A Letter at Last
A Letter at Last
When our paths, to my immense joy, crossed in September of 1948, Jim told me he felt that God had given the liberty to start a correspondence. We talked again about marriage, puzzling over the thought that for us it might amount to an admission that Christ was not sufficient. This idea came out of Jim's reading of 1 Corinthians 7:37, "But if a man is steadfast in his purpose, being under no compulsion, and has complete control of his own choice; and if he has decided in his own mind to preserve his partner in her virginity, he will do well/' Jim had underlined in the hymnal he had given me the hymn, "Have I an object, Lord, below, which would divide my heart with Thee?" If marriage was not to be for us, then Christ was going to have to suffice. If with Himself He was going to give us marriage also, then we would receive it as His gift. The thing about gifts is that they are not asked for, but given, freely and out of love. It seemed too good a thing to hope for, but we hoped.
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As the train took me to Bible school in Alberta, Canada, I was reading the Book of Colossians as we crossed the bleak prairie of North Dakota—God's great secret, Christ in you; warnings about forced piety, self-mortification, severity to the body. How could I tell if this was what I was guilty of? Often during that school year our principal, L. E. Maxwell, would say, "The hardest thing in the world is—," and he would let the students finish it: "to keep balanced." I was finding that true.
On October 4, 1948, the girl who delivered the mail in the dormitory slipped the first letter from Jim under the door. I opened it with shaking fingers. I was hoping he would begin with "Dearest Bett," but he took refuge in the single ministerial word, "Beloved." The letter was typewritten, which made it seem impersonal and also caused me to wonder if he would be filing carbon copies.
It's hard to pull out of the nebulae that has collected in thinking about this letter some clever point with which to impress you right off, so I won't attempt it, but proceed as if I had been writing in my present capacity for a good long time. Got your card Wednesday afternoon. Clever, devas-tatingly so. [The card said only, "Miss you. Bett."]
I wish I had a "feel-o-meter" to transcribe what has been going on inside for the last few days. It began with that word I think I spoke to you of when we were together in the chapel that last morning: trembling.
And what should a tuffy like me be trembling about? Three things: you, me, and God. You: I tremble to think that my forwardness in declaring my feeling to you is actually affecting your entire life. I have an idea that it will be almost impossible to discern the Lord's mind for you without your struggling through a maze of thought and feeling about me. You must know a bit of this already in putting in an application to a mission board in Africa. And what if, in a real test, your feeling should overcome your faith? Whose then the responsibility? Not entirely yours. For
A Letter at Last
this I fear, that I, stepping out of the path of the Lord for just a moment, should draw you with me and thus be accountable for the "loss" of two lives.
Me: I cannot for the life of me understand my heart. Somewhere down deep in the murky pools of consciousness there is a great monster whom I will name "Want" just for now. This is the only constant thing about me: desire. Much to Freud's consternation I cannot name it "sex urge," for I have found that such will not glut the maw of the brute; he demands more of a varied diet, and one not so easily obtained as that, either. I am very thankful that the Buddhist Nirvana is not the apex of the spiritual life, or I should be the least spiritual of all men, if absolute satiation were the ideal. The brute is not the spirit or the soul, least of all is he the body. Rather, he is the ME that talks about these other things, argues about them, laughs and asks for more. He is Life. He is submerged down there a-lusting after something he can't name. The nearest he can get to it is with the word God. And God feeds him when I allow it. Silly, isn't it? For who, then, am "I"? Well, I didn't intend that this should run into metaphysics, but what I want to say is that there is within a hunger after God, given of God, filled by God. I can only be happy when I am conscious that He is doing what He wills to do within. What makes me tremble is that I might allow something else (you, for example) to take the place that my God should have. Now something tells me that I can, maybe, have them both. I am not averse to this, understand. I only tremble that I should think wrongly in supposing that you are one of the ways in which God intends to come in.
God: or better, the Lord Jesus. I tremble lest I should in any way offend my Eternal Lover. And whatever passes between us let us take note of this: All shall be revoked at His command. I am such a great, cumbersome boor to be "dove driven." Oh, how delicate are the tuggings of my Beloved, and how calloused my responses. Above all else I will that He might find in me the travail of His soul and be satisfied. But this is a hard thing when I speak to you, for somehow, the pleasing Him and the getting you are in
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conflict. I don't pretend to explain it; I can only describe what I feel—and that not very adequately.
Since you left it has been as if a film has been over my soul. My genuine fervor in prayer was gone for two days. Too much rubble so that I couldn't get to building the wall. See Nehemiah 4:10 for this. Notice, it was not the outward opposers that hindered the work so much as the inward clutter. Not "destruction" from outside forces so much as "decay" within. But the proof of God's hand comes in the affirmative answer to Sanballat's mocking in verse 2. "Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish which are burned?" The zealous Jews did. Apply this to us and imagine a little while. Are we willing to build with a trowel in one hand while our other hand grasps the sword? The building (God's work) must go on, and if there is to be battle as we build, very well, let us strengthen the "lower places" (v. 13). And I say to you the words of Nehemiah to the nobles, "The work is great... we are separated. . . . God shall fight for us" (vv. 19, 20).
I must confess to you, Bett, that I have had regrets about going even as far as we did in physical contact, and that was very little as most judge. We must guard against this if we are ever together again, for it gave me a whetted appetite for your body that I have found to be "rubble" in getting to the work. You must be hard on me in this; I know we do not have the same mind or makeup, and I feel that I need more of yours than you need of mine. Nietzsche has a word for us here: "One must discontinue being feasted upon when one tasteth best; that is known by all who want to be long loved." Do you get what he means by this: "Far too long hath there been a slave and a tyrant concealed in woman. On that account woman is not capable of friendship: she knoweth only love"? This is what I found in Billy—neither a worshiper (though he loved me) nor an overlord (though he was most esteemed). We met as equal dogs at the feet of the Omnipotent. I would have it this way with you and me. Fear not to hurt me with the Living Sword, yea strike to this purpose. Be more than a
A Letter at Last
lover—be a friend. We spoke of this at the moonrising tryst. "Love one another, as I have loved you." Remember?
But how shall I praise the Lord for removing the film this very morning? Confession is good for the soul; it was imperative for mine this morning. I cast it all upon him and John's truth about "cleansing from all sin" was very precious. Oh, how sweetly He "preached peace" to one that was far off (Ephesians 2:13, 17) . . . Nearness was the theme of my song and the thoughts seem well expressed in #136, Little Flock hymnal. The vail is rent, our souls draw near - / Unto a throne of grace; / The merits of the Lord appear, / They fill the holy place.
Oh, Betts, let us 'undistracted be' in our following.
Just to show you what a poor journalist I am, I will quote my time in composition of this letter: two hours. Part of it due to typing, I'm sure.
Have you been delivered after the fashion of Psalm 116:8, "Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling"?
Tenderly, Jim
Whetted Appetites
That "film over my soul" that Jim wrote about, those "regrets about going even as far as we did in physical contact," that "whetted appetite," that "rubble"—what about all that?
A question of chastity. An outmoded word, the world says, but the truth is it's a Christian obligation. It means abstention from sexual activity. For the Christian there is one rule and one rule only: total abstention from sexual activity outside of marriage and total faithfulness inside marriage. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts. Monks and nuns take vows of chastity, which for them means a lifetime of continence, since they do not marry. Some of them are trying to change that. A group of monks near Boston has recently been exploring "alternatives for sexual expression outside marriage." They chose a good area for it, I'm afraid, but monks of all people need not waste their time. It's all been done. Every alternative is being explored every night in the forty colleges and universities (not to men-
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tion theological seminaries) in that city. Let monasteries be devoted to other things.
The physical contact Jim referred to was my taking his arm when we walked, our sitting with shoulders tightly pressed together, and on one occasion as we sat on a park bench his suddenly stretching out on his back with his head in my lap. My fingers entwined his hair.
Chaste means "not indulging in unlawful sexual activity." Who would accuse us of having done so?
We were trying to live honestly before God, not before any worldly tribunal. Our Christian contemporaries were necking in cars (scrunching was the current word in our college), holding hands on campus, kissing in the dormitory lounges. When speakers came to campus, the question students always asked was where to draw the line, how far could they go?
We recognized that we were strongly drawn toward each other. There were "butterflies" when we were near. Those perfectly human, perfectly natural appetites were being whetted with every slightest touch, and the idea of a good long scrunch or even a single short kiss seemed like heaven itself.
Honesty required us to admit that we could not be sure precisely where the "line" should be drawn, and it was a potentially unmanageable force we were dealing with. Chastity meant for us not taking lightly any least act or thought that was not appropriate to the kind of commitment we had to God.
First things first. God's work was what we were seeking first, a "building." "Are we willing to build with a trowel in one hand while our other hand grasps the sword?" Jim asked. Difficult to see how we could be indulging in other distractions at the same time.
All that is perfectly human and perfectly natural in us must first be offered. The body must be a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. It does not become inhuman
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and unnatural by this offering, any more than the body God prepared for His Son, Jesus, which was offered back by Jesus to the Father, became inhuman and unnatural by His offering. It is still human; it is still natural. But it is holy. And acceptable.
This is the will of God, that you should be holy: you must abstain from fornication; each one of you must learn to gain mastery over his body, to hallow and honour it, not giving way to lust like the pagans who are ignorant of God; and no man must do his brother wrong in this matter, or invade his rights, because, as we told you before with all emphasis, the Lord punishes all such offences. For God called us to holiness, not to impurity. Anyone therefore who flouts these rules is flouting, not man, but God who bestows upon you his Holy Spirit.
How Much Can a Kiss Tell You?
"How in the world can you tell if you want to marry somebody if you've never kissed them?" I've heard students say. My reply, "But how in the world can you tell you want to marry somebody just because you've kissed them?"
Intimacy is not necessary.
When Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac, there was no question of any tryouts by means of intimacy. The servant, the third party, had to look her over and assess her worth and suitability. He went to the logical place—the spring outside the city, where the women would come. He prayed silently, watching all the time. He had specifically asked God to give him a sign: The girl whom he asked for a drink would not only give him one, but would also water his camels. The servant continued "watching quietly to see whether or not the Lord had made his journey successful."
