughts too heavy and substantive to keep inside.

In one journal posting she wrote:

September 9: Today I have asked again that the Lord will keep me from mistakes in discerning His will. O, it is so possible to be badly misled by one’s own whims, but I will not fear even this, for has He not promised, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go; I will guide thee with mine eye.”. . .

O Lord, if Thy presence go not with me, carry me not up hence. For I have asked of Thee, and I cling to Thine assurance of guidance. Let me not go down to the South Seas (Egypt) and trust in Dr. Dick or anyone else, who, if I place faith in him instead of Thee, would even be a Pharaoh to me.

In another:

September 10: There are things in my heart tonight hardly understood even by myself—fears, doubts, wanderings, huge questions. And, instead of fretting myself about them, or seeking anxiously for an immediate resolution of these things, I simply abandon them to Him who is perfect in knowledge. O, I trust Him—how wonderful it is, simply to trust.

But despite these rather daily entries on the private page, she apparently didn’t quite know how to respond to my father directly about his impending visit. In fact, by the time he left home on his long journey by rail across the country, no letter had come from her. Nothing. No word. I can imagine him rolling along, mile by mile, jotting notes to himself about the various plans he needed to implement upon reaching the East Coast—places to go, people to meet, topics for his various speaking engagements. Time would be short. He’d need to make the most of it.

Yet perhaps he occasionally looked up from his writing, staring out the window as the blurred scenery rushed past, wondering—why her silence? What did it mean? Had he pushed the brother-sister relationship too aggressively? Had he distanced her heart from him by being so vocal in his independence, so determined not to need her? If he indeed had allowed himself to daydream about rekindling their closeness on this trip—and I don’t know if that’s true—I wonder how much any disappointment was weighing on him as he traveled eastward, and how much it may have competed against the focus he was trying to maintain.

I do know, when he’d made it as far as his aunt’s house in the Chicago suburbs, my mother’s latest letter—which had barely missed him in Portland—had been forwarded ahead, and he “read it with joy,” admitting to being “a little concerned not hearing from you before I left home and wondered if I should make bold to visit Birdsong without an invitation.”

Her letter, finally in hand, made clear he was welcome. It was brief, saying she was glad to hear he was coming, hoping his days weren’t completely booked.

Much to say—but why write when we can talk?!

Yes, “there is much to speak of,” he agreed, in the letter he dashed off to her from Chicago on September 13, which she hurried to answer in a flash so he’d receive her reply before he moved on.

September 15

Your letter came this morning, and it surely seems strange to be answering it the same day, now that we have accustomed ourselves to intervals of weeks! . . .

You say you plan to leave there Wednesday, which means that unless you are walking, it shouldn’t take more than thirty hours at the most. So—why don’t you come straight to Philadelphia by bus, arriving probably Thursday evening. I could meet you there, you could stay here that night, and then we could drive up to Plainfield in time for your meeting Friday evening. (It is about sixty miles, I think.) Even if you don’t get to Philadelphia until Friday a.m., it would be easier to meet you there than very late Friday night. Mother says the car won’t be needed here at home that day. If this plan is OK, please wire me as to the time of your arrival.

She went on to add that Bill and Irene were welcome to stay as well, if the two of them were coming. Her brother Phil, she said, was also looking forward to the visit. Everybody was really excited that Jim Elliot was going to be back at the Howard household again, like that Christmas of ’47.

And so am I.

Betty

Autumn

With this surprise visit upon them, I thought it worth taking a moment to reconnect the small bits of time they’d actually spent together since the spring of 1948. Those three final weeks of my mother’s senior year (when they first realized just how mutual were their feelings for each other) were the lengthiest amount of time they had spent together, though it was punctuated by final exams and graduation exercises. She then saw him for a couple of days in September of that year, you might remember, stopping through Wheaton on her way to PBI in Canada. They enjoyed the week at his home in Portland near the end of the following summer (1949). And they were able to steal one or two private chats when family and friendship obligations brought them together at my Uncle Dave’s wedding in July 1950.

It all added up to barely a month—four weeks and a few days—covering a total range of almost three and a half years. From these scarce but sacred moments of face-to-face exposure came all the intensity of this story and their relationship.

Certainly they wished it had been more. Or, seeing how they’d resigned themselves to being only close friends, they might have wished it had been less, that it had all gone unspoken, rather than occupy so much of their attention and energy through the years. But if that had been the case, this autumn of 1951 would never have happened. And as the following letters and journals attest, neither of them (and none of us) would want to have missed it.

I said earlier I wasn’t sure if my father carried many romantic hopes for his journey east. But I’m going to say now—I think he did. Otherwise, I have little explanation for the suddenness of his first recorded words after seeing her again.

September 20: Arrived in Moorestown, New Jersey. Came to settled rest about Betty. I love her. The problem from now on is not “whom should I marry?” but “should I marry?”

This didn’t mean, of course, that his renewed sense of love and attraction made life any less complicated.

Nearer to her now than ever, yet more confident still that God is leading me away from her, to Ecuador with Pete, and she to the South Seas.

(“Pete,” by the way, was Pete Fleming, an old friend traveling with him on this tour of speaking engagements and relationship building, who would later be among the five missionaries killed.)

I’m probably less sure of my mother’s hopes for this visit, borne out by my dad saying that what passed between them as they talked in the “fields behind Birdsong” on Saturday was “terribly upsetting to her.” Probably “overwhelming” would have been a better word. It was only “upsetting” as to how it affected their lives going forward. In any event she, as was he, was struck with the significance of what it all meant and what she was feeling. I’ll let her words take it from here . . .

September 21: We took a walk, and talked of many things, our relationship included. The Lord has tested us sorely, and I do pray and trust that “when He hath tried us, we shall come forth as gold.”

I suppose there is no greater issue in the life of a young person than that of love. But Jim and I have long since settled it, that we are wholly at His disposal, at any cost, now and forever.

Jim says he loves me. There is no question in my heart anymore—I love him. I love him as I never thought I could love anyone. The thought of going on without him almost chills me.

