“…and He did it on purpose.” –Elisabeth Elliot on femininity

Today, I picked up once more my copy of Let Me Be a Woman, by the ever-excellent Elisabeth Elliot. Wow. That woman had words! Here are some gems that are just as pertinent today as when they were written:

“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.” – page 52

“God has set no traps for us. Quite the contrary. He has summoned us to the only true and full freedom. The woman who defines her liberation as doing what she wants…is, in the first place, evading responsibility. Evasion of responsibility is the mark of immaturity. The Women’s Liberation Movement is characterized, it appears, by this very immaturity. While telling themselves that they’ve come a long way, that they are actually coming of age, they have retreated to a partial humanity, one which refused to acknowledge the vast significance of the sexual differentiation. (I do not say that they always ignore sexual differentiation itself, but that they significance of it escapes them entirely.) And….by refusing to fulfill the whole vocation of womanhood she settles for a caricature, a pseudo-personhood.”

–page 54

“But we do not choose gifts, remember? We are given them by a divine Giver who knows the end from the beginning, and wants above all else to give us the gift of Himself.”

-page 34

"Womanhood is a call...The strength to answer this call is given us as we look up toward the Love that created us, remembering that it was that Love that first…made us at the very beginning real men and real women. As we conform to that Love’s demands we shall become more humble, more dependent—on Him and on one another—and even (dare I say it?) more splendid."

-page 62