Let Me Be a Woman (By Elisabeth Elliot) - Part II

Let Me Be a Woman: Notes on Womanhood for Valerie

Chapter 11 Trust for Separation

* "Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living," he wrote to me, and those words have helped me very often since. We accept and thank God for what is given, not allowing the not-given to spoil it.

* This is the call. This is the order of our lives. There is nothing haphazard about them. We can commit them to God, and accept them from Him.

Chapter 12 Self-Discipline and Order

* We are the creatures of a great Master-Designer, and His ordering of our lives is sure and certain, yet many people live without any visible order or peace or serenity. The way we live ought to manifest the truth of what we believe. A messy life speaks of a messy - an incoherent - faith.

* Freedom begins way back. It begins not with doing what you want but with doing what you ought - that is, with discipline.

* How shall we learn to believe and obey God if we have not been taught from earliest childhood to believe and obey the ones He puts over us? A child has to know first of all and beyond any shadow of doubt that the word spoken will be the word carried out.

* Failure to fulfill threats and promises trains a child to discount what is said. It trains him to lie. The parents are not to be trusted, therefore they need not be obeyed, therefore no authority is trustworthy or need be obeyed. Obedience is optional, depending on convenience or inclination or obvious reward.

* I learned very soon that I had to give my full attention to you when I spoke. ... I mean that when a matter needs the mother's attention it must get her full attention for that moment. I had to turn from my work and turn to you.

* The way you keep your house, the way you organize your time, the care you take in your personal appearance, the things you spend your money on all speak loudly about what you believe. "The beauty of Thy peace" shines forth in an ordered life. A disordered life speaks loudly of disorder in the soul.

Chapter 13 Whose Battle?

* The universe moves at the command of God, and men and women are at all times under that command, but, distinct from robins and lobsters, they have been given the power to disobey. They are capable of doing a great many things they are not supposed to do. The ability to do them is not a command to do them. It is not even permission. .... Men and women who have used their minds, their talents, and their genius to move multitudes to evil have used the minds, talents, and genius given to them by their Creator. But they have not asked what God has commanded. They have not offered themselves first to Him, trusting His direction for their proper sphere of operation.
So the question of ordination hinges on far more than competence. It cannot be decided on the basis of the church's need or an individual's urge or any of the sociological or humanistic arguments put forth by those who seek to liberate. It has to do with things vastly more fundamental and permanent, and the meaning of womanhood is one of these things.
We have something to respond to, something that directs and calls and holds us, and it is in obedience to the command that we will find our full freedom.

Chapter 14 Freedom through Discipline

* The freedom of the sailboat to move so swiftly and beautifully is the result of obedience to laws. ... She is doing the things she was made for. She is free not by disobeying the rules but by obeying them.

* This choice meant restriction, a willingness to limit themselves to the walks. It meant not doing what they wanted to do in order to have something they wanted more.

* This is the crux of the question of liberty and liberation. Does it mean casting off all restrictions? Does it mean doing what we feel like doing and not doing what don't? It means discipline. It means doing the thing we were meant for. What is it to which we are called, we women under God?

Chapter 15 God Sets No Traps

* We are called to be women. The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian does make me a different kind of woman. For I have accepted God's idea for me, and my whole life is an offering back to Him of all that I am and all that He wants me to be.

* We have not the motive to prepare ourselves for a "lifetime" of teaching, of social work - we know that we would lay it down with hallelujah in the height of our success, to make a home for the right man. - Ruth Benedict

* For the Christian woman, however, whether she is married or single, there is the call to serve.

* The woman who defines her liberation as doing what she wants, or not doing what she doesn't want, is, in the first place, evading responsibility. Evasion of responsibility is the mark of immaturity.