Even so . . .

Jim is sure that God wants him on the field as a single man. May the God of all grace grant to him the great grace that will be needed, the strength to withstand the temptations which abound in such a stronghold of Satan.

I bring a prayer that God will bless and keep you Thro’ every moment with its joy or tears.I pray His arms may tenderly enfold You,To guide you, dearest, thro’ the changing years.

Such an experience serves to wean our hearts from earth. We are pilgrims and strangers, and life is but a short journey Home. What will it be to be with Him who is our Well-beloved, the fairest of ten thousand? If it were not for the hope of His coming—the Daybreak when all shadows will flee away—one could not go on. But I love Him, trust Him, and praise Him, and ask only that I may know that I do His blessed will. Nothing else matters.

After the things that have been shown me in the past two days, I make bold to pray—“Father, if it be possible . . . Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” And I ask, too, that my will be one with His. . . .

I want to walk humbly and quietly with my Master, sensitive only to His wishes, not fluttering and eager with my own. The child that wholly trusts the lovingkindness of his Father watches expectantly for His next move, willing to wait until it is made clear, not jumping and skipping fitfully along in front of Him, afraid He will miss something if the child does not keep his eyes open. “My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from Him.”

All this happened, as she said, in only two days. But thankfully, their time together didn’t so quickly conclude. He cycled back to her house whenever free of his other responsibilities. These opportunities for ongoing conversation led them to some monumental decisions—made not rashly, of course, even though made in quick succession. As we know, these decisions were the result of long testing as to the purity of their motives and the proven devotion of their surrender. And with each one—as often accompanies the favor of God’s guidance—came an almost tangible sense of His peace.

September 29: My heart is at peace, more than I have known, concerning Jim. I love him with all my heart, and it seems that God has once more guided us each aright.

Last night we spoke of the possibility of engagement before his going to the field, but it is not yet the Lord’s time. Each of us feels, in our heart of hearts, that God will eventually lead us together—an amazing thing in itself, that we should feel this way and be free to speak of it to one another—but as yet it seems best for Jim to go entirely unattached, so that he can apply himself wholly to the task of orientation on the field.

In her scrapbook, my mother wrote, “Just friends.” New Jersey visit, Fall 1951.

“The possibility of engagement.” The belief that “God will eventually lead us together.” These were important developments. “Furthermore,” she added:

God’s will for me seems to be directed toward some Latin field. He alone knows how desperately I want to do only His will, so I know He will not suffer me to make a mistake in this.

This was huge obviously, since her latest leaning had been toward the South Pacific, though she was yet unclear about it.

But not even these mutual places of agreement comprised the sum total of what God was doing to astound her. There was also this: “Jim’s parents came down today for the weekend—another interesting circumstance, that they should be here just now.” (They’d dropped off their youngest child, Jane, at Wheaton and then worked an extended eastward swing into the trip.) “Their attitude toward me seems to be one of friendliness, contrary to that which I sensed while visiting in their home.” What a change this represented which, based on that critical letter from two years ago, no one could’ve seen coming.

Only God could orchestrate all these events, she thought. And watching Him at work brought to her an almost indescribable relief . . . about everything.

At long last, I feel an easiness, a rest, about our situation which is new to me. Last night, in our time alone together, there was a new sense of liberty and release from vague doubtings and fears. I can look back over the years of our relationship, and see such very marked development. In mind and spirit now, we are one.

Yes, finally, “we are one.” My dear mother could now understand and believe that although my father still needed to go on singly to Ecuador, God in His kindness had brought them together again at this time with the added hope that He might bring them to marriage eventually. She was at rest—a depth of rest that belied all worry and fear—and could wait with patience until the exact time when perhaps they could be more “one” with each other. As she wrote to my dad in a quick note on September 30, mailed to catch up with him in New York where he’d be spending the week, she said:

Know this—that I am at rest, as I know you are—in the revealed will of God in this regard. He has given light in the darkness. “Wilt thou love Me, trust Me, praise Me?” Yea, Lord—forever.

He quickly answered back, affirmatively.

October 2

The will of God is sweet tonight, altogether “good and acceptable and perfect.” The considerate love of the Lord Jesus for us seems such a kind thing now. I know it has always been so, but somehow I didn’t see how wise it was when it didn’t seem kind. . . . Remind me of this when I cannot regard His love as considerate sometime.

He then shared a story—one which my mother included in her biography of my father’s life—but remains so poignant that I can’t help but reprint it.

Stayed overnight with a brother in Queens who raises chrysanthemums for a hobby. He was telling me they don’t bloom until every other flower is gone or going with the frost. I suspected that the frost might be what brought them to bloom, but he said, “No, it’s the longer nights.” He described a process of shrouding them before sunset and leaving them covered till after dawn to hasten their bloom. I really never realized the point of Rutherford: “But flowers need the darkness”—not just for rest evidently, but for blossoming. Need I allegorize?

No, his insight was perfect. Both of them saw the hand of the Lord in bringing them together, even as He had kept them apart during “the longer nights.” In time they would observe many more signs of their Shepherd’s leading and lovingkindness. They knew that the same Creator who makes chrysanthemums bloom in the dark would guide them as He does for all His children, through sunless days.

Like right now, my mother must have been thinking. If God was truly fitting her for a Latin American destination, “I am perplexed,” she said, “as to what my next step should be.”

October 2: Should I write Dorothy Jones, a girl who intends to go to Ecuador and needs a single woman to go with her? Should I go to New York and visit the Voices from the Vineyard office? Should I take steps toward getting to some Spanish-speaking country immediately, in order to begin working on Spanish?

My father was free with advice:

There are several things to keep in mind re: preparation for Ecuador. (1) Spanish, by whatever means. (2) Teacher’s certificate, very valuable if attainable. (3) Medical training.

