Drinking From a Deep Well of Wisdom: The Teachings of Elisabeth Elliot

I've never met Elisabeth Elliot. But in my head she's my mentor and friend.

Her teaching style is practical, biblical and refreshing in a day and age when many don't teach simple truths from the Bible like how to be a woman, tending to home and how God can use our pain as a platform for His glory.

In my 20s, I used to listen to her daily radio broadcast Gateway to Joy when I could catch it. Last year, BBN radio started broadcasting her show again and I now listen regularly via their app. Listening in has come to be the favorite part of my day. And I've been reacquainting myself with her writings. I'm currently reading: The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God. It's a lesson-filled work on how God can use loneliness of every sort (from rejection, singleness, moving to a new place, etc) to work out great blessing in our lives.

In the book she writes: “Loneliness is one kind of ‘dying’ most of us learn about sooner or later. Far from being ‘bad’ for us, a hindrance to spiritual growth, it may be the means of unfolding spiritual ‘blossoms’ hitherto enfolded…”

I can't pinpoint any other woman who's ministry and teaching has impacted me as deeply as Elisabeth Elliot's. 

Her life is a study in joyful surrender. It's the kind of surrender I want in my own life. So I turn her words over and over in my head and turn to to the scriptures she mentions to see them in the light that she held them up in.

If you don't know about Elisabeth Elliot, a quick Google search will acquaint you with her remarkable life.

She was a missionary in Ecuador more than 50 years ago when her first husband was killed by the Indian tribe they were trying share the Gospel with. Elisabeth ended up staying there with her young daughter and ministered to the same tribe that murdered her husband. She eventually remarried years later only to be widowed after her second husband died of cancer. She married again but at 88 years old suffers from dementia which brought her teaching to a halt more than a decade ago. All seems like a cruel hand of fate, but if you read her books and hear her teach, you will learn that for her "in acceptance, lieth peace." And there was (and is) no shaking her fist at the sky and cursing God for the turn of events in her life. God shines through every broken part of her story.

She has written more than 25 books (a few which are staples in my library.) And on her website are archives of her newsletter which went out for many years which include more golden nuggets of wisdom.

I've always loved the knowledge that older women have and when I was younger enjoyed spending time with the aged mothers of our church to glean from them. Reading Elisabeth Elliot is just like sitting with those church mothers.

I hope you get acquainted with her and find something from her teachings that suit your fancy.

Who are some women you look up to and like to glean from? Do share!