A Little E.E.

Today has been painfully long so tonight, I leave you with some of my favorite prose by my dear, sweet, encouraging Elisabeth Elliot. My brain is just too fried to come up with anything intelligent on my own. Here are just a few of my favorite quotes from her book Let Me Be a Woman.

"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 forth in an ordered life. A disordered life speaks loudly of disorder in the soul." pg.37

Of course, it's important to note that she's NOT talking about perfection but rather an attitude toward orderliness. I have four kids. I'm not going to be as organized as some moms with less kids or with simply more determination than me. Nevertheless, it's more about what I'm striving after. This quote always gets me thinking. I should be striving after this. I should care about making things lovely.

"...Motherhood requires self-giving, sacrifice, suffering. It is a going down into death in order to give life, a great human analogy of a great spiritual principle (Paul wrote, 'Death worketh in us but life in you') Womanhood is a call." pg 53

"It [marriage] is a vow you are making before God and before witnesses, a vow you will by God's grace keep, which does not depend on your moods or feelings or "how things turn out." As others have said, love does not preserve the marriage, the marriage preserves love." pg 63

"You can create a climate for him according to your attitude, and this is part of your job as a wife. The home you make and the atmosphere of that home is the world he comes back to from the world of his work. Let it be a place of beauty and peace." pg 101

I love what she writes about loyalty in marriage. It ALWAYS resonates so strongly with me.
For the last quote, here's a snippet.
"We have seen women who are manifestly not loyal to their husbands. I do not mean that they are unfaithful, but that they are not proud to be their wives...Nothing thrilled me more than to be identified with a particular man. I didn't mind if people thought of me as his wife. I loved it. I never felt that my own personality was 'submerged.' I was proud of his, and knew that a new personality, the personality of the marriage itself, is created when two people wed...This loyalty will bring you suffering...If you are proud of your man and loyal to him you will suffer when he is criticized...You will know sometimes that the criticism is a just one and because you are loyal you will suffer the more....When he fails you cannot be proud of his failure, but you can be loyal. You can maintain that faith in the idea that God had when He made him, and you can comfort and support him, giving him the strength of your love and the incentive which your pride in him will always instill." pg 163.