Yes, much to contemplate and prioritize, but only one place to start—in prayer. She closed her journal entry of October 2 with the words, “Lord, these questions are all known to Thee. Do Thou give Thine answer. ‘I would not take a single step apart from Thee.’ And, Lord, keep me ever in utter dependence on Thee.” Then, as she occasionally did in her journal, she punctuated this next fragment of hymn lyric in print, rather than cursive, as well as in bold, repeated pen strokes, “Hold o’er my being Absolute Sway,” which truly reflected her heart—and my dad’s—who encouraged her by saying, “The Lord will not let you make any mistakes.”

But oh, how beautifully He did let them have this time to themselves—such savored moments throughout what amounted to five light-filled weeks.

Their next encounter included a bit of unexpected drama. My mother rode with her brother Phil and his wife, Margaret, to Hackensack, New Jersey, to hear my dad speak. But . . .

October 12: Rain and heavy traffic delayed us, so that we were unable to reach there until the meeting was all over. We had a message delivered to Jim at the hall by the police, to tell him we were coming, and he should wait!

It was so good to be with him again. On Monday we had the whole day together—the first time since he’s been east. We went to Oswego Lake, then down to the shore, then to Keswick, where we ate a picnic supper as the sun set by the lake.

Two weeks later, rather than unexpected drama, it was unmitigated delight.

October 25: We have had four perfect days together. He and Pete Fleming, the fellow with whom he is going to Ecuador, Phil, Margaret, and I left New York City on Sunday night, after Jim and Pete’s meetings, and travelled all night, arriving [at their vacation home in Franconia] around 9:00 a.m. It was surely cold, and the cottage was all boarded up and very bleak.

But to be here with Jim—it was beyond imagination. Monday afternoon we all climbed Bald Mountain and then hiked down over Artists’ Bluff. Tuesday we hiked through the Flume, and then up to Lonesome Lake. Wednesday, a gray day, we took the Ammonoosuc Trail up to Lake-of-the-Clouds on Mt. Washington. The enjoyment of nature—all the loveliness our Father has made with His hands—is doubly rich sharing with Jim. Our minds run quite in similar patterns—complementing each other, dovetailing and meeting.

Last night he took me to Littleton, where we ate dinner at Thayer’s Hotel, then drove up to the “Noth” [the way New Englanders pronounce it] where we sat in the car by Echo Lake, in a howling rain and windstorm. Just to be with him is peace, peace.

The thing that comes to me, time after time, is that each heavenly truth has its earthly counterpart, and human love reflects so much of divine love, of course, since it is of God. “He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God.” It is truly wonderful—and our dear heavenly Father has planned so perfectly, so lovingly, for us.

“There are three things,” said the writer of Proverbs 30, “which are too wonderful for me, four which I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship in the middle of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid” (Prov. 30:18–19 nasb). Genuine, pure love between a man and a woman, especially when each person seeks the others’ best, is truly an amazing gift from God. Only He could have thought of it! “And He has given us this love,” my mother said personally of she and my dad—a love which bore such similarity to God’s own love for them.

Our love is His love, manifested in us toward each other. Our passions and natural affections are awakened, vivified, channeled by the love of God.

“God is love.” And for five autumn weeks in the Northeast, having had the privilege of spending at least some of that time together, their love filled them with a new wonder, awareness, and assurance.

The next day it filled them with something else. With longing.

October 26: Alone. The word never held so much meaning. Jim has gone—and with him my very soul and heart. . . . As I look over this five weeks since Jim came east, I stand awed and amazed. What hath God wrought? True, we have loved for three years—nearly four. But never has there been any prospect of marriage, and consequently our relationship has been cautious and limited in expression.

Now it seems that God intends for us to marry, [but] we cannot enter into a formal engagement because of the uncertainty regarding the demands of jungle life. We know not how long the work may require of single men. Pete and Jim are ready for whatever the Lord indicates. . . .

“Devotedly, Mother.” Note to Mama from her mother, my Grandmother Howard (Katherine Gillingham Howard). She was sad for them at my father’s leaving.

But, oh, my flesh and my heart faileth! I feel absolutely empty, hollow, aching with loneliness. I want Jim. I love him strongly, deeply, powerfully. He is my life.

My father, clattering away from her on a bumpy railroad car—enough that he apologized for the shaky handwriting—was equally as undone.

October 29

All the while I have been unable to think for five minutes without being interrupted by thoughts of you. Your face did die with consciousness as I went off to sleep, then rose as I woke. Images, attitudes, phrases, looks, embraces hailed me from out of the past few weeks, and I nearly succumbed to think that it is not to be again for years, perhaps. All day Saturday there was that pressure at my chest that made me look away to the sky and exhale in a sigh, signifying I don’t know what.

I am nearer tears this morning than I have been all weekend. Remembrance of what you said about missing me on waking came as dawn broke this morning, and I thought of you with your slender, white, and empty arms there in a warm bed . . .

This may be a phase—the sort of thing Pete wished me a speedy recovery from. I hope in a way that it is, but as yet it intensifies and shows no signs of let up. There is no need to analyze. I love you, Betty, and I feel it keenly this morning.

But what sounded like a wrap-up of his thoughts led only to more memories, recalling their last sighting of each other.

I will not forget your clear, wide eyes vanishing at the station on Saturday. The unfeeling lackey who tugged me back on the platform and shouted, “Watch out for the stairs,” and slammed the cover, cut me out of a pleasure, that of seeing your eyes grow smaller and smaller until they disappeared. I had no tears. After a few minutes of strained silence, we began a slow conversation, and Pete soon had me talked out of tears.

“Yes,” she wrote in response, recalling the precise moment:

October 31

I was sorry, too, to see you jerked out of sight so abruptly on Saturday. I stood there until the last car had rounded the curve, then came to find myself completely alone on the platform, with gates closed and every human soul vanished! But I, too, was amazingly kept from tears just then. I am glad. It was not until I came to my room alone, after lunch, that I could let go.

Jim, I still stand amazed at the wonder of it all—the Lord’s perfect planning for us, bringing you here just at this particular juncture when I had no idea where to turn (or, I should say, when any further delay would have precipitated my going on out to the South Seas). He knew all the thoughts, intents, and needs of our hearts and met every one.