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It was Ruth's mother-in-law, Naomi, who made the choice of a husband for her and told her exactly what moves to make. A good portion of the human race has had arranged marriages, and the rate of success of that kind seems to have been far higher than of our do-it-yourself kind. A missionary told me recently of the marriage seminars he is holding for Indians of Northern Ontario. "You mean they have marital problems?" I asked. (The Indians I worked with in South America never thought of marital problems.)
"Do they ever!" he said. "Ever since they began to follow the white man and gave up arranged marriages."
There is not much likelihood that our society will ever consent to arranged marriages. We are stuck with our ill-defined system. Even so, one can learn much about a prospective mate by observation alone.
There is no better place than a college campus to observe what a man or woman is made of. From a respectful distance, with no knowledge on his part, I had the opportunity to observe the character of Jim Elliot. I have told how I watched him in the dining-hall lines, with his little packs of cards—a man who was careful with his time. I watched his friendliness and enthusiasm. I knew what kind of student he was. I watched him wrestle (he won a championship in four states), watched him lead the Foreign Missions Fellowship, heard him pray. There was nothing pompous or stuffy about him. I noticed his clothes. He spent very little on them—wore the same two or three pairs of trousers and the same jacket and sweater for years. He had hardly any notion of styles or colors, but he was not sloppy. Not that this proved he was the man I was looking for, but it gave me a hint that his primary concern was not clothes. When we began to get better acquainted through conversation, I found my hunches verified. Long before I had any reason to think he might be interested in me, I had put him down as the sort of man I hoped to
How Much Can a Kiss Tell You?
marry. Kissing and holding hands would have added nothing to this conviction (anybody can kiss and hold hands). On the contrary, in fact, it would have subtracted something very important. I wanted to marry a man prepared to swim against the tide.
I took it for granted that there must be a few men left in the world who had that kind of strength. I assumed that those men would also be looking for women of principle. I did not want to be among the marked-down goods on the bargain table, cheap because they'd been pawed over. Crowds collect there. It is only the few who will pay full price. "You get what you pay for."
These were the words of the Lord to me, for his hand was strong upon me; and he warned me not to follow the ways of this people: You shall not say "too hard" of everything that this people calls hard; you shall neither dread nor fear that which they fear. It is the Lord of Hosts whom you must count "hard," he it is whom you must fear and dread.
It is a powerful lie that, because sexual desire is natural, healthy, and God-given, anything I do because of that desire is natural, healthy, and God-given.
"How can anything that feels so good be so bad?"
"Intimacy is an act of worship."
"Denying yourself the expression of that desire is dangerous—it's repression, it'll lead to perversion and so on."
"Nobody can control all that fire when he's young."
Lies, all of them.
Christians who are buying such rubbish today are without honor. They have lost the notions of fidelity, renunciation, and sacrifice, because nothing seems worth all that. There is nothing for which they will pay the price of actual, conscious, painful, down-to-earth self-denial— except (and I am convinced this is a significant exception) visible gains like money and sports. If young people have
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heroes today, they are athletes. If they have role models of endurance and sacrifice and self-discipline, they are athletes. If a man denies himself comforts, vacations, pleasures with his family, evenings at home, or the free indulgence of whatever appetite he feels, it is usually for money. Nobody will worry very much about his being repressive or fanatical or weird, so long as money is his motive.
If your goal is purity of heart, be prepared to be thought very odd.
They Abstain From Nothing
How shall I speak of a few careless kisses as sin to a generation nurtured on the assumption that nearly everybody goes to bed with everybody? Of those who flounder in the sea of permissiveness and self-indulgence, are there any who still search the sky for the beacon of purity? If I did not believe there were, I would not bother to write.
Purity, I fear, has gotten mixed up in people's minds with the caricature of Puritanism, which, in the popular imagination, is a dour, brittle revolt against all the pleasures of the flesh. Puritans were in fact very earthy people, robust in their affirmation of life, not by any means "Victorian" (another word grossly misunderstood today in being made a synonym for all that is negative). Neither the concept of purity nor the doctrines of the Puritans deny life. Rather they refer back to the very Giver of Life Himself. Purity means freedom from contamination, from anything that would spoil the taste or the pleasure, reduce the
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power, or in any way adulterate what the thing was meant to be. It means cleanness, clearness—no additives, nothing artificial—in other words, "all natural," in the sense in which the Original Designer designed it to be.
Can I say categorically that a kiss is a sin? I can say that it might be. I can say that it might take the edge off, spoil the taste and the pleasure later on. It might reduce power. It might distract the heart. I do not want to be guilty of Pharisaism. Jesus condemned the Pharisees for teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. They professed much; they exemplified little of what they professed. Their worship was in vain, for they paid lip service while their hearts were far from God. It is the heart's direction that is always the central issue. God knows what the heart is set on. We can deceive others. We can easily deceive ourselves. The humble and honest heart will always be shown the truth.
"... Of course we all 'have knowledge,' as you say. This 'knowledge' breeds conceit; it is love that builds. If anyone fancies that he knows, he knows nothing yet, in the true sense of knowing. But if a man loves, he is acknowledged by God." Paul wrote that to people who were confused about whether it was right or wrong to eat food that has been offered to idols. "Certainly food will not bring us into God's presence: if we do not eat, we are none the worse, and if we eat, we are none the better. But be careful that this liberty of yours does not become a pitfall for the weak. ... If food be the downfall of my brother, I will never eat meat any more, for I will not be the cause of my brother's downfall."
It was the principle of love that constrained Jim and me to tread so lightly, to hold each other at arm's length, knowing we belonged first to Christ, wanting Him to claim our hearts' affections before all others.
William Wilberforce wrote in Real Christianity:
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Measure your progress by your experience of the love of God and its exercise before men. . . .
In contrast, servile, base, and mercenary is the notion of Christian practice among the bulk of nominal Christians. They give no more than they dare not withhold. They abstain from nothing but what they dare not practice. When you state to them the doubtful quality of any action, and the consequent obligation to refrain from it, they reply to you in the very spirit of Shylock, "they cannot find it in the bond."
In short, they know Christianity only as a system of restraints. It is robbed of every liberal and generous principle. It is rendered almost unfit for the social relationships of life, and only suited to the gloomy walls of a cloister, in which they would confine it.
But true Christians consider themselves as not satisfying some rigorous creditor, but as discharging a debt of gratitude. Accordingly, theirs is not the stinted return of a constrained obedience, but the large and liberal measure of voluntary service.
That says it well—a debt of gratitude, a liberal measure of voluntary service. I can press those on no one as "law."
A man's love for a woman ought to hold her to the highest. Her love for him ought to do the same. I did not want to turn Jim aside from the call of God, to distract his energies, or in any way to stand between him and a thoroughgoing surrender. This was what I understood real love to mean. "And love means following the commands of God. This is the command which was given you from the beginning, to be your rule of life"
"Well, it's okay for them. It doesn't mean everybody has to "
God leads His dear children along different pathways. But He asks the same brand of commitment of all of them. Everybody who wants to follow Him has to:
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give up self, take up the cross, follow.
This means trying every day to do what He says to do and not to do what He says not to do.
There are things to be aimed at and things to be shunned. We may not like the "dos and don'ts/' but they are in the Bible. Paul had many very practical instructions for the young man Timothy. He told him to have nothing to do with foolish and ignorant speculations, to avoid empty chatter, turn from the wayward impulses of youth and pursue justice, integrity, love, and peace with all who invoke the Lord in singleness of mind. Repeatedly he urges him to keep out of useless argument and to be himself a living demonstration of what he preaches. This is good teaching for us today. Those who prefer argument to obedience we must leave alone. 'Tor the time will come when they will not stand wholesome teaching, but will follow their own fancy and gather a crowd of teachers to tickle their ears. They will stop their ears to the truth. . . . But you yourself must keep calm and sane at all times; face hardship, work to spread the Gospel, and do all the duties of your calling."
A "Small" Sin
"He gave me freedom to write if I pleased—for me, there is no sin in it," wrote Jim a few weeks after we had begun our correspondence, when I, as usual, was full of misgivings as to whether we did right.
So long as my conscience remained pure toward God in relation to you, the Spirit freed me to write as I pleased. But, in this, my liberty may have now become license in carrying things too far for you to endure, should our relation be cut off. I am ready now to renounce our correspondence if my liberty has come to its end in imposing itself upon you with harmful results. Now I feel it is your place to precipitate discontinuance. You know best what our writing is doing to you. My answer from the Lord about marriage or engagement is now a decided no so long as present circumstances prevail, with no conditions as to what might happen when and if they change. Can you afford to continue to feed a growing love which may be cut off without any fulfillment at some future time? One word from you will settle it.
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The word from me was that we would keep on writing. Jim's freedom freed me.
A strange thing happened during Jim's senior year in college. He called it his Renaissance—a new openness to social life, friendships with people he did not consider specially "spiritual," the freedom to date if he felt like dating, and a great deal of clowning, giving vent to his native flair for acting and mimicry. I heard of it secondhand and was offended. What had happened to him?
A psychologist could explain it easily no doubt. Jim's explanation was simply that the Lord had liberated him from some old restraints, enabling him to reach out, break barriers, enjoy things. He admitted that he carried it too far. There were some "kissing incidents" reported to me in letters from other students. I asked him about those, and he answered,
I stood there, said and did as you have been told, entirely in the flesh. And the same "me" wrote of "purity in love." You may judge which, whether flesh or spirit, prompted me in this latter. For the fact that it has blackened my conscience, hurt you, stumbled others, and brought dishonor to Christ, I now experience overwhelming sorrow. The act, the effect of it, the regret for it shall be consumed by the flashing of my Judge's eye, and I shall suffer loss. There's an end of it, and a costly one.
The notion was not a new one—that the relationship that means most in a man's life is governed by far stricter principles than the casual ones. Because the girls he had kissed did not "mean anything" to him, he took it lightly at first. I didn't. I had expected perfection in Jim or at least the strength of consistency. I did not find it, nor did he, of course, find either perfection or consistency in me, but he repented.
