Who Am I {as A Christian Woman}

When Tim and I got married a very dear friend/mentor gave me a copy of Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot.  I read it then, but picked it up again recently needing something to encourage me.  It's an easy read in the sense that each chapter is only 2-4 pages long.  And with three kids running around I can actually get through one or two chapters in one sitting (5 minutes max).  :)  I also love that these are her own personal letters to her daughter.  Advice on love, marriage, life, and being the woman that God made you to be.  I just wanted to share some of the things that have stuck out to me this time around.

"In order to learn what it means to be a woman.  We must start with the One who made her."

"I remember how it was.  Your father (not my fiance yet) made the three-week voyage by sea from San Pedro, California, to Ecuador, stopping at fascinating ports along the way from which he sent me fascinating letters.  He began his study of Spanish in Quito without me.  He made his first trip to the jungle where he was later to work.  He had his first opportunity to do medical work, his first crack at an unwritten language---all of these things I myself longed to do, and longed desperately to do with him.  'Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living,' he wrote to me, and those words have helped me very often since.  We accept and thank God for what is given, not allowing the not-given to spoil it."

"The way you keep your house, the way you organize your time, the care you take in your personal appearance, the things you spend your money on all speak loudly about what you believe. 'The beauty of Thy peace' shines forthin an ordered life.  A disordered life speaks loudly of disorder in the soul."

"...This is the crux of the question of liberty and liberation.  Does it mean casting off all restrictions? (Could a ship sail without them?)  Does it mean doing what we feel like doing and not doing what we don't?  It means discipline.  It means doing the thing we were meant for.  What is it to which we are called, women under God?"

"We are called to be women.  The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian does make me a different kind of woman.  For I have accepted God's idea of me, and my whole life is an offering back to Him of all that I am and all that He wants me to be."