And the exceeding abundantly (no, the train isn’t rocking—it’s only my heart) was the trip to Franconia. “O God of stars and flowers, forgive our blindness; no dream of night had dared what Thou hast wrought.” Let us not cease to wonder at the wondrous things our God does. Let us forever hold the glad surprise of children.

And for tomorrow—for those “years” of which you speak, of which I cannot think with equanimity—it is just one day of separation at a time. The Lord has been with me this day, and with you. He has sustained and guided the same as He has ever done. And should He never see fit to bring us together, we are His; we are still loved by Him. “He will bear.” Grace for tomorrow is never given today. Remember the manna? Neither is grace for imaginations ever given.

She closed with a line from Whittier’s “The Eternal Goodness.”

And so, beside the silent sea I wait the muffled oar No harm from Him can come to me on ocean or on shore.I know not where His islands lift their fronded palms in air;I only know I cannot drift beyond His love and care.

Oh, it was wonderful, Jim . . . just being with you. I thank my God upon every remembrance.

Gratefully, Betty

I still marvel at how little physical touch they’d actually experienced. All they’d allowed themselves were a few embraces, hand holding, possibly a kiss on the cheek. But how important to learn from my amazing parents that their absolute priority remained the love of God, dependence on God, and continual prayer for His leading.

A person may ask, “Is God enough for me, to satisfy all my longings, even if I’ve not been given the romance I’ve dreamed of? Will He help me through those ‘long nights’ of loneliness? Will He stay my desires when He hasn’t clearly shown His blessing on the relationship?” My parents’ experience would say, definitely, He is worth waiting on! Their four-plus years of waiting produced such a weight of godliness in them. It built into their character those things necessary for being content with God alone: a determination to love Him first, as well as using that time of waiting to know Him in deep intimacy.

And they would need it all, because in many ways the true test of their faith had only begun.

November 3

Although I cannot mail this until Monday, I feel that I want to talk with you, Jim, and so there is no better time to write. . . . It is just one week today (forgive me, I’m sounding “sickly sentimental!”) since we said goodbye. How well I know that “pressure” of which you speak, which causes one to look off to the far horizon and sigh. How many such sighs have been drawn from me this past week—and a long week it has been, believe me.

For you, I imagine time is flying, with all your traveling, meetings, contacts, etc. I have discovered a subtle thing in myself this week—I find that I welcome any activity, any social engagement, any place to go, not for the thing itself, but merely from an impatient, undisciplined desire to kill time. This bespeaks a soul not wholly at rest in the Lord.

“Oh, Time! Time!” I think to myself—“Begone! Let’s just skip over the next few years, any old way, slipshod, carelessly, but quickly!” Yet gently, quietly, the Shepherd leads me beside still waters, makes me to lie down. And the lovely old words of Psalm 33 come to me:

Our soul (note the plural adjective, singular noun) waiteth for the Lord: He is our help and shield. For our heart (again) shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name. Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we hope in Thee.

And He is answering—He is teaching me to rest in His everlasting arms, unconscious of all besides Himself and His happy will.

And Jim, this too had its counterpart. When I remember those evenings by the fire in Franconia, or above New York’s light and bustle, or just here at home—I am almost faint with tenderness.

“Almost faint.” Perhaps he was feeling the same way.

Actually, what was making him feel faint was that her letters were not reaching him along the road. My mother suspected it, and grieved her carelessness. “Yesterday I took my train case back to have it initialed. The sales slip I turned in with it was evidently the scrap of paper on which I’d written your Oklahoma City address. I’m sorry, Jim—I did want this to reach you this weekend.”

But it didn’t. None of them did.

November 5

I was disappointed at finding no letter from you in Oklahoma City. When nothing was waiting at Sparta, I felt sure there would be word from you Saturday at Jones. We hustled through some real scenery in fall tones to get to Oklahoma City, and then—no word.

Pete had one waiting from Olive. It was hard to choke back disappointment and to smile. Funny how little accusations against you would be met in my mind immediately by apologies and explanations.

It was worse to have to leave there this morning before mail time. Even went to the PO to try and intercept something—but the carrier had already gone out. It means another whole week with no word, Betty, and I make no bones about it—it isn’t easy! . . .

Tomorrow, Pete and I will be heading to Carlsbad Caverns, the folks trailing a little later in the day. El Paso tomorrow night. Then Phoenix, then LA and, I trust, word from you! Two weeks! Two weeks of silence after those close, oh-so-close days in Franconia!

Another trial to my patience occurred yesterday as I was rewinding my camera. I thought I had the film all ready to take out, so I opened the back—only to find the winder stuck and a half dozen pictures desensitized. And nearly all of them of you. I don’t know which ones yet, of course—but it sure made me bite my lip.

Pete just remarked that he felt powerless these days. So do I. It’s mostly the pace—not time for concentrated prayer and waiting on God. Pray that we might not waste these contacts on this account. It’s hard to be alert to the mind of God when you’re dull and sleepy. And that’s what we’ve been since Washington, D.C. That’s what’s the matter now.

I wish I were better able to compose a letter to the woman I think so highly of. Anyhow—all this for tonight.

Jim

Poor man! No letters, no pictures, no time for rest or unhurried prayer. Among his few consolations was an offhand encounter with a young woman in OKC—a “red-haired pianist” who “remembered you”—from college, I assume, or from her summer in Oklahoma.

Without any prompting she volunteered, “Oh, she’s tall and graceful. I always admired her—the way she handled herself.” She thinks you must be pretty smart to have hooked me—everybody seems to have the impression I was sorta impregnable. I find it a stunning way to open conversation among the old friends—just to start off, “I’ve found the girl I’m going to marry.” Causes quite a stir, if I do say so myself.

