Becoming Elisabeth Elliot

Becoming Elisabeth Elliot is the title and subject of Ellen Vaughn’s new authorized biography.

This is my official reaction:

I am undone.

Ellen Vaughn’s Becoming Elizabeth Elliot is the best book I’ve read in a long time.

I’m an admitted fan; I’ve written half a dozen blog posts about Elliot’s influence on my life, but this biography is so beautifully and intelligently written, I can only sigh with thanks.

Vaughn’s wise insight elevates Elliot’s oh-so-interesting life into applicable counsel for any believer struggling with “whys?” and “where is God?”

So rich. So valuable.”

Why did I love Becoming Elisabeth Elliot? Let me count the ways.

Use of journals

Vaughn had access to all of “Betty” Elliot’s journals and used them beautifully through the biography.

They enabled us to read the passion behind her disciplined face and demonstrated how she grew in her Christian faith.

The journals gave an “at the time,” sense of what Betty endured from her young years until this volume one ends in 1963.

She poured her doubts, uncertainties, fears, longings, and hopes into the journals making her more “relatable.”

A paragon of faith?

Not always.

Obedience and sacrifice

Under Vaughn’s deft skill, Becoming Elisabeth Elliot provides an opportunity to review all the deaths in Betty’s life.

Yes, she lost her husband Jim in a brutal martyrdom. Yes, she lost her second left in a slow miserable death. (Her widower outlives her).

But she experienced other difficult losses along the way.

Most of her linguistics work was for naught. The nine months-worth of material she diligently recorded and worked on the Southwestern Ecuadoran “Indians” (Called the Colorados), disappeared when someone stole her suitcase.

Her linguistics work with the Waodoni did not amount to much owing to issues with her missionary partner. (See Kathryn T. Long’s God in the Rainforest. My post about the book is here.)

Time and again, Betty writes about discipline and obedience–core teachings.

She also revealed doubts and emotions about a variety of subjects which she wisely explored in her journal.

Love and Longing

Becoming Elisabeth Elliot is the story of her younger years, long before she became a paragon of staunch virtue.

It reminds older readers of their youth and shows younger readers their desires are not unique.

Some of this we knew from her daughter Valerie Elliot Shepherd’s recent Devotedly. Shepherd described her parents’ courtship through letters and journals.

Vaughn took some of the same material and crafted it into context from a different point of view.

This is not a work of hagiography. Betty’s biographer did not explain away her decisions. Vaughn takes a step back and reviews Betty’s life sympathetically, but clear-eyed.

The biographer and the biography.

When you “live” with another person’s life for an extended period of time, you start to feel like you know her.

She’s never far from your mind–something like an errant child. At odd moments, you ask yourself how she might have reacted in a given situation.

The subject’s choices and decisions spring to mind at odd moments–often having nothing to do with real life.

But you get to know the subject well. You try to understand even the most puzzling choices.

Vaughn occasionally steps out of Betty’s story along the way to refocus and remind the reader of the political and religious setting at the time.

Occasionally, Vaughn makes an observation–which usually made me laugh.

This is an affectionate story of a life. The biographer has years of her own spiritual experience to sometimes better explain than Betty could what was happening around her.

Vaughn concludes the book with a chapter of her own experiences in writing the biography and how it influenced her life.

As a “sister” biographer, I appreciated that chapter!

What did I learn about Becoming Elisabeth?

I liked her better after reading this biography.

I respected her before, but like many, found her intimidating.

It’s been a running joke in my life for nearly thirty years. “Me? Feeling self-pity? I wouldn’t dream of it, Elisabeth!”

(The one time I met Elisabeth –not Betty–Elliot, I made a fool of my introduction. She just looked at me with a tightening of her lips and a curt nod.)

But in this biography, I recognized questions I had in my twenties–about worth and value and the agonizing, “what am I doing with my life?”

Vaughn explained this was a portrait of Elisabeth Elliot in her youth, not the mature accomplished woman I first learned about when I was a young woman.

Far more erudite and spiritually mature than I at the same age, but just as full of questions for our Savior.

I loved this book.

Final Takeaway

Becoming Elisabeth Elliot contains so many valuable quotes; my Ebook version is marked up.

This one stays with me because I’ve been reading through Exodus this summer as well.

As Jim pointed out to me years ago,” Betty journaled, “God led Israel to Marah. He could have led them directly to Elim, but He has chosen to lead His people into difficulties in order that they may know Him, and He may know them.

Further, she noted the detail in the story that the tree that made the water drinkable in Marah was right there, but God had to show it to Moses. Often the solution to our problem is right at hand, but we must be shown it. And the very cause of complaint can be made sweet.

The queston was not “why?” but “what?” God, what would You have me do? For Betty, whether God told her to go confront Pharoah or to go live among the Waodani, she determined to do it, regardless of results.

Which is good, since Betty’s obedience in such matters did not lead to stunning results that she could see.”

From the end of Chapter 38

I learned a lot about Elisabeth Elliot, yes, but I also learned a great deal about spiritual maturity and honesty in our frailties before God.

But then, Elisabeth Elliot taught me that a long time ago, as well!

Thank you, Ellen Vaughn, for a splendid book.

The Women Worth Knowing podcast also looked at this book and interviewed Elisabeth’s friend Kathy Gilbert. Here’s the first episode.

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