A "Small" Sin
I do not know the tearful repentance I should like to for having wandered and caused others to stray as I did. Dr. Brooks [the dean] is right in saying that I have much to regret in seriously looking over the past year. But with that statement I must also say I have tremendous thanksgiving to God at the same moment. Impossible, you say? Very well, but that is how it stands. I have confessed to God, to the senior class, to the Foreign Missions Fellowshipers, to you, to other individuals. And I am eased. If there is more that I must do, I stand ready for reproof. Do you expect yet more of me?
What more could I expect? Jim Elliot was a man. Men are sinners. That was the simple truth. He was my ideal, but I had to come to terms with the truth. He had disappointed me. Hadn't I disappointed him many times?
"If we claim to be sinless, we are self-deceived and strangers to the truth. If we confess our sins, he is just, and may be trusted to forgive our sins and cleanse us from every kind of wrong; but if we say we have committed no sin, we make him out to be a liar, and then his word has no place in us. . . . Jesus Christ. ... is himself the remedy for the defilement of our sins. ..."
A Cave and a Driftwood Fire
Jim's next letter began with an original poem.
And dost Thou hear the silence of my heart, Lord; Canst Thou count the tears that never reach my eyes? And these yearnings, which will not fit my words, Lord; Wilt Thou feed this hidden hunger— Desire, spawned of the Spirit, which somehow fails to rise?
"Yea, Soul, Eternity has tuned my ear to silence, My own heart brims with tears now long unshed; The quiet sanctuary of unspoken reverence Is my dwelling place of old; And in the deeps of spirit have I made my bed."
A whole year went by before I saw Jim again. We corresponded, but not often. I finished the Bible school course,
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and he finished college in June of 1949. I went to work with the Canadian Sunday School Mission, in an out-of-the-way place in Alberta's bush country, called Patience. I had need of Patience. Jim sent me Isaiah 59:9: ". . . We look for light but all is darkness, for the light of dawn, but we walk in deep gloom."
His mother wrote in August to invite me to stop in Portland on my way home from Alberta. The diary is full of misgivings and assurances—it's wrong to go; it's okay to go; God is leading; no, it's my own determination to get a glimpse of Jim. Should I take the money my parents had sent me as a "sign"? What about the letter from Mrs. Elliot? Would Jim be really glad if I went, or would it put pressure on him ... and on and on. I accepted and took a Greyhound bus.
From Seattle I sat next to a sailor who was as eager to read a book as I was, so there was no chitchat until we were near Portland. He looked at me and said, "I've never seen anybody sit so still. You haven't moved a muscle the whole trip. Scared or something?" I was sick with anticipation. When the bus arrived in the station, there was no one to meet me. I wandered around, my worst fears seeming to materialize. Then there he was, standing at the wrong place, scanning the incoming buses. His back was toward me. I stopped, wondering what to do or say. Something made him turn, and he broke into the old grin. "Hi, Betts."
The first few days were spent attending meetings at the Gospel Hall. It was the annual Labor Day conference, and the Elliot men were very much in view on the platform as speakers, at the back managing things, milling around as hosts. We had little time for talk until it was over, when we went to Mount Tabor Park. We sat on the grass. Here it comes, I thought. But again it was Isaiah 59:9. Still looking for light. Still no word as to whether God might have "changed His mind." Why should I have entertained such
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a foolish hope? Well, because I couldn't help hoping against hope.
I helped Jim's mother with the laundry one morning, and as she was hauling the sheets out of the machine she suddenly said, "I know these Elliot men. They can never make up their minds. If I were you I'd tell Jim it's now or never."
I knew very well what Jim's answer would be: never. I would just as soon leave myself room for hoping. I felt annoyed at her advice. She was putting Jim in the same box with the rest of them, his father and two brothers. I was trying hard to believe that he had a better reason than merely being unable to make up his mind. His mother shook my confidence.
We went to Oregon's magnificent coast for a day. We walked down through the thick fir forest to an isolated cove where we explored sea caves and swam in the frigid Pacific. We built a driftwood fire. Sitting close together, watching the sun sink into the gleaming sea, the temptation to express ourselves, to do what we felt like doing, was nearly overwhelming. Because the final choice had been made long before, by the grace of God we were not overwhelmed.
I write this for one reason. To show that it is possible for two young people, full of all the juices that youth is endowed with by the Creator, to resist temptation.
They can't do it unless they have a motive that makes it worthwhile.
They can't do it alone.
"If you feel sure that you are standing firm, beware! You may fall. So far you have faced no trial beyond what man can bear. God keeps faith, and he will not allow you to be tested above your powers, but when the test comes he will at the same time provide a way out, by enabling you to sustain it."
He enabled us.
A Cave and a Driftwood Fire
A word of warning here. It is not a good idea to go into caves or to sit by driftwood fires in lonely places if you are not yet sure of your God. Paul advised the young Timothy to "turn from the wayward impulses of youth. . . ." Don't walk straight into them and then blame God if the temptation is too great for you.
How Do You Say No?
At a singles conference in the Northwest last month I was handed a blue slip of paper that said, "How do you tell a guy/gal no? How do you keep a safe distance?"
I smiled inside, thinking of how simple the answer is. You can do it in two ways: the English language and body language. You say no, and you move away.
I'm always having to explain to people that when I say there is a simple answer I do not necessarily mean there is an easy answer. It's easy enough to understand—in other words, it's simple. But doing it is just plain hard. There is always that fundamental conflict going on: the good I want to do fighting the evil I don't want to do and the desire that seems to be so good in itself verses the deeper desire to love my Master above all others.
You have to ask for help. Help will most certainly be given. When I pray for this, sometimes the words of an old gospel song that we used to sing in family prayers come to my aid:
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Ask the Savior to help you, comfort, strengthen, and
keep you; He is willing to aid you—He will carry you through.
The song is called "Yield Not to Temptation/' It is the yielding, not the temptation itself, that is sin. We have to keep asking the Savior to help us, comfort, strengthen, and keep us. He is not reluctant. He is willing. He will carry you through, if you want to be carried through. You must want to.
Does that mean that my motives must be absolutely pure then? Does it mean I have to have finally resolved those conflicts mentioned above? If it did, I'd have no testimony to give. It ought to be quite plain in these pages that the conflict continued to rage. But the wills of two people had been offered to God. The love of their hearts had been committed. He helped us. He carried us through.
One of our times alone together was a trip to Mount Hood. We took the day to drive to Timberline Lodge and hike for miles up and around the slopes and Alpine meadows. We ate lunch on the grass by a tiny crystal stream, where we watched a water vole dive and dart through the water. In the evening we stopped in a dark fir forest, on the drive down, to eat the only food we had brought along, a can of baked beans. Jim had not thought to bring a can opener, or anything to eat with, so he gouged it open with his penknife, and I managed to slice my finger rather badly trying to scoop out my share. I still have a scar. A week later he wrote:
This hour a week ago we were driving home from the forest camp, very conscious that it was to be our last night together. Seems ages ago now that we ate those beans from one can in the dark. I remember sounding very absurd as we left the place, saying something about your "militant
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morality" and hearing you say something about being thankful—then the long drive in silence and tears. . . .
Do you still believe God led you here? I do. I say that without reserve or emendation. Further, I love you now by faith. What God is doing I cannot say, but this I know: He has led us together. I am trusting Him in you to perfect these obvious lacks [the reference is to criticisms the Elliot family had of me, which Jim exhorted me to correct]. If these things make you angry or sorrowful to tears, turn again to Psalm 138:8:
Jehovah will perfect that which concerneth me. Thy lovingkindness, O Jehovah, endureth forever. Forsake not the work of Thine own hands.
"Fret not thyself" was a comfort last Tuesday night. It is tonight as well, for the tears have gone for me. Would that I knew your eyes were dry tonight. This brings me to another point. Dare we ask the Lord, Betts, in light of our frailty, to take us from this "dwelling in silence"? As I stood watching you weep on the bus (forgive me for not obeying your request that I leave—but I couldn't go somehow, knowing you were still to be seen) Teasdale's "What Shall I Give My Love?"* kept sounding deep within. "How can I give her silence . . . lifelong?" Every time we have parted it has been harder. I do not want to part with you on this basis again. So I have prayed, quaveringly, that the Lord would not let us see one another again without giving us some assurance of His ultimate goal in relation to us. This parting into "undefined silence" is terrible. So, though we might want to be together again this fall, I think it would be better if we prayed, "Lord, show us some
word of assurance " oh, I can't say it. Do you
understand?
*I asked the heaven of stars What I should give my love— It answered me with silence, Silence above.
How Do You Say No?
I asked the darkened sea Down where the fishes go— It answered me with silence, Silence below.
Oh, I could give him weeping, Or I could give him a song— But how can I give silence My whole life long?
Four Bare Legs
What looked to Jim like "militant morality" was partly the knowledge that is deep in a woman that she holds the key to the situation where a man's passions are involved. He will be as much of a gentleman as she requires and, when the chips are down, probably no more, even if he has strict standards of his own. He will measure her reserve, always testing the limits, probing. This is not necessarily because he wants to go as far as possible. It is sometimes from a confused sense of obligation, or even chivalry, to meet her expectations. I'm sure this is true, because men have told me so. Sometimes, bringing a girl home from a date, they say to themselves, Guess I've got to kiss her good-night. Wish I didn 't have to. It is a relief when the girl lets him know she doesn't want him to. It can be a relief when she says no, even when he wants to kiss her, because he finds mystery in her, and mystery is both surprise and delight.
"Keep your distance," I say to women. Recognize that fundamental anomaly of human nature, that we prize what we cannot easily get. We take for granted, we even
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come to despise, that which costs us no effort. The bicycle given for Christmas will not be prized like the bicycle bought with the money earned by delivering newspapers for two or three years.
This propensity is not new. The one thing forbidden in the Garden of Eden was the one thing most desired. The fruit trees that were freely provided were taken for granted.
If there is one reason why sex becomes dull and a bore, it is that it is commonplace. It's available anywhere, everywhere, to everybody who is looking for it. Nothing is kept in reserve. No pleasures are saved for the wedding night, let alone for the bride and bridegroom exclusively.