Yes, she was sure it did. But despite the warmth she felt in knowing how he felt about her, and despite the thrill of hearing such joy in his voice when he thought of her, she could probably have gone a while without hearing of it. Word of his sharing so freely with others about their relationship came during the same week she’d been praying the following words: “If, in Thine own perfect time, Thou seest best to bring Jim and me together, to work for Thee as man and wife, prepare us for such event. But ever let us fix our minds and hearts upon Thyself.” Hear the total surrender? The lack of any presumption?

So while she answered his letter with much less verve than, say, her response to his Renaissance, she gently let him know he was pushing the boundaries again.

November 13

Another thing I feel I must speak of—you go about telling your friends, “I’ve found the girl I’m going to marry.” This, you know as well as I do, is not strictly true in the sense others will understand it. I would not dream of saying that to my friends. So—until it is mutual, until such time as the Lord may make it clear that we are to marry, please, Jim, for my sake, if for no other reason, don’t spread this around.

To me, nothing is more obnoxious than rumors, and undoubtedly rumors are flying. “They’re engaged.” “Oh, no, it’s some odd arrangement—not exactly engaged.” “Yes, but they might as well be,” etc. etc. Then, if we ever are actually engaged, all the joy is taken out of announcing it, for everyone’s reaction is, “About time!” “I thought they were engaged long ago.” Do you understand, Jim? I hope you will.

Call it silly if you will, but to me, these things are high and holy, not to be lightly spoken of, and as yet, so far as our relationship is concerned, it is not ours to banter about, but His entirely, in His hands, until He may see fit to give us to each other. Then, and only then, may we feel free to speak of it to anyone, without fear of equivocation.

My father was a little too free and impulsive with his tongue, and he repented quite often of it in his journals. My mother, by contrast, was very strict with herself and chose her words carefully, thinking through the possible ways they could be misconstrued. She did not want the relationship talked about because they were not yet completely given to each other. She felt that the claim they might want to have on one another was still in the mysterious future of God’s plan. Talking about it, in her view, confirmed it in other people’s minds and cheapened what they’d committed to prayer.

I admire both of their personalities. I admire my father’s fearlessness, how he wasn’t afraid of the spin other people might put on his words. But I also admire her plea that he not speak of her as being “the girl I’m going to marry.” Her falling in love with the man whom God had appointed for her was something she considered a “high and holy” matter, something to be kept sacred by keeping it to themselves.

I do understand my father’s eagerness to talk. I’m afraid I inherited more of his spontaneity and quickness to tell—the easy gab—rather than the commitment to keep things secret and hidden until such time as the Lord is ready to reveal His answers. But how few women today have such control over their tongues or emotions, as my mother did, pondering holy things in their hearts without blabbing about them, without telling “three hundred of their closest friends.” We over-share today, more than people need to know, not discerning those things we should rightly regard as precious and holy before God.

To my father’s credit, he received her gentle rebuke with mostly humble contrition and consideration.

November 19

Really, Betts, I’m sorry if I’ve begun rumors by careless talk. I don’t really feel that I’ve been flippant or undue in speaking of our relationship. Still, I’ve been known to be unwise. I want you to get the full benefit of announcing an engagement. And those I’ve spoken to, I have cautioned for your sake. Dave will tell you that I asked him to keep it quiet on this very count, and I’ve tried to be consistent with the same note to all. What’s been done, you’ll have to charge up to blunder and commit to God.

This was simply a man in love, caught up in love’s excitement—surprising even himself with the new “constancy” in his love, something he’d once thought himself incapable of feeling, much less giving. As he said in a letter he wrote to her a week or so earlier:

November 10

It’s a good thing, this loving you—a good, strong, bracing thing—the very thing our God would be apt to do for me prior to my going out. . . .

Anywhere I desire you. Always I want you with me. Is it walking in the morning, long before dawn? Then I hear you breathe somewhere close to my face, coming fast and noisy, then quickly indrawn and let out slowly. Is it watching scenery—the trees of Texas which have no trunks but grow like branches right from the ground—the frightening depths and fantasy of Carlsbad—the savagely twisted skeletons of dead trees on Grand Canyon rim—I want to point them all out to you and describe them. Every place is evaluated by its suitability to a honeymoon situation. . . .

Woke early again this morning and shared my devotional with dreams of you. It bothers me somewhat that you are on my mind when I ought to be praying, and it’s a discipline not to indulge overmuch in remembering. Not that I feel a conflict—I am assured that loving you is part of my life now, important as eating, and God knows I need it.

Being in love, he said to her in another letter, was like “rediscovering” the whole world around him.

November 17

Loving has let me in on a whole new area of poetry. Since high school days I have regarded love lyrics with some disdain, and that’s why I say rediscovery. I learned them academically, now empathetically. Strange how universal love is—I can pick something from nearly every piece and say, “That belongs to us.”

Especially did I thrill to “First Time He Kissed Me” [a sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning]. It linked itself immediately with our ride to Franconia that Sunday night. Will I forget how, feigning sleepiness, I crowded you against the clothing hung against the door—how your body stiffened as my hand made its way to being received by your fingers—how the whole of you slackened and how my fingers were pressed to your lips? Will I forget? Not soon. Excuse this indulgence.

I thank my God. Life has been made so much more the fuller for His giving me you. I was recounting today as we rolled the last three hundred miles up from Klamath Falls, how rich, how full (I can’t find a better word!) He has made life for me. Sea-like, but having no ebb, no, not at my fingertips. Nature, body, soul, friendship, family—all full for me, and then, what many have not the capacity to enjoy. “And He said, ‘Lacked ye anything?’ They said, ‘Nothing.’ Part of me was lacking until this now—oh, I needed you, neither of us knew how sorely! And even now, though I don’t have you in the fullest sense, still I do—in a sense I will not when we have known each other.

I’m glad that last is still ahead. Glad I’m not jaded by nights in bed with you. . . . I’m glad I still can’t quite keep my hands off you—still must be warned not to “mess you up.” I have you now unravished, and that is just how I need you now. The schoolboy in me still wonders and is awkward. Experience has not taken the edge off. We will, I suppose, get used to each other, the feel and smell and look of one another, but I am glad it is not so now. As never felt before, I feel now that I must keep myself for you. God knows it is a stay to purity, and He knows how many shakings to purity are ahead. . . .

