Ah, thrift stores: the haphazard museums of the recent past. As a girl with old-fashioned tastes, I’m sure to part with at least a few dollars to gain a favorite skirt, the most comfortable chairs, or some treasured books or music. I’ve met many close friends in thrift stores. Twila Paris, Point of Grace, Andrew Murray, and now Elisabeth Elliot, while hard to find in modern music aisles and bookstores, are familiar faces in the secondhand realms.
So it is that I find a copy of Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ’s Control. What a sweet little book. Having received numerous letters and questions about romance and relationships, Elisabeth Elliot writes of her desire to keep the Lord as her first love, her courtship with Jim, and wisdom on the subject of relationships that she has gained over the years.

This is a short recommendation for the book, as I believe it could be a benefit to any woman. I was eager to read it as soon as I bought it, not because I as a single woman am eager to seek out the prospect of marriage. I used to be an avid story writer, and, being analytical, sometimes took tales of romance further and into more detail than is godly. The imagination wasn’t something Elisabeth Elliot directly addressed in these terms, but reading her gentle call to dedicate virginity to the Lord gave me a clearer opportunity to dialogue with the Lord about some of my thoughts, fears, and struggles in the area of romance.

Midway through the book, Elisabeth Elliot talks about some of the struggles women have with their interactions with men. I can identify in general with wanting to be controlling of my circumstances, even when that includes other people. While convicting, this was also very encouraging. I’ve never been much into hair or make-up or talking about boys, so in reading Passion and Purity, I got a chance to understand more fully who I am as a woman, though I be a rough and tumble one.

Perhaps the most significant way this book has impacted me is in fleshing out what it means to wait, and the value and beauty that comes from such an unexpected place. Again, I am coming to this book from a point in my life where I single, and willing to stay so. What I came to understand more personally in reading Jim’s letters and Elisabeth’s reflections is that the Lord has called me to wait on Him. Waiting is a struggle. Jim and Elisabeth were in love for five years before the Lord gave them permission to marry, and they thought often of each other in that time. In the same way, there is the wedding supper of the Lamb. I’m not there yet, but I long to be. Sometimes I feel that more should be happening in my life as I seek to follow the Lord, and wonder if I am doing something wrong that so little is happening around me. Perhaps He feels further from stirring my emotions than I would like. My life as a missionary has not “taken off” yet in the way I hope it will, and that can be hard to accept. What I appreciate is that this book is from the perspective of missionaries. So many biographies gloss over five or ten years in the second or third chapter, and dive right into the meat of the action. Of course books have to do that, but if you’re still living in chapter two, it can be easy to feel as though the calling has passed you by. Passion and Purity is a book about waiting. Those five years are given one hundred and eighty-eight pages of attention: a comforting reminder that the Lord has not forgotten a little heart that beats for Him, and that there is greater joy in the fulfillment for having waited.

I’ve written more of what I personally gained from reading this book, though there is certainly much more. The majority of what I gleaned was related to my relationship with the Lord. It is, of course, a book about a very human romance, so there will certainly be much to gain in that avenue, but all such relationships best begin with the Lord. For that reason, I believe this book would be a help and encouragement to all women, particularly those that seek after the Lord.

If you have read Passion and Purity, or have more questions about it, please feel free to comment. I would to hear from you and discuss it.

The Lord be near, my sisters.

The bride reaches out a delicately laced arm.  Her hand extends just beyond the corner of the brick wall.  Her heart cannot help but leap as she feels her husband’s hand close around her own.
No, not her husband.
Not yet…


It has been a tradition that the bride and groom are not to see each other on their wedding day until the guests rise and the bride walks down the aisle. From it has sprung a rather sweet tradition of the couple meeting up on opposite sides of a wall, blindfolded, or around a corner, so eager to spend time together, but knowing they must wait.


The image came to my mind this evening as I was listening to a sermon on our marriage to Christ. I have heard many a woman planning a wedding wish she could just elope and be married without all of the fuss and hassle of waiting through the work of it all to be close to the one whom her soul loves. I have to admit that I often feel the same way about Jesus. I can reach out beyond a wall, and I feel His strong hand grasping mind. My heart sings for joy even as it breaks and aches to be with Him face to face.


Why must I wait? Why can I not come home now?

We ought not allow ourselves to thrive on the intensity of that emotion, but there is still such significance to those moments. What makes wedding photos such a prized possession is how much they remind us of that sweetness of young love. An engagement seems so short after twenty-five or fifty years of marriage, and the wedding was only a day. I do not think our marriage to the Lord will be so very different.

When we, His bride, are consummated to eternity with Him, we will surely say, “Ah, at last!” Every tear is wiped away, all enemies subdued, and no night, for we will be in the light of His presence forevermore. Even so, we must still love to remember His faithfulness through this seemingly endless betrothal. We will look back so lovingly at how He led us like a bride through the wilderness of this broken world.

Though this world still hurts me so keenly, I don’t want to be so overwhelmed with the circumstances that I forget to turn to the One whom my soul loves. How many memories will we have, recorded for us in His heart, to peruse for all eternity? Oh, to hold on to His enduring faithfulness in this life through life everlasting! Like our sister before us, I want to treasure all of these things in my heart, and think on them when the bridegroom comes.

In the meantime, I squeeze His hand to say, “I love you.” And I feel His hand press mine in return.

Not yet…
Soon, my love.

Soon…

I don’t have anything new to say today.  Sometimes I think that it would be nice always to be ready at a moment’s notice to share a fresh new perspective on any nook or cranny of Christian life.  The Lord has other plans for us.  Sometimes we’re more eager for a fresh idea than for the abiding truth we already know.  The fact is, He’s already given us everything that we need to follow Him and to know Him intimately.  We have His sweet Spirit living in our hearts.  We have His Word to hide in our hearts too.   Jesus lives forever as our intercessor: telling His Father everything that we need before we know we need it.

In spite of opposition, the Bible is more available today than any previous era.  As for prayer, no one can take it away from us.  Even Corrie ten Boom spent time with her Savior while in a Nazi concentration camp.  Following Christ and building a relationship with Him is simple.  It’s just that we must surrender our entire lives to do it.

Even during Jesus’ time on earth, people had this same struggle against the straightforwardness of the Gospel.  This is why Jesus went out of His way to make His words straightforward to us.

And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’This is the great and foremost commandment.The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
~Matthew 22:37-40

That’s not to say we should reject a deeper understanding of the Scriptures.  On the contrary, a deeper relationship with our dear Lord will require a deeper understanding of who He is.  It requires time alone with Him, but also time in service to His people.  If your Christian life seems unfruitful, it may mean coming back to these basics.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
~John 13:34, 35

Never underestimate what it means to the Lord to put others before yourself.  It was Jesus Himself who humbled Himself to birth and death among a sinful race, making Himself the lowest servant of all.  When we imitate that love, we delight His heart.  Not only that, we make more room in our hearts for Him to fill us with His holy love.  It’s nothing new.  He never changes.

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
~John 3:30