Last week my dear friend, Elizabeth Elliot, passed away. No, I never met her but she has been a
special part of my life for many years, through her books and articles. I was attracted to her because she
believed in marriage, and she believed that the Bible held the answers to making relationships work. She made it
make sense.
Elizabeth is most easily recognized because her first husband was Jim Elliot,
the missionary who was killed by South American indians in 1956. (See film: The
End of the Spear) In honor of her life’s work, I am posting one of the articles that illustrates her gifts:
Leave Him to Me
When there is deep misunderstanding which has led to the erection of barriers between two who once were close, every day brings the strengthening of those barriers if they are not, by God's grace, breached. One prays and finds no way at all to break through. Love seems to "backfire" every time. Explanations become impossible. New accusations arise, it seems, from nowhere (though it is well to recall who is named the Accuser of the brethren). The situation becomes ever more complex and insoluble, and the mind goes round and round, seeking the place where things went wrong, brooding over the words which were like daggers, regretting the failures and mistakes, wondering (most painfully) how it could have been different. Much spiritual and emotional energy is drained in this way--but the Lord wants to teach us to commit, trust, and rest.
"Leave him to me this afternoon," is what his word is. "There is nothing else that I am asking
of you this afternoon but that: leave him to Me. You cannot fathom all that is taking place. You
don't need to. I am at work--in you, in him. Leave him to Me. Some day it will come clear--trust Me."
"Humble yourselves under God's mighty hand, and he will lift you up in due time. Cast all your
cares on Him, for you [and the other] are hischarge" (l Pt 5:7).
Elisabeth Elliot, A Lamp For My Feet
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