Friends who run a honeymoon resort in the Poconos have told me that they must announce new activities and recreation at every meal. "We don't want them to get bored and leave. You see, they've had it all before the honeymoon."
I'm really quite a sentimental woman. Some of my reserve had nothing to do with militant morality, or even with Christian principle, but with the very real pleasure of saving things up. The ecstasy of Christmastime for me as a child was the knowledge that there were secrets being kept; things going on behind closed doors; boxes wrapped and hidden away, which were not to be touched until the proper time. I have always loved mystery and surprise.
I used to save the very best tidbit on my plate till last. (I might as well confess it—I still do!) We were not allowed to have dessert until we had eaten all our spinach, and in a way I truly did not want to. My husband now occasionally offers me a chocolate just before dinner. I don't want it. Chocolates belong after dinner.
I have never wanted to read the last page of a book until I have read all the preceding pages. There is pleasure in doing things in the proper order.
Certain things properly belong to intimate love which do not properly belong to friendship's love. Certain things
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belong to marriage that do not belong to courtship. For everything there is a season, and:
... for every activity under heaven its time . . . a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time for mourning and a time for dancing . . . a time to embrace and a time to refrain from
embracing . . . a time for silence and a time for speech.
Have you noticed that one doesn't see such long lines of cars as we used to see on Saturday nights along the beach or the city park? It was a common sight for couples to be kissing or sitting in laps, making the most of pleasures this side of consummation. Nobody seems to feel it's necessary anymore to put up with the discomfort of a car or to stop short of anything. Why not just go to bed? Nobody will mind. A Christian young man told me that when he went to visit his girlfriend for a weekend, he was taken aback when her mother showed him to the girl's room. Her parents assumed he would expect to share it with her.
Let no one imagine that I am recommending the Saturday night parking routine. I deplored it when I was a teenager. I deplore it now. I am recommending virginity. Virginity for both men and women. If virginity is to be preserved, lines must be drawn. Why put yourself in any situation where the lines become smudged and obscure? Why take the risks? Why accept the pressure of tremendous temptation when you can easily avoid it by refusing to be anywhere where compromise is possible?
Psychologist Henry Brant tells of his son's angry retort when his father forbade him to go out alone in a car with a girl.
"What's wrong, Dad? Don't you trust me?"
"In a car—alone at night with a girl? I wouldn't trust me. Why should I trust you?"
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C. S. Lewis wrote:
When I was a youngster, all the progressive people were saying, "Why all this prudery? Let us treat sex just as we treat all our other impulses." I was simple-minded enough to believe they meant what they said. I have since discovered that they meant exactly the opposite. They meant that sex was to be treated as no other impulse in our nature has ever been treated by civilized people. All the others, we admit, have to be bridled. . . . But every unkindness and breach of faith seems to be condoned provided that the object aimed at is "four bare legs in a bed." It is like having a morality in which stealing fruit is considered wrong—unless you steal nectarines.
His Sublime Keeping
Nearly a year after I saw Jim on my way to Canada, we had two days together in Illinois. He was best man in my brother Dave's wedding, and I was a bridesmaid. We had a few hours alone that evening, then another year of separation. In 1951 Jim and his missionary-colleague-to-be, Pete Fleming, came east to speak in churches that were to assume part of their support. Into his crowded schedule we managed to squeeze a picnic in the New Jersey pines, a lunch at Wanamaker's Tea Room in Philadelphia (I remember the pink mayonnaise on my salad), and a day in New York. We met for breakfast at what seemed to us a fancy hotel. The waiter brought tiny cups of scalding hot coffee when he brought the menus. This, we felt, must be the ultimate touch of class. We went to Radio City Music Hall and saw the film American in Paris and late that evening stood atop a tall building, leaning on a parapet, looking at the lights of the city, longing, again, for what we could not have. Jim hinted then that he was beginning to believe that God was going to allow us to be together
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someday. I waited, trembling with hope that the Great Revelation had been given, but it was the same story. No green light.
A page from my journal of that time quotes from T. C. Upham's Inward Divine Guidance: "The disposition ... to leave the dearest objects of our hearts in the sublime keeping of the general and unspecific belief that God is now answering our prayers in His own time and way, and in the best manner, involves a present process of inward crucifixion which is obviously unfavorable to the growth and even the existence of the life of self/'
When the meetings were over, my brother Phil and his wife, Margaret, took the three of us—Jim, Pete, and me— to our family vacation home in New Hampshire. It was mid-October, too late for the glorious autumn colors of the rock maples and the sweet gum trees. Winter had closed in for good, and the old house, Gale Cottage, was frigid without central heating. We spent the days hiking the White Mountains—Bald Mountain and Artist's Bluff, through the Flume and then up to lovely little Lonesome Lake on the side of Cannon Mountain. These mountains were tame to Jim and Pete, who only a few weeks before had "done" Rainier, Adams, and St. Helens. But they were hearty in their appreciation of an older, milder beauty.
One very gray day we took the Ammonoosuc Trail up to Lake-of-the-Clouds on Mount Washington and descended by a steep, rocky trail that threaded alongside a rushing mountain stream. Jim stopped to let the others go by and pointed out to me that again and again the water was separated into two streams by an interrupting rock, but came together at last in a deep, calm pool. An allegory for us, he said.
In the evenings we all huddled around the fire, toasting marshmallows, drinking hot chocolate, while Peter read poetry aloud. The others were gallant in going up
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early to the arctic bedrooms, leaving Jim and me to talk late and watch the embers die.
In a letter written a few weeks afterwards, Jim wrote:
I wonder if you were conscious of averting your eyes in many of those fireside sessions, 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! I love the look of you. I'm glad 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, 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 deep intensity of longing...!"
Impatience
Nothing was harder for a woman in love to endure and nothing was stronger proof of the character of the man Jim Elliot than his restraint of power.
Not long ago a young woman was telling me of her engagement to a man who was not sure what he was going to do in life. Their wedding date was set only a few months hence, but he had no idea how he would support her or whether she might perhaps have to support him while he went on to further study for another degree. She spoke of many problems that plagued them and of the man's "feeling the pain" of this kind of uncertainty when some would consider it prerequisite that he come to a decision before he took on a wife. She (rightly) suspected that I, too, was of that opinion. I asked if they had considered postponing the wedding until the decision could be made.
"Oh, no, we're both too impatient!" was her reply.
The custom of "going steady" is another form that impatience takes. The couple are not ready for marriage or even for the public commitment that engagement ought to
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entail, but neither are they ready to leave each other in God's hands, "in the sublime keeping of the general and unspecific belief that God is answering our prayers in His own time and way." Each clutches at the other, fearful lest he "get away."
Unless a man is prepared to ask a woman to be his wife, what right has he to claim her exclusive attention? Unless she has been asked to marry him, why would a sensible woman promise any man her exclusive attention? If, when the time has come for a commitment, he is not man enough to ask her to marry him, she should give him no reason to presume that she belongs to him.
"But I don't think I can do that. I'm not the strong type." Hear the words of a woman alone in a foreign land, entrusted with the responsibility of some hundreds of children and dozens of co-workers. The job was too much for her, of course—in her own strength. She did not think of herself as the strong type. She prayed:
When stormy winds against us break
Stablish and reinforce our will; O hear us for thine own name's sake,
Hold us in strength and hold us still.
Still as the faithful mountains stand Through the long silent years of stress,
So would we wait at Thy right hand, In quietness and steadfastness.
But not of us this strength, O Lord,
And not of us this constancy; Our trust is Thine Eternal Word,
Thy presence our security.
I Have You Now Unravished
Near the end of October, 1951, Jim came for a last day or two to my family's house in Moorestown, New Jersey. Somebody took the first photograph we ever had taken together. I was wearing an ill-fitting, dark green suit, Jim a double-breasted blue one. We stood under the apple tree in the backyard and smiled as though there were no need at all of that prayer for the reinforcing of our wills or for quietness and steadfastness.
We drove the twelve miles or so to the railroad station in Philadelphia, stopping once near the Camden Airport to pray and cry.
Jim had one more stop to make for meetings. Then, seated in the dining car en route to Chicago, he wrote:
Every minute of the weekend was crammed full with sightseeing, visiting, studying, and meetings. And all the while I have been unable to think for five minutes with-
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out being interrupted by thoughts of you. Your face died with consciousness as I went off to sleep and rose as I woke. Images, attitudes, phrases, looks, embraces, hailed me out of the past few weeks and I nearly succumbed to think that it is not to be again for years, perhaps. 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 sign of let-up. There is no need to analyze. I love you, Betty, and feel it keenly this morning.
I'll 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.
From California, a few weeks later:
Woke early again this morning and shared my devotions 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.
. . . she watched
Beside my pillow, told me when I woke
From the fruition of celestial love
To drink in, like a thirsty traveler,
The sweetness of her human love once more:—
Never so sweet as now. They sin who deem
There can be discord betwixt love and love.
Edward Henry Bickersteth "Yesterday"
I Have You Now Unravished
When he reached home in Portland from California, he wrote:
I thank my God. Life has been made so much 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. Sealike, 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, as married couples are. They can bear to sit at opposite sides of the car. I'm glad I still can't quite keep my hands off you, still must be warned not to "muss 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—we've not had "experience"—which takes 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 I 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.
Hold God to His Bargain
In January of 1952 Jim was still at home, making last preparations for his sailing to Ecuador in February. I was living in a sleazy fifth-floor walk-up in Brooklyn, New York, trying to learn some Spanish. Things had happened in the previous six months that pointed me away from Africa and the South Seas toward Ecuador. Jim encouraged me, though we knew rumors would fly and I would be accused of chasing him.
He wrote more frequently now, often skirting very close to and occasionally mentioning the subject of love.
I think that the realism of the Old Testament should make us aware of God's approval of human love. So carelessly we read, "Jacob loved Rachel," and so casually it is stated "she conceived and brought forth a son and called his name ..." that we forget all that is behind the words, all the tremendous feeling and emotion, ache and satisfaction which the very directness of the narrative tends to subdue. But it is there! It has to be. Well, if it is for us, Bett,
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we have yet cause for greater praise. For now, let us not slack in being thankful. We have our reasons.