I wish I could touch your cheek with my own to say goodbye again. But it is not for now. I am glad it was for once, and shall be again, God leading.

Your Jim

This is true love. In high honor. How it makes the heart beat faster to hear it expressed in such strong, innocent purity. And how glad I am that they remained pure as a testimony to Christ’s power and the Spirit’s control over their relationship. Some of these restrictions annoyed him, for obvious reasons, and she too wanted to give in to physical desire. But they knew they each belonged to God alone, that they could give only a portion of their hearts to the other for now, until the time He planned for them to be married. The verse they later chose for their wedding day (Isa. 25:9) was speaking to them already. “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him.”

The fall of ’51 was still their waiting time.

By Thanksgiving they were each at home, celebrating with family and guests, thinking longingly of one another, and thinking with renewed clarity on the future.

November 22

Pete just passed through en route to Seattle. I met him at the bus depot and took him some baggage we brought up in the car. Word from Tidmarsh says that a minister of government who is favorable to us must leave his post December 7, and that our entry permits must go through him. . . . So now we await word on a sailing date in January. The Lord has a certain slow dignity about His movings which constantly shames my fretting unbelief. He will take us to Ecuador in His own schedule, and it will be neither late nor early, regardless of what we hope or plan. . . .

I didn’t intend to write news. This was intended to be a release-chat with you; I probably won’t mail it until I hear of your affairs. I needed to get some idea at least of being in contact with you this morning, and writing is a help.

I needed you yesterday—wanted you more than for days I have wanted you. The sighs were coming again—the little noiseless cries I feel inside when everything and everybody seems so unrelated to you—nobody to talk to about you, nothing that brings strong recollection in the whole context.

My Kodachromes [an early brand of Kodak camera film] are little comfort. The one Pete took of us at the shore, he moved, and though it looks like fair composition, it’s hopelessly blurred. The one of you at Great Bay lying on the sand, you have your eyes shut. The other, with you standing in the little sand-spit with the salt flats behind, is over-exposed. I abuse myself mercilessly for not taking more pictures of you. Incidentally, I have nothing suitable to carry with me for demonstration and remembrance. Maybe your mother would show mercy and take some shots of you in that green suit—the one you wore when I saw you last. . . .

Let me tell you honestly, Betty, I love the look of you. My favorite of you now is a wallet-size of a Tower shot [the Wheaton College yearbook]. You are in a dark suit and have a white flounce at the neck and look straight at me. The larger one in ’49 looks off to the side.

I wonder if you were conscious of averting your eyes in many of those Franconia passions when I looked straight into them. One time in particular I remember you rolled your head clear away to look into the fire when I wanted to face you. Please don’t feel that way. I like the look of you! I’m glad that I love more in you than looks, so that if I went stone blind I would still have love. But your looks are not disconnected from it.

Love you for love’s sake only? Not exactly. For love’s sake, yes, but for dozens of other things too, and not the least of which is every dear remembrance of your face. The grace of your forehead, the clearness of your eyes. “But, oh, that carven mouth with all its intensity of longing.”

Ever, Jim

I don’t think he knew what to make of himself these days. Brash and bold for Ecuador, yet weak in the knees for my mother. How had this happened? he wondered candidly in his journal. To me? Jim Elliot?

November 20: Frightens me to think of finally leaping over all the old barriers I’ve raised against marriage. Is it to be, after all, the conventional life of rugs and appliances and babies? Is Paul’s example of single intensity beyond me? Am I at last not one of those who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom’s sake?

I feel no bitterness, but a sense of regret at losing all the good liberties God has allowed me until now, should I make the promise. No settlement in my mind one way or another, though I feel strongly that for my own stability, for Betty’s ease, and for most folks’ tongues, I should buy a ring.

Lord, which way? “Thou hast heard the desire of the meek: Thou wilt prepare the heart” (Ps. 10:17). What shall I say to all the liberty I’ve been given to preach adherence to Pauline method—even to single men working in the field, and illustrating it from Pete’s intention and my own? Rather, what will men think who have heard me say, “I go single, in the will of God,” when, if I were really engaged, my plans would be otherwise?

Well, it is in God’s hands. He gave direction to speak that way. And after all, an engaged man is still single, but purposing to be married. And Paul would have me free of care. Did he ever love a woman?

Or ever lust for a woman? Let’s not pretend that my father was above the temptation. Yet in response to it, he did what all godly men (and women) must do when accosted by strong, unholy thoughts. He called them out, considered it war, and made his impassioned pleas that God would be His strength to endure.

November 21: 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.

Frightfully depressed this whole day, a sense of inner wrong from defeated thinking from lust which warred against the soul. A day when things did not go well—all things seemed to betray me, and nothing satisfied—a day in the presence of demons, crafty, cruel demons who fight under camouflage. God deliver! Oh, take me to Thy ways of escape.

Much of this—the intensity of it at least—was new to him. With my mother featuring more prominently than ever in his future, the approaching unknowns had become freshly hard to contemplate.

November 23: I feel now as though it may mean five years of single life yet—these next five resilient years, years when I will most want her, most need her, and better be able to satisfy her. These years I see in the plan now must be spent alone. . . . Perhaps I’m wrong in planning in terms of years, but a man can’t feel the “lustihood of his young powers” swell and surge inside him and not be affected by restraining them. It may be that He hasn’t planned to make us wait five years, but it certainly looks from here that it can’t be any less.

December 6: What will it be like in Ecuador? God, make me to forget! I remember too keenly to endure much retrospect. Passion, bordering on frenzy, grips me at times—not always, thank heaven, but often enough to make any denial of her for the work’s sake a very real, poignant thing.

In this just now I feel more than anywhere the Lord Jesus’ requirement, “Except a man forsake . . .” Well, thank God for the privilege of giving aught up for His sake. But I know from this present sense of need that I cannot do so forever. Or, perhaps, if He requires that, He will teach me disciplines of desire, something I am not now acquainted with.

