Becoming Elisabeth Elliot

 A humbling look into the life of Betty Howard Elliot. It follows the letters and journals of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot. From her humble beginnings to their first meeting and the wait of five years til they marry. Amazing people. You may have read and heard the stories, but this one goes deeper. It's their thoughts and deep convictions. Talk about sacrifice. Sacrifice upon sacrifice. They were truly called of God and ANSWERED! With their whole hearts and lives.

While many may scoff at their devotion, we look at their lives and see Jim and Elisabeth's deep desire to put God first. There is just some thing about a person who cares so much about the lost, to take the message of God's redeeming love to savages.

Ellen Vaughn writes about the turmoil and anxiousness of waiting on God's timing. About learning a language so foreign that it takes years to translate. About finding hope and direction after the bruising reality of grief. Ellen translates the words of two flawed mortal people, not to grant them sainthood, but to see them as they really were. Flesh and blood humans, with hopes and dreams, hurts and disappointments, joys and sorrows, isolation and loneliness.

Elisabeth was a prolific writer  She wrote about her time with the Waodani Indians, the very ones who killed her husband. She wrote over 20 books and was a speaker well into her seventies.  When she walked into the jungle with her 3 year old daughter, she didn't know what was ahead. Would the Stone Age people kill her too? She was ready to lay down her life because she believed she should obey the call of God, whatever the price.

A quote from Joni Eareckson Tata~

  "Courage is rare. Good character, rarer. Moral purity feels arcane. Suffering should be mitigated at all costs. And if it cannot be avoided, it must be drugged, divorced, escaped from, or prayed away."

But Elisabeth left Joni with these words.

"Suffering is never for nothing."

I received a complimentary ebook copy from the publisher, through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.