On February 2, late at night, Jim telephoned from San Pedro, California. This was the first time we had ever spoken by long-distance telephone. Ordinary folks didn't do much of that in those days. I trembled when I heard his voice, shook when I heard him say he loved me. My voice shook, Fm sure, in answer to his question, "Do you love me?" I had not meant to tell him, but I had to be truthful. "I can hardly help myself," was my answer. He said goodbye. He was sailing next day.
As soon as he hung up he wrote me another letter.
February 2, 1952. Your voice didn't sound just like I wanted it to—not close enough, and I couldn't hear the quiet aside-laughter. But I thank the Lord for the good feeling of hearing it at all. We talked nine minutes! Surprised? I was. I have to laugh at myself—playing unimpressed all day, hardly able to think through the thunder of my own pulse when I actually hear you. This is the stalwart celibate on his way to Ecuador? I suppose you sensed the same, but no one could tell, watching you. Funny pair, we two, being so different in everyone else's eyes, but so like the race in love. Aren't you glad you "can't help yourself"?
Last night in a dream you were more alive than ever— just your face, near and inviting. Oh, how did I resist kissing you before now?
February 7, 1952. I am seated, shirtless, in our green-toned stateroom, having just finished lunch and a cursory promenade about the deck. Generally, I am possessed of a sense of ease, animated at times with sheer joy at the whole situation. Aboard here we are filled with an abundance which touches the edge of profligacy. Enough becomes too much. For lunch I had oxheart, squash, green peas, and cold buttermilk. Last night it was lamb curry and rice, and yesterday noon roast beef. Before that the mem-
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ory jumbles, but black cod formed a part of it and the jumble on the whole entirely pleasing.
Your "sense of loss" at our not being able to share things these past few months is not new to me. I know it, and often tell Him about it. And such thoughts as "If Thy dear home be fuller, Lord ..." [from Amy Carmichael] are a consolation. And then the realistic facing of nonaccom-plishment comes to me and crushes to silence all telling. For if, really, we have denied ourselves to and from each other for His sake, then should we not expect to see about us the profit of such denial? And this I look vainly for. It comes to this: I am a single man for the kingdom's sake, its more rapid advance, its more potent realization in my own life. But where is that advance and that realization? I am willing that "my house on earth be emptier," but not unless "His house be fuller." And I think it right that we hold God to His own bargain. I err, of course, in making visible results of our separation the final test, and, I trust, rejoice in seeing beyond results which are obvious. But I reason thus that I should be more importunate in prayer, more dogged in devotion, and should not get, as you say, to a "weary acceptance of things as they are."
Besides this, there is the somewhat philosophical realization that actually I have lost nothing. We may imagine what it would be like to share a given event and feel loss at having to experience it alone. But let us not forget— that loss is imagined, not real. I imagine peaks of enjoyment when I think of doing things together, but let not the hoping for it dull the doing of it alone. What is, is actual—what might be simply is not, and I must not therefore query God as though He robbed me—of things that are not. Further, the things that are belong to us, and they are good, God given, and enriched. Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living. It is true that our youth is fast fleeting, and I know the rush of wants, the perfect fury of desire which such a thought summons. All that it involves—this getting on to thirty—brings a push of hurry and a surge of "possible" regrets over the soul. And, Betty, this is just exactly what we have bargained for. Obedience
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involves for us, not physical suffering, perhaps, nor social ostracism as it has for some, but this warring with worries and regrets, this bringing into captivity our thoughts. We have planted (in our integrity) the banner of our trust in God. The consequences are His responsibility.
We would see Jesus—other lights are paling, Which for long years we have rejoiced to see; The blessings of our pilgrimage are failing: We would not mourn them, for we go to Thee.
God Granted and God Denied
Jim arrived in Quito, Ecuador, at the end of February. Two months later I followed. We were four new missionaries, my colleague, Dorothy, and I living with a family named Arias, and Jim and his colleague, Pete Fleming, living just across the street with a Dr. Cevallos and his family. It was the first time since college days, four years ago, that we had been able to see each other daily over a period of time. We made the most of it. Pete and Jim ate the noon meal with us at the Ariases', and Don Raul, our host, put us through our paces on whatever Spanish we had learned. The competition got hot at times as we raced to master the language, all of us eager to get to the jungle, although Dorothy and I did not know to which part of it we might go. Jim and Pete had promised our senior missionary, Dr. Tidmarsh, that they would go to Shandia, a station in the eastern jungle, with Quichua Indians.
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In Quito Jim and I did a great deal of walking. We explored every corner of the beautiful colonial city, visited outdoor markets, churches, parks, museums, indigenous craft shops. We hiked through lovely, lush meadows where sheep grazed, climbed down into deep ravines and up high mountains. We rode the buses nearly every afternoon to the post office to pick up the mail. Sometimes we would see how far we could ride on the one-cent fare.
At the end of our four months together (Jim had been in Quito six months) Spanish study was finished. He spoke it well, and it was time to go. In September he wrote from Shell Mera, the Missionary Aviation Fellowship base from which he would fly to the station nearest Shandia:
Silhouettes of distant birds are sharp against the clouds, going east—and tomorrow, happily, and in the will of God, I will follow. Only too well I know again the inner weakness to return, to go back to you, but I feel that I have set my hand, and to look back now would be dishonor. He knows the inner part, and He knows how much of me I really leave with you. And He knows why I leave and for how long.
The growth of all living green things wonderfully represents the process of receiving and relinquishing, gaining and losing, living and dying. The seed falls into the ground, dies as the new shoot springs up. There must be a splitting and a breaking in order for a bud to form. The bud "lets go" when the flower forms. The calyx lets go of the flower. The petals must curl up and die in order for the fruit to form. The fruit falls, splits, relinquishes the seed. The seed falls into the ground. . . .
There is no ongoing spiritual life without this process of letting go. At the precise point where we refuse, growth stops. If we hold tightly to anything given to us, unwilling to let it go when the time comes to let it go or unwill-
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ing to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul.
It is easy to make a mistake here. "If God gave it to me," we say, "it's mine. I can do what I want with it." No. The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of—//we want to find our true selves, if we want real Life, if our hearts are set on glory.
Think of the self that God has given as an acorn. It is a marvelous little thing, a perfect shape, perfectly designed for its purpose, perfectly functional. Think of the grand glory of an oak tree. God's intention when He made the acorn was the oak tree. His intention for us is "... the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Many deaths must go into our reaching that measure, many letting-goes. When you look at the oak tree, you don't feel that the "loss" of the acorn is a very great loss. The more you perceive God's purpose in your life, the less terrible will the losses seem.
I suppose one of the reasons I have kept journals and diaries is the desire to gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. I wrote things there that I could not say to people or write in letters to Jim. I urged him to do the same. "I'm afraid I will disappoint you there," he wrote from Shandia, "I'm losing lots. I don't seem able to record all there is—most of it is in my letters, but a great deal is never expressed anywhere. I sit inside myself and wait for you quietly while star bodies crash through the night skies, Indians die, somebody shouts ganchail in a ball game, I sit and listen and watch and go through the motions of entering in, but I don't, because I feel like history stopped just inside a door in Wittig's house in Shell Mera, months ago."
When that letter came, I thought, No, I can't stand it. I can't be here, on this side of the Andes, doing all these fascinating things without Jim, while he lives over there, doing all those fascinating things without me. A few weeks after his leaving
God Granted and God Denied
Quito I went down to the western jungle to work on an unwritten tribal language. I wanted to share it all, communicate, enter in, do everything together.
The lesson of the seed had not been fully learned. There must be relinquishment. There is no way around it. The seed does not "know" what will happen. It only knows what is happening—the falling, the darkness, the dying. That was how it felt to be separated as we were—as though we had been given no clues as to why this had to be. "The wanting itself is good," Jim wrote, "it is right, even God granted, but now God denied, and He has not let me know all the wisdom of the denial." We were yet far from the depth of spiritual perception Lilias Trotter had when she wrote those profound words quoted earlier: "The first step into the realm of giving is . . . not manward but Godward: an utter yielding of our best. So long as our idea of surrender is limited to the renouncing of unlawful things, we have never grasped its true meaning: that is not worthy of the name for 'no polluted thing' can be offered."
We were given grace to see, however, in our saner moments, some of the wisdom of the denial. Jim was able to live in a makeshift house, with makeshift furniture, letting Indians stream through kitchen and bedroom when they felt like it, and he was free to give attention to language learning and evangelism and the building that had to be done for other people, rather than to me and to a house for us to live in and all the rest. I could occupy myself in a job I could not have done if we'd been together. We were being asked to trust, to leave the planning to God. God's ultimate plan was as far beyond our imaginings as the oak tree is from the acorn's imaginings. The acorn does what it was made to do, without pestering its Maker with questions about when and how and why. We who have been given an intelligence and a will and a whole range of wants that can be set against the divine Pattern for Good are asked to believe Him. We are given the chance to trust
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Him when He says to us, "... If any man will let himself be lost for my sake, he will find his true self."
When will we find it? we ask. The answer is, Trust Me.
How will we find it? The answer again is, Trust Me.
Why must I let myself be lost? we persist. The answer is, Look at the acorn and trust Me.
Confused Rollings and Wheels
Within a few weeks of Jim's going east, I went west, down to work on the language of a small tribe called Colorado (named for the red dye with which they painted their hair and bodies). This meant that two ranges of the Andes separated us. Mail had to travel by mule from San Miguel, where Dorothy and I were, to Santo Domingo, thence by banana truck to Quito, where it often remained for days before being sent by air or road to Shell Mera and then to Pano. From Pano, the nearest station with an airstrip, it was carried by Indians to Shandia. Sometimes it was six weeks between my sending a letter and receiving a reply, and because we always wrote in longhand, we had no copies. At times I could not remember what Jim was replying to.