Yet when buffeted by conflicted feelings—by struggles within himself as well as expectations placed upon him by others—he returned as always to the sure Word of God.

November 29: My refuge is in Jehovah, whom I have asked to preserve me. For now and always, “He is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; Thou maintainest my lot.”. . . My going to Ecuador is God’s counsel, as is my leaving Betty, as is my refusal to be counseled by all who insist I should stay and stir up the believers in the U.S. And how do I know it is His counsel? “Yea, my heart instructeth me in the night seasons.” Oh, how good, for I have known that—my heart speaking to me for God! . . .

And so I sense that I may share the Christ’s words, “I have set Jehovah always before me; He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved” (Acts 2:25). Not moved? With all the awful pressure of inward desire to move me to lust? Not moved. With all demonic hatred to move me to fear and doubt? Not moved.

“Not moved.” And my mother, with her face equally set on following God going forward, would not be moved either. She courageously entered the next open door He presented to her in preparation for going to Latin America—doing short-term work with a Spanish assembly in New York City.

My father had made the connection—Luis Montalvo, a Spanish brother who was a leader among the Brethren there. “They have an apartment ready for me,” my mother wrote on November 25, “and Mr. Montalvo is going to teach me Spanish” while she worked in their ministry office, known as Voices from the Vineyard.

Within a week after Thanksgiving, she was situated for this new chapter in life.

November 28: Imagine me—living in a tenement in Brooklyn! More fun! But here I am in bed alone in a little flat in the Spanish section. The Lord is here, and I am happy. Mother brought me over, and we spent last night with Anne at Shelton. The memories there simply tore me to pieces. Oh, how I miss J! We had such a perfect three days together (oh, that word—together) there, and I kept seeing him in “all the old familiar places.”. . .

Tonight I went to Montalvo’s for dinner (rice, beans, chicken soup, corn, and some sort of chicken boiled in a kind of tomato mixture—everything vaguely flavored with garlic!). And then to the Baptist Temple for prayer meeting.

O Lord—a new phase of my life. Have absolute control. I have prayed, “If Thy presence go not up with me, carry me not up hence.” But Thou hast carried me here, so I know Thou art with me. Let me not miss a single lesson or blessing Thou hast for me here.

The first lesson was loneliness. And culture shock.

November 29: Lonely. What do missionaries do who go to a foreign field alone? Here I have friends nearby, but feel so very much alone. The atmosphere here is not conducive to bright spirits. I have been cold ever since I got here, with the exception of a few minutes in a hot bath (heated water on the stove) this afternoon. Now I have on my winter coat and feel okay, except for cold feet.

The place is so filthy too. I have tried to clean up, but got only so far as the kitchen and the bathtub. Had a Spanish lesson this a.m. with a Mr. Johnson, formerly of Venezuela, who was staying with Don Luis. Had lunch there—cooked by Don Luis—and washed up the messy dishes. Came home and studied a little. Very little. I haven’t the heart to apply myself. O Lord—be not far from me. Make haste to help me.

My father’s letters to her became true lifelines. She described her hunger for them in this early December letter she wrote from Brooklyn.

December 5

Few of your letters have been so eagerly torn open as was your last, Jim. I was working in the Voices office when Don Luis called wondering where I was and telling me there was a letter for me which had been there since Friday. (It was Monday afternoon, and I had been away all weekend.) So I had the rest of the afternoon to wait, then the long, dark ride on subway and elevated, then I had to rush to a meeting without a chance to call at Montalvo’s first. Finally I got it, and my hopes were fulfilled—it was yours.

Well, seated alone in my little living room, I gave myself to your letter. I was with you once more, at peace, conscious of your love, the utter wonder of it all. I do not deny that I am sometimes lonely here, surrounded entirely by foreigners, with not even a tree to relieve the oppression of filthy walls. But the Lord has given many kinds of balm, not the least of which is your love, which seems to me now so matured and established.

As my mother ate in this restaurant, she remembered their “perfect three days” together at Shelton College, a Bible institute in New York City.

Indeed, his love had become so. It had grown deeper and more unselfish, if that’s possible when one desires another so much, as these two did. Even his tone of voice had changed. At the beginning of their correspondence, he generally wrote with exhortation and rebuking. He spoke to her more as he spoke to all at Wheaton, where he was known for sternly challenging others to stay the course and seek first the kingdom, to leave behind the worldly pursuits of natural man. But now his words were tender and loving. Gracefully expressed. Where he once had scoffed at her “militant morality,” he now thanked her for “refraining from intimacies you have wisely withheld from me.” Where he once had felt honor bound to specify his parents’ initial criticisms on her character and appearance, he now felt ashamed at how unkind he’d been in passing along their views so heartlessly.

November 28

Got to browsing old letters again for a few minutes today. Yours of the fall of ’49—particularly that one written after you were here—seem so far away. What a heartless letter mine must have been, describing the folk’s reaction to you! I really wonder at myself being able to write so. I think I could not bring myself to do it now, even if occasion demanded. . . .

Know this, Betty, that my longing for you is begetting a tenderness that makes me think I could never be unkind to you or speak sharply. Hearing the petty bickering of married folks annoys me, and I wonder if they can know what I know now of tenderness. Remind me of this in years to come (if they are granted us) and remember that you have been loved with a love that is all softness by . . .

Jim

Almost doesn’t sound like the same man, does it?

Nor did the place where she was reading his letter feel like home.

December 5

A far cry from Birdsong, this. . . . The apartment is about five blocks from Montalvo’s, sandwiched in between the Rheingold Breweries and the Hungarian Pickle Works! All around are typical East Side tenements, with their rusted fire escapes, broken stone steps, bedding drooling from the windowsills, etc. This building is no exception. The smell of boiled cabbage, garlic, rusted steam pipes, and crumbling plaster greets me each time I labor up the five flights of dank stairway . . . utterly removed from anything I have ever known.

The sights and sounds made thoughts of him all the sweeter.

