A Life Inside Out: Finding the Goodness of God in It All
“But safety, as the Cross shows, does not exclude suffering … trust in those strong arms means that even our suffering is under control. We are not doomed to meaninglessness. A loving Purpose is behind it all, a great tenderness even in the fierceness.”
Tuesday
Earlier this morning, somewhere in Massachusetts, the body of Elisabeth Elliot was laid to rest.
After 88 years of faithful service, at approximately 6:15am, on the morning of June 15th, she entered into something that she had written about and longed for in so many ways over the years—the presence of God forever.
From everything I’ve ever read or heard of her, she epitomized the “Keep Calm and Carry On” phrase that’s currently so popular. In an age that prized feelings and the following of them, she dared to speak early and often of things like duty, discipline and submission. This beautiful woman of God has long been before me as a kind of paragon of spiritual femininity, but it’s been in the last few years that I’ve felt most drawn to her words and legacy.
You see, from an outside perspective, Elisabeth Elliot had so many reasons to give up, to curl up and to turn inward over the years. Her first love was martyred, her second was lost to cancer, and her third and final nursed her as her memory left, not to mention all the trials and struggles that come just from the living of life in a broken world. Time and again, she looked into the darkest and most difficult and she saw God and found Him to be faithful … and then she wrote it down so that we wouldn’t lose hope when it was our own turn in the dark places.
She took the life she was so sovereignly gifted and turned it inside out, writing on everything from the very worst kinds of sorrows to the very mundane, all for the sake of knowing Him better and encouraging us to do the same.
““When I know myself called, summoned, addressed, taken possession of, known, acted upon, I have heard the Master. I put myself gladly, fully, and forever at His disposal, and to whatever He says my answer is yes.””
“When I know myself called, summoned, addressed, taken possession of, known, acted upon, I have heard the Master. I put myself gladly, fully, and forever at His disposal, and to whatever He says my answer is yes.”
May our answer be ever the same as hers—“Yes.”
Moment by moment.
Ellie Ewoldt