Riding a bus one day in Quito, I was propositioned by a huge swarthy man who sat beside me. I wrote of it to Jim, and he wrote back:
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Sept. 27, 1952—I found myself tearing into small stumps and cutting them out with one hack, thinking about it on the airstrip a few days ago. And reading it again today, I found the little ball muscles at the jaw bulge and my teeth clench hard as I pictured it. I am afraid there would have been a scene for sure if I had been on hand, Bett—so it was probably better that I wasn't along, although it probably wouldn't have happened had I been. But what devils me is that he evidently rides the bus line frequently, and it may happen any old day again. It would be maddening but for the trust that I have in God for you. Time and again I have committed the very matter to Him, knowing better and fearing more male passions than yourself. And I am thankful that you are all that you are for such cases, that I can trust you, even if the man isn't ugly next time, and that such things find you, though disgusted and a little afraid, firm and resolutely resistant. And I know that He who has so far preserved us for each other will yet do so, Bett, and for the endurance, make the realization so much the sweeter.
October 8—Oh, I don't know how to tell you, Betty, or even if I should, but our months in Quito put me on an entirely different emotional level toward you than I was on before. Does it sound wrong to say that where you have been given rest since parting, I have had only uprisings of stronger want than ever? Where you have had peace, I find myself at perfect war. I mentioned last letter the strong urge to write, write, write, and the something that makes one restrain. I could add the crazy wish of wanting years to pass suddenly; the old rebellion of "why should it have to be so with us?"; the needing of a place to rest. Could it be that we are crossing the same river, but far enough apart to be at different depths, wisely kept so so that we would not sink together? I seem to feel it all much more keenly out here—there comes a sighing even as I write.
October 27—I have been blessed these last two weeks with many dreams of you, which, now that I try to collect them, scatter into nothing more than an exhilarating impression. That first waking agony of rolling over on my
Confused Rollings and Wheels
cot and not finding you there is not to be borne many days in a row. Still and ever the Spirit gives the comfort of the knowledge of the Will as simply and often I speak with Him of all my desire for you, darling, and wonder before Him at the prolonged denial of a desire for so good a thing. And I pray that what He does for me He does for you, and as often.
Early in December Jim wrote:
This will arrive as near your birthday as anything I can get to you. I well know that you will be twenty-six, and that we have always regarded that age as sort of passing the youth mark. But it doesn't frighten me. You are as fresh and virgin in my thoughts now as you were five years ago, many times more so than much younger women I could name, and I love you with the same boyish vigor that has always held me to you. That last point I hope to demonstrate in perhaps six weeks' time.
Exciting news and disappointing news. He was going to "demonstrate." What did that mean? But he was not going to make it to Quito for Christmas. I had been cherishing the hope that he would.
It looked to me as though it really didn't matter very much to him and he wasn't trying very hard. One thing after another seemed to come up to make it less and less likely. Where there's a will there's a way, I thought, and said so.
"I will come when I can with a clear conscience before God and will let you know of my plans if it is humanly possible," he answered. He asked me to give him the benefit of the doubt. He trusted my love, he said, to interpret things in his favor.
Love interprets things in favor of the one loved. I had a long way to go to learn that, but the principle is clear enough in Paul's description: "Love is patient . . . never selfish, not quick to take offence. Love keeps no score of
Passion and Purity
wrongs. . . . There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance."
The trouble, of course, is that we must learn to love people. People are sinners. Love must be patient when it is tempted (by the delays of other people) to be impatient. Love must not be selfish, even if other people are. Love does not take offence, though people are offensive sometimes. There are wrongs, but love won't keep score. There are things to be faced, but nothing love can't face, things to try love's faith, discourage its hope, and call for its endurance; but it keeps right on trusting, hoping, and enduring. Love never ends.
The memory of those painful weeks when it became clear that we were not going to make it to Quito for Christmas is still very vivid. I can see now that, humanly speaking, Jim might have changed some things to make it possible. He was not doing all that could have been done to bring us together. My doubts, humanly speaking, were well-founded. But from this distance, I can also see that I should have trusted God in him. Jim, though a human being with human limitations, was trying his hardest to walk in obedience to God. He was not pushing for his own way. I should have rested in that knowledge. Sometimes I did, but often I did not. Jim was concerned with Pete, with Dr. Tidmarsh, and with the Indians. His plans to see me were far down the list. That should have been evidence enough for me that his heart was where it belonged and that, even if I felt Jim didn't deserve my absolute trust when it came to our own cherished plans, God certainly did.
"It is impossible to be submissive and religiously patient if ye stay your thoughts down among the confused rollings and wheels of second causes, as O the place! O the time! O if this had been, this had not followed! O the linking of this accident with this time and place! Look up to the mas-
Confused Rollings and Wheels
ter motion and the first wheel/' said Samuel Rutherford in The Loveliness of Christ.
We are always held in the love of God. We are never wholly at the mercy of other people—they are only "second causes/' and no matter how many second or third or fiftieth causes seem to be in control of what happens to us, it is God who is in charge, He who holds the keys, He who casts the lot finally into the lap. Trusting Him, then, requires that I leave some things to be decided by others. I must learn to relinquish the control I might wield over somebody else if the decision properly belongs to him. I must resist my urge to manipulate him, needle and prod and pester until he capitulates. I must trust God in him, trust God to do for both of us better than I know.
Love Letters
When I received the next letter, I wondered that I could have doubted whether it mattered to Jim that we be together. He was losing sleep over it.
Some nights it is lying awake, wondering what it will be like to be alone with you again; others are turbid with wild dreams, everything from embraces to arguments; and still others, like yesterday, are fine until about 4:30 a.m. Then come wisps of hopes and plans that mold and shatter in the mind, little conversation frames, settings, and the mad wanting of the alarm to ring, the "sickness of hope deferred," the cry inside of "how long?" I think sometimes that it will be impossible to meet and speak casually with you, saying, "Hello, Bett," in the presence of other people, feeling sure that my voice will crack or I'll do something that will embarrass us both. But I suppose it will be like always, the greeting, the not-too-long glance into your eyes, the handshake, and the small talk about things that really don't matter. Well, if the Lord preserves me in my
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Love Letters
right mind until then, I shall be grateful, for, quite frankly, I have never been this way before.
Christmas came and went. New Year's, 1953. The weeks of January dragged by until at last, late one night, I heard the galloping of a horse. There was a knock on the door, and a man handed me a telegram. Jim was in Quito, waiting for me to come. Dawn found me traveling as fast as the mud would allow the horse to go, out to Santo Domingo de los Colorados. Another night, and I caught a banana truck before dawn for the ten-hour grinding journey up to Quito. It was as Jim had predicted—the greeting in the presence of others, the not-too-long glance. But that evening we were alone by the fire.
Jim had waited nearly five years for this. He took it slowly that evening, biding his time. We looked at the fire, spoke briefly of our journeys from the jungle, sat in silence. In the fullness of time, he asked me to marry him. Then— the first kiss. A ring on my finger.
His next letter to me, weeks later, when again the Andes stood between us, said:
Will I ever be able to tell you, Betts, what it does to me to have you call me "darling"? And to know that we are wholly and for always committed to one another, given over to one another's power and pleasure, sold out of ourselves, each for the other's good. The absolute goodness and rightness of it is unspeakable. How shall I say what I feel in gratitude to God for the rights and responsibilities of your love? And what shall I say to you? I don't know. Only this, my darling Betts, that I am drawn to you with a fondness I can never exhibit and held to you with a love that is at once all tenderness and all strength which my very body at either peak of gentleness or power does not suffice to declare. I love you. Once that meant "I trust you" and "I appreciate and admire you." Now it means that I am somehow part of you, with you, in you.
Passion and Purity
Heavy rains in the mountains caused an avalanche on the road from Quito to Santo Domingo, and we were without gasoline for our lamps, staple foods, and, most trying of all, mail. A letter came at last.
It was hot today and I could hardly force myself to pour concrete into two pillar forms. . . . Hard work, and now I'm ready for bed.
But not nearly so ready as I would be if you were here. Oh, to be able to take you there, darling, and do as I have dreamed of doing with those clothes of yours, and really feel the clean flesh of your beautiful long legs against the broadness of my own. Thunder of Deep Heaven! What gasping bliss that would be tonight. But it will wait for us, and be, as you've said, "perfect" when we arrive there. I long to fondle you tonight, Betts, and whisper that I love you, because I am now
fanatically —your —Jim.
March 22—How shall I tell you, darling, after all I've said carelessly about your features, that now I think them all wonderfully framed? I know when it comes time for me to see them all I will remark with Solomon, "Behold, thou art fair, my love." To me it is satisfying already to know that they are promised me, and only wait God's time for unveiling. Do you know how anxious I am?
Jim went on to tell of a conversation with an Ecuadorian friend who had made a girl pregnant. The willingness of the girl fooled him into thinking all would be well. He had then been framed by her parents, arrested, and forced to marry her. "Such are most of the marriages in my country," was the friend's comment.
"What robbery they must feel, if not shame, at the first intercourse after the wedding under such circumstances.
Love Letters
May God preserve us for His time. How Juan could esteem a woman like that I don't know. How grateful I am to God that I am not dealing with the type! Praise, praise for thee, lover. Thou art all God planned for me, and I exult in His design!"
Jim planned to visit me in San Miguel in May. In late April he wrote:
These next two weeks will be long ones, I fear, as the rains have come and we must be inside most of the day. I cannot spend hour after hour studying phrases like Pete, and I get wild as a stalled stallion waiting in the radio room, studying the forest across the river and facing the gray, empty sky. I will come regardless of what Pete does or whether the teacher likes being left alone. I need you, darling, and need you soon.
I love you strongly tonight, with a sense of power, a huge, surging hope inside me as to the fulfillment of our love. It is not the quiet longing that is usually on me, but the upflung fists and the shouting for possession, and both arms eager to crush you to me. It is the bursting heart and the wild eye of passion, the laugh that makes the stomach tighten. You cannot possibly understand this, and I really don't ask you to—it is just one of the ways I love you and it happens to seize me as I write. Love is not all a resting in me. It is a tenseness and a daring, a call to crush and conquer. . . . Good-night, my brave lover, and may the God who loves you stronger than I stand guard over you through the night.
