Worth the Weight

So, I got the title from the back of a Lady and Sons t-shirt, but it still makes my point. The last two months I have been in one of those seasons in life where there seems to be one recurring theme…..WAIT. Isn’t learning to wait such a hard lesson? I can remember learning this lesson before and here I am, many years later, learning it again. Over the past two months there have been many lessons, both small and large, that involved what Elisabeth Elliot calls a “holding pattern”-a required stillness. If you think about it, it isn’t actually waiting that we are learning to do, it is learning how to wait. We don’t have a choice in the waiting. All we can do is learn how to wait well. So, instead of boring you with all of the opportunities we have had to learn this lately, I thought I would share the words, (most from Elisabeth Elliot and scripture) that have brought so much encouragement to our home as we learn how to wait well all over again.

"So long as our idea of surrender is limited to the renouncing of unlawful things, we have never grasped its true meaning."

"If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it is because pieces will feed a multitude, while a loaf will satisfy only a little lad."

"How can God work His will in me if I am clogged with wishes of my own? Thy will be done."

"The heart set to do the Father's will need never fear defeat."

"Lead me in thy truth...on thee do I wait all the day." Psalms 25:5

"To wait on the Lord is to stand perfectly still...Can we two trust His words, 'Is not the Lord your God with you? and hath he not given you rest on every side?'"
1 Chronicles 22:18

"Even here He can refresh us, even here He can renew us."

"Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one's thoughts."

"Waiting silently is the hardest thing of all...things we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over thoroughly with God."

"Never pass up an opportunity to keep your mouth shut."

"Tomorrow was not our business; it was His. Letting it rest with Him was the discipline of the day, and it was enough."

"How long, Lord, must I wait?
Never mind, child. Trust me."

A Tribute to Elisabeth Elliot

As I returned to scripture today after a long hiatus, I was reminded of God's faithfulness, specifically in the times when things have been uncertain and uncomfortable. I found myself looking back at old journal entries and being amazed at how much God has carried me through. I was reminded, as well, of the faithfulness of Elisabeth Elliot. I remember praying for just half of Elisabeth Elliot's strength and faithfulness.

The first book of hers I read was "Passion and Purity" and it changed me. For those of you who have not been privileged to hear her story, it is one worth reading about. The book is centered around her journals and struggles during her courtship with Jim Elliot. It was a long courtship, full of waiting, uncertainty and many difficult emotions. When I read her journal entries included in the book, I was overtaken by unbelief. She was incredibly willing to do the hard thing. To wait. To yield. To die to herself....sometimes many times a day.

This book has a different meaning to me as a married woman than it did when I was young and single. I do, however, still have moments of waiting and opportunities to yield to Christ and die to myself each day. It sometimes seems that I am actually given more opportunities to do this as a married woman than I was as a single woman, with no one else to put before myself. Everyday I face "little deaths" when I am given the chance to say no to myself and yes to God. These opportunities show up in all shapes and sizes. They can be obvious or go unnoticed. They can involve others or remain between God and myself. They can involve the way I spend my money, what I am entertained by, my attitude, the way I speak to my husband, the way I spend my time and energy, and sometimes they can even involve what I eat. Every struggle must be offered up. It takes faith to die these little deaths--faith to believe that I must die in order to live.

"It takes faith to live by it, faith to act on it, faith to keep looking at the joyful end of it all." Elisabeth Elliot