I dreamed the other night that you came east again for some business matter before sailing. And I guess I dream of you every night. But when I awake, it is rather like the end of a roll of movie film when it starts flapping, and one catches instantaneous glimpses of a picture here and there in the sputtering grayness. So now—I go gladly to bed, for I may dream again.

Note their context and mind-set as 1951 draws toward a close. My mother was adjusting to a whole new set of living conditions, amid the complex challenges of trying to learn and master a different language. My father was barely a month away from his sailing date, hustling to make preparations while dealing with the permanence of leaving home, this time for good.

Naturally, with this setting as backdrop, the interplay of their letters became all the more serious, hungry, and heartfelt.

JE (December 7): Tomorrow your last letter will be two weeks old. I can almost quote it. Every day since Saturday, I’ve been of no use at all between 10:00 and 11:30 a.m., the hour of the mail’s arrival, usually. And every day, the big stack of mail—checked through, twice—with no signs of the fine-scripted envelope that means so much to me now.

EH (December 9): There is always a special thrill in the unexpected (e.g., the time you called from NY just because you were “hungry”—or the one time I was alone in the kitchen at Franconia and you came around the porch in the dark). Your letter of November 28 (and other dates subsequent) was one of those. I mailed a letter to you on Thursday.

JE: There was a time when I could pass off not hearing by saying to myself, “Forget it, you can get along, you don’t need word.” That’s no solace now. I feel that I do need word, that somehow I can’t get along. Before it would have been possible to harden my thoughts and go on. Now that’s impossible. Even if I want to be tough, there’s a tenderness.

EH: I opened your letter on the subway going into NY. In spite of the sad, stupid, hard, or blank faces around me, and the roar and swaying of the train, I was once more carried away, out of myself, and I felt that I was with you. . . . And where do you suppose I emerged from the subway? 59th Street, Columbus Circle. It was almost too much for me. I walked down 8th Avenue, remembering that Thursday morning breakfast in Hotel Park Sheraton, Central Park, Columbus Circle.

JE: Your copy of AC’s poem was fitting: “But from thy brier shall bloom a rose that is for others.”. . . I am asking that it will be so for you there, Betty, amid the cabbage smell and the crumbling plaster and all. It would drive me mad thinking of you alone there, dreaming about me in the darkness, did I not know that roses bloomed on briers.

EH: It never ceases to amaze me, the incompleteness I feel—I, who was of all women most independent and proud of it! I wanted you beside me, your strong arm to hold, just to feel your sleeve, and know that you were there!

JE: I dreamed about you last night. Coming home last evening and reading your letter before I slept was like coming home to you, almost. You came to me in bed, serious and shivering. I made you laugh and warmed you with my body. Such things are seldom, and I enjoyed it because it seemed good and right, and not much like a dream. Your letter did it, your talk of holding my arm and of being cold there in Apartment 15. . . . I wish I could be there to share your “little stew” and fill your evenings—sharing other things. . . .

All this week I’ve been thinking of reasons for loving you, and the Lord has counseled me. I like to remember that He gave you to me. You are His own gift, granted in mercy and in all the wisdom of His choosing. Given, not deserved, scarcely asked for, never merited, but given in grace, without my hardly lifting a finger even to “woo” you. Without my knowing what I needed or even that I needed. He selected you for me and gave.

This, among many other thoughts, has strengthened me in love, for, as nearly always, I see it illustrating the truth concerning Christ and the church. Does not He enjoy speaking to His Father about those that were given to Him in John 17? And this is motive for His prayer and concern. The Church was a bestowal upon Christ directly from God. Does it seem too strong to say that you have been such to me? No. May our love be all that Eternity makes it to mean.

EH: Oh, may God grant that the bond which is even now so pure and strong may be tempered to an even greater purity and strength by His living grace. Let us never resign ourselves to the trivialities of the commonplace. Familiarity need never breed contempt. Deeper, fuller union with Christ only augments our wonder and adoration. So let it be.

Goodnight, Jim, dear friend

I often hearken back to her telling me of their love, their delight, and the consuming fire of longing, and I am forever grateful for this perfect plan of a romance which God created. How much sweeter hearing her say the same things in real time, as their love was happening.

December 14: A letter came from J. this morning with a fine picture of him. Funny—others think of him as handsome. I only know it is the face I love, the dear features that haunt every dream of every night. Dear man! Tender, strong, kind—can it be that his love is really for me? We are Thine, O Lord and Master—forever, only Thine.

But as Christmas came, the “longing” part was what she felt more strongly than anything else.

December 23: The whole family is at home now—for the first time (at Christmas) since 1947—and in ’47, there was one other here with us. Jim. The rest of the family is basking in its utter completeness. I, for the first time in just this way, feel my incompleteness. . . .

This morning as we gathered in the living room for family worship, I was so overwhelmed with longing for J.—tears came. He had sent the family some lovely Oregon evergreens and holly. They were all about us to remind me of him. And I thought of how he had told me once that he knew, oh, how well he knew what it was to see others about him happy in marriage, and to long for me.

I suppose, really, that I am writing this journal, in some sense, for him. At least that is the way it seems now. It has not been conscious, but perhaps I am recording some of the things I wish I could say in my letters to him, but cannot. Why can I not say them in letters? Because we are not engaged (I’m not sure if this is true—that is, I’m not sure it is all the reason, or the real reason), and I shall never feel that I can fully express myself to him until (or unless—Lord, grant that in Thy will it may be “until”) we are engaged.

But I love him now—I love him. And it is strong, constant, and pure. Therefore it is of God. Love is of God. (I should say, “It is of God, and therefore it is strong, constant, pure.)

I cannot say these things to anyone. So I feel that I must write. Oh, I wonder how long it will be before I can say them, release them—to him? Beloved man, dear Jim.

Sight and hearing.

These two be in God

Not like in man.

We hear what’s heard;

He lists where hearing is not,

Views where eye

In all her pilgrimages long

And probings sharp

Has not yet guessed

That being is.

Jim Elliot

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