This Is Our God—We Have Waited for Him
Jim came to San Miguel as planned, slept in the schoolroom, visited the Indians with me, preached in a little Sunday service held for Spanish-speaking white people who lived in our clearing.
On the last evening we stood on the balcony of the creaking old thatched-roof house where I lived with Dorothy. We watched the mist rise in the pasture, veiling the shapes of the few cows, the horse, and the dirty white ox that grazed there. Tree frogs quacked and peeped, an occasional hoot or woodwindlike note came from a night bird. Pinpoints of light from tiny oil lamps in the houses nearby winked out one by one. The moon rose behind tier on tier of jungle trees, its light diffused by the mist.
We talked of plans for a house someday in the eastern jungle. When would it be? Jim could not tell me. We had no wedding date set. He was committed to building houses for two other missionary families. This made me feel
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This Is Our God—We Have Waited for Him
resentful. Did it always have to be others first? I could not say this aloud—for disciples the answer was obvious.
A few weeks later he wrote, "Evenings, when we go down to the Talac River to bathe, I spend the whole time looking at the hill I want to build on for us, in reverie and wonder. And my prayers are full of you. Marriage is an hourly committal now, and I feel the want of it so strongly that I actually expect something 'catastrophic' every time I am separated from Pete for a while, or when Ed comes to the radio."
The next letter said, "I am fervently praying these days that God will make the day soon when we can live out our love in everyday doings. It may not take anything catastrophic after all to bring us together—just a hurdling, one after another, of the things that block me from marriage now. I may tell you quite freely now, that one of those hurdles, namely, housing, is passed. I feel we could get on in anything to start with, and likely will."
In late June I left my Colorado language work in the hands of two English women in San Miguel and moved to Dos Rios, a station about six hours' walk from Shandia, to fulfill the condition of Jim's proposal—that I should learn Quichua before he would marry me. The pilot had planned to land in Shandia on our way to Dos Rios so that I could see Jim and the station, but weather began to close in, and he would not take the risk. "To see you pass over my head was almost too much," Jim wrote. "I'm not bitter, but I am disappointed, and had to look up to God, going down the trail to visit a sick believer after you had gone, and tell Him that I knew He had something better in mind ... I had banana and pineapple sherbet made for your arrival, and we soon finished it off after you flew over." (Jim and Pete had a small kerosene refrigerator.)
Letters went back and forth between Shandia and Dos Rios by Indian carriers, and in July Jim came by trail to Dos Rios. I looked out of my window when I heard the
Passion and Purity
shout, "Chirnba-chiwapai!" ("Please take me across the river") and saw him standing on the top of the cliff of the Mishahualli. By the time I reached the bank, the man with the canoe was bringing him across.
It took some fancy footwork to meet alone during that weekend without scandalizing the Quichua Indians. They knew no such thing as courtship, all marriages being arranged by middlemen and the bride and groom not speaking until after the wedding. It would have been quite impossible for them to believe that we could meet and talk alone without sexual shenanigans. One afternoon I took the trail to a sandy beach of the Mishahualli while Jim took a trail upriver and swam half a mile or so with the current to meet me. At night, long after the Indians were asleep (they went to bed with the chickens, figuratively and literally), we went out into the moonlit meadows, screened from the house by tall pasture grass and orange trees, where we could stand, locked in an embrace, and talk. The matter of a wedding date came up at last. Jim asked how I would feel about November, perhaps January, depending on Pete's reaction, my learning Quichua, Jim's having opportunity to make at least one trek to other areas of the Quichua population. A few weeks later the "catastrophe" Jim had half wished for, an unimagined one, happened. The Atun Yacu, the "Big River" on whose high cliffs the Shandia station stood, flooded in August and carried off, in a single night, all of the mission buildings and several hundred meters of the airstrip. This convinced Jim and Pete and Ed McCully (the new co-worker recently arrived from Wisconsin) that God had something else in mind. They made a three-week trek to the southern part of Quichua territory, found a place in need of a school and a missionary, and agreed that Jim and I were the ones to go there.
We were married in Quito on October 8, 1953. The McCullys and Tidmarshes were our witnesses. Others came to see us off at the airport and to throw rice at us.
This Is Our God—We Have Waited for Him
At the El Panama hotel, overlooking the Pacific coast of Panama, I picked up the phone shortly after we arrived. "Mrs. Elliot?" said a polite voice. I was stunned. Mrs. Elliot! It was only the front desk, inquiring if all was satisfactory in our room. We went down to dinner and as we dawdled over coffee and dessert, savoring the luxurious atmosphere and enjoying the music of a dance band, Jim looked across the candles at me. "I can hardly believe we've got a bed waiting for us!" he said.
The verse given to us for that day was Isaiah 25:9, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him."
It was unspeakably worth the wait.
Out of Love and Into Charity
A book about passion and purity ought not to end with the wedding day, for as passion does not end then, neither does purity While purity before marriage, as Jim and I learned, consists in holding ourselves from one another in obedience to God, purity after marriage consists in giving ourselves to and for each other in obedience to God. Passion, whether that of one who is hungry for another not yet given or that of one who, by God's gift, shares the bed of another, must be held by principle. The principle is love—not erotic or sentimental or sexual feeling, but love. It is the way of charity. Perhaps the old word is best. The newer has been corrupted by the strange phenomenon of "falling in love."
I know a young man—I'll call him Philpott—who over the past five or six years seems to have made a career of falling in and out of love. He's a very attractive man and seems able to pick and choose from an eager group of
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attractive and eminently available women. He wrote to me recently to say that he'd done it again. Fallen out of love with a girl we'll call Cheryl. "Darn it all/' he said, "here I thought I'd found my dream girl but 'it didn't work out.' Just couldn't maintain the feelings." Here's my reply.
About this business of falling out of love. Everybody does it, you know. Sometimes before they get married, but always afterwards. Modern folks simply bug out of the marriage then, if they feel no obligation to keep vows— vows made foolishly, they believe.
There is something to be said for making an adult choice and sticking with it. "Being in love," wrote C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, "is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all .... In fact, the state of being in love usually does not last .... But of course ceasing to be 'in love' need not mean ceasing to love. Love ... is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both partners ask and receive from God. . . . They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be 'in love' with someone else. 'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep their promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it."
So, Philpott, one of these days you need to take a cool, clear look at a good Christian woman. Assess her potentials as a good Christian wife. Is she the kind you'd want as a hostess at your table? Is she what you want for a mother for your children? Is she womanly? Godly? Sensible? Modest? Companionable? Do you think she's "worth" your love? Are you worth hers? (If you think you are, you're probably wrong. Each is to esteem the other
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better than himself.) Is it God's time for you to get married? Then make up your mind and ask God's help to love her as she ought to be loved.
You said, "One never knows which way the Lord will lead/' and that's true. He just might be telling you to "be not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding . . ." (Psalm 32:9) and get with it.
Don't get me wrong. I have no idea that Cheryl is The Woman. Don't know a thing about her except that you said she's gorgeous. That isn't enough. But if you're looking for some kind of feeling that will be consistent day in and day out, forget it. The kind of love that sustains a marriage is God given, but it is also a daily choice. For the rest of your life. Never forget that.
You have to choose the woman, with all the brains and good sense you've got, plus all the other methods of knowing what God wants of you (you've read my little book, A Slow and Certain Light, about guidance, haven't you?) and then make your move. You have my prayers.
What, exactly, is this "quieter love" that Lewis speaks of?
It is not passion, but neither is it in conflict with passion, when passion is held by principle. It contains and restrains passion. When an unmarried man feels passionate, his love for God (and for the object of his passion) restrains him. When a married man feels passionate and finds that his wife does not, his quieter love restrains that passion for her sake—and for God's. It is just as likely that a woman's passions may be aroused when her husband's are not. She waits then, with quiet love. The question of conjugal rights for the Christian always refers to the rights of the other, never of the self.
"The husband must give the wife what is due to her, and the wife equally must give the husband his due. The wife cannot claim her body as her own; it is her husband's. Equally, the husband cannot claim his body as his own; it is his wife's."
Out of Love and Into Charity
What awful confusion results when these demands are read thus: "The husband must demand from his wife what is due to him. The wife must demand from her husband what is due to her. The wife must claim her husband's body. The husband must claim his wife's body." Nothing could be further from the spirit of true charity, which is always self-giving. Charity says "I grant you your rights. I do not insist on mine. I give myself to you; I do not insist that you give yourself to me."
This selflessness is essential if husbands and wives are to fulfill the commands to love and to submit. It won't work any other way. It is the husband's assignment to exercise the authority of the head, as Christ demonstrated when He laid down His own life for us who are His body. This is self-giving charity. It is not the husband's job to demand obedience. Christ is Head of the Church. He loves, woos, calls, sacrifices Himself. He does not impose His will. Those who will not do His will are allowed their choice, a terrible choice that of course entails inevitable consequences.
It is not the wife's job to demand that her husband love her as Christ loved the Church. Her job is to submit in such a way (that is, gladly, voluntarily, wholeheartedly) as to make it easier for him to love her that way. First Peter 3 is the definitive chapter on this subject.
"Quiet love" was expressed in a letter written by a young woman just engaged.
I do not understand much of society's thoughts and formulas on marriage and the partnership therein. It only makes sense to me the way God stated it so clearly in the beginning. He made woman for man, and within that context the idea of fifty-fifty giving that I hear of does not seem to fit. I want the simplicity and purity of the perspective that when I commit myself to a man in marriage I shall give all that I have to him in love, without any claims to
Passion and Purity
what I desire out of him. Being very aware of my human-ness and my sinfulness, I know that I shall want, that I shall, at various moments, know selfishness, restlessness, and dissatisfaction, but my striving shall remain toward the higher road of what I believe to be obedience.
