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

Let Me Be a Woman: Notes on Womanhood for Valerie

Chapter 21 A Choice Is a Limitation

* "Keep her from and for the man she is to marry," ("from" meaning until His chosen time, that you would not hurry ahead of His will) - and yours to be guided to the man of His choice.

* It is a vow you are making before God and before witnesses, a vow you will by God's grace keep, which does not depend on your moods or feelings or "how things turn out." As others have said, love does not preserve the marriage, the marriage preserves love.

* When you make a choice, you accept the limitations of that choice. To accept limitation requires maturity.

* To choose to do this is to choose not to do a thousand other things.

* But long ago Betty (Greene) had made up her mind that if she was going to make her way in a man's world she had to be a lady. She would have to compete with men in being a pilot, but she would not compete with men in being a man. She refused to try in any way to act like a man.

* It is a naive sort of feminism that insists that women prove their ability to do all the things that men do. This is a distortion and a travesty. Men have never sought to prove that they can do all the things women do. Why subject women to purely masculine criteria? Women can and ought to be judged by the criteria of femininity, for it is in their femininity that they participate in the human race. And femininity has its limitations. So has masculinity. That is what we've been talking about. To do this is not to do that. To be this is not to be that. To be a woman is not to be a man. To be married is not to be single - which may mean not to have a career. To marry this man is not to marry all the others. A choice is a limitation.

Chapter 22 Commitment, Gratitude, Dependence

* No marriage "experiment" has any validity, lacking the essential ingredient of total and irrevocable commitment.

* You know, I am sure, that your love is a gift. And if it is a gift you are grateful for your Giver. To acknowledge your gratitude to Him is also to acknowledge your dependence on Him, to acknowledge above all the authority of Christ. That is a good place to begin a marriage.