Another woman, married ten or twelve years, told me of her experience of what self-giving had come to mean. Her husband, a doctor, had made several major moves to different jobs in different cities. Their homes had been sold, the children repeatedly uprooted from friends and schools. When Joan found that her husband was about to make yet another move, she wrote:
I found myself saying to God and to Gene, "Listen, I can no longer trust you to control my life. I think I could work out a better plan than this. I cannot take another picture off the wall. I cannot hand the keys to one more house over to someone else. I refuse to look like an unstable fool." That was the bottom line of my struggle. It sounds so paltry, but I considered trading joy for a shadow. I couldn't believe how great was the temptation to trade security for God's will. In a very revealing conversation with Gene, in which he said, "I can no longer battle you on this issue. I will write the letter turning down the job," I saw clearly the ghost of the future. If I persisted in insisting that my will be done, I was taking away God's and Gene's authority in my life—killing the joy and love that are the dearest things in my life.
I had been asking God to work, from the beginning, and He had brought so many wise words my way. I was ready to say, "I'm sorry. I give this up. I do want you to make the decision, Gene, and I want God's will and of course I can do it." Now this was Christ's life, definitely not mine, being manifested. I had been reading The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis, a perfect book at the time. And a good friend had said to Gene and me, "If you, Gene, are willing to stay with a lousy job, if it's what God wills, and you, Joan, are
Out of Love and Into Charity
willing to wander the face of the earth like Abraham for the rest of your life, God will clearly show you what He wants you to do."
Your statement about being willing to go out, not being assured about coming back, but leaving the results to God, was what I needed to hear. Galatians 2:20 [neb] is our favorite verse ["I have been crucified with Christ: the life I now live is not my life, but the life which Christ lives in me; and my present bodily life is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me"]. The whole subject of exchange is our dearest topic.
That's charity. In down-to-earth, everyday, tangible, visible, practical, willed obedience. A quieter love, but a long-lasting one, indeed, an eternal one. It means kindness and respect. Old-fashioned "milk of human kindness," and simple, courteous, humble respect for the other person, who is made in the image of God.
Try to remember the vision that "being in love" gave you of what that person was. You found no fault in him or her. "Behold, thou art fair, my love, there is no spot in thee," Solomon said to his beloved. Is it blindness to see a sinful man or woman thus? I think it is a special gift of vision, the power to see for a little while what God meant when He made that person. You find, after marriage, that the person is in fact a sinner, has flaws you never suspected. Try to remember then what the vision showed you. Thank God for it, and treat him or her with the sort of respect due one who will some day manifest most gloriously the image of God.
Charity is the love of God. There is no other way to control passion. There is no other route to purity. There is no other route, finally, to joy.
"Dwell in my love," Jesus told His disciples in one of His last discourses. He put it very plainly: "If you heed my commands, you will dwell in my love, as I have heeded my Father's commands and dwell in his love."
A New Act of Creation
"I've already blown it," some readers will be saying. "The standard is impossible. No way can I start picking up the pieces now."
Do our transgressions disqualify us for the Christian life? Quite the contrary. Jesus came into the world specifically for us who blew it, not for those who "need no repentance." "... He was wounded for our transgressions. ..."
If sexuality is a paradigm of the Heavenly Bridegroom and His pure and spotless Bride, how shall we who are impure and badly spotted start over again? "... Make no mistake: no fornicator or idolater, none who are guilty either of adultery or of homosexual perversion, no thieves or grabbers or drunkards or slanderers or swindlers, will possess the kingdom of God," Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians. Sounds as though there isn't much chance for any of us. But then he says, "Such were some of you, but you have been through the purifying waters; you have been dedicated to God and justified through the name of the Lord Jesus and the Spirit of our God." He goes on in
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A New Act of Creation
his next letter to say, "For the love of Christ leaves us no choice, when once we have reached the conclusion that one man died for all and therefore all mankind has died. His purpose in dying for all was that men, while still in life, should cease to live for themselves, and should live for him who for their sake died and was raised to life."
This teaches us that there is a point of departure. What we were, and what we are in Christ, are sharply distinct. Stop living for yourself, start living for Christ. Now.
"With us therefore worldly standards have ceased to count in our estimate of any man; even if once they counted in our understanding of Christ, they do so now no longer. When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new act of creation; the old order has gone, and a new order has already begun."
My friend Calvin Thielman, pastor in Montreat, North Carolina, tells the story of an old Scottish preacher who, as he was serving the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, noticed a young girl sobbing at the communion rail. As he passed her the bread, visible sign of the body of the Lord Jesus ("I give it for the life of the world," He said) the girl turned away her face, which was wet with tears.
"Tak' it, lassie," said the old man. "It's for sinners."
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Source Notes
Chapter 2
See Song of Solomon 8:4. (24)
Philippians 1:21. (24)
1 Corinthians 6:19, 20 phillips. (26)
Isaiah 43:1 neb. (26)
Isaiah 43:2, 3 neb. (26)
1 Peter 1:18, 19 neb. (26)
Chapter 3
Robert Service, The Complete Poems of Robert Service (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1940), pp. 30, 31.(31)
Matthew 5:8. (31)
W. G. Smith, "A Clean Heart," from The Keswick Hymn-Book (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, Ltd.). (31)
Chapter 4
Frances Ridley Havergal, "Take My Life " (34)
Chapter 5
Genesis 22:1-3 neb. (38) Matthew 19:16, 21 neb. (38) Matthew 10:37, 39 neb. (39) Philippians 3:8 neb. (39)
Lilias Trotter, Parables of the Cross (London: Marshall Brothers, n.d.). (39) Romans 8:32 neb. (40)
Chapter 7
2 Samuel 24:24 neb. (46)
Chapter 8
Proverbs 14:12, 13 neb. (49) Psalm 32:8-11 neb. (50)
Chapter 10
Anonymous. (55)
Isaiah 40:12, 21, 22, 26 neb. (56)
Isaiah 40:27-31 neb. (57)
Chapter 11
Matthew 19:12 neb. (59)
Isaiah 54:5 neb. (59)
1 Corinthians 7:34, 35 neb. (59)
Chapter 12
Psalm 62:1, 2, 8 neb. (62)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King (New York: Macmillan and Company, 1939), pp. 755, 756. (62)
Luke 21:37. (62)
Proverbs 17:28 neb. (63)
Source Notes
Proverbs 19:7 neb. (63)
Proverbs 10:19 neb. (63)
S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Prayer (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980), p. 155. (64)
Chapter 13
Numbers 31:23; Deuteronomy 13:3; Psalm 66:10, 12; Isaiah 43:2. (65)
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest. (66)
2 Samuel 23. (66)
Chapter 14
Christina Rossetti, "A Sonnet of Sonnets, #6." (70)
Chapter 15
Psalm 78:8 neb. (72)
2 Corinthians 4:11 neb. (73)
Chapter 16
Amy Carmichael, Toward Jerusalem (Fort Washington, Pennsylvania: Christian Literature Crusade, Inc., 1961), p. 95. (75)
Chapter 17
Elisabeth Elliot, Loneliness (Gloucester, Massachusetts: Open Church Foundation). (79)
Romans 5:3 phillips. (81)
Romans 5:4 phillips (81)
Chapter 18
Edith Colgate Salabury, Susy and Mark Twain (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), pp. 249, 250. (83)
Romans 8:35-39 phillips. (84)
Luke 16:10, 11 neb. (87)
Chapter 19
Psalm 37:5 (89)
Romans 8:26, 27 neb. (90)
Chapter 20
1 Corinthians 7:1. (92) 1 Corinthians 7:1, 2 neb. (93) Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ. (93)
Romans 8:13 neb, italics added. (95) Romans 8:7-12 neb. (95)
Chapter 22
1 Peter 3:4 neb. (107)
Chapter 23
Stephen Goldberg, The Inevitability of Patriarchy (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1974), p. 55. (109)
2 Corinthians 1:12 neb. (110)
Chapter 24
Samuel Rutherford. (112) Matthew 11:12. (112) Deuteronomy 8:2, 3 neb. (113) Deuteronomy 8:3 neb. (113) Deuteronomy 8:5, 7, 9 neb. (114) John 16:12 neb. (115)
Chapter 25
Tamil proverb. (116)
2 Corinthians 12:9 neb. (117)
Romans 8:16, 17 neb. (118)
Chapter 27
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 neb. (126)
Chapter 28
Isaiah 8:11-13 neb. (129)
Chapter 29
1 Corinthians 8:1-3, 8, 9, 13 neb. (132)
William Wilberforce, Real Christianity (Portland, Oregon: Multnomah Press, 1982), p. 123. (133)
Source Notes
2 John 6 neb, italics added. (133)
2 Timothy 2:22. (134)
2 Timothy 4:3-5 neb. (134)
Chapter 30
1 John 1:8-10; 2:1, 2 neb. (137)
Chapter 31
1 Corinthians 10:12, 13 neb. (140)
2 Timothy 2:22 neb. (141)
Chapter 32
Horatio R. Palmer, "Yield Not to Temptation," from Songs for Christian Worship (Board of Education of the United Presbyterian Church of North America). (143)
Sara Teasdale, "Night Song at Amalfi," from Love Songs (New York: Macmillan and Company, 1917). (144)
Chapter 33
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4, 5, 7, neb. (148) C. S. Lewis, "We Have No Right to Happiness," The Saturday Evening Post, December 21-28, 1963. (149)
Chapter 35
Amy Carmichael, Though the Mountains Shake (New York: Loizeaux Brothers, 1946). (154)
Chapter 37
Anna B. Warner, "We Would See Jesus," from Victorious Life Hymns (Philadelphia: The Sunday School Times Company, 1919). (161)
Chapter 38
Ephesians4:13. (164) Matthew 16:25 neb. (166)
Chapter 39
1 Corinthians 13:4, 5, 7 neb. (170) Samuel Rutherford, The Loveliness of Christ (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons Ltd., 1958), p. 33. (170)
Chapter 42
1 Corinthians 7:3, 4 neb. (182) John 15:9, 10 neb. (185)
Chapter 43
Isaiah 53:5. (186)
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 neb. (186)
2 Corinthians 5:14, 15. (187)
2 Corinthians 5:16, 17 neb, footnote for v. 17.(187)
Elisabeth Elliot is a popular seminar speaker, radio teacher, and best-selling author. Her books include A Chance to Die, On Asking God Why, The Journals of Jim Elliot, The Mark of a Man, and Discipline: The Glad Surrender.