I've been thinking about this season of singleness and the throes of loneliness
again, and I was reminded of two thoughtful, encouraging, and challenging
quotes—from two of Elisabeth Elliot’s works, where she speaks of interactions with
friends. Friends who are aware of the
struggles of the single, and who know this path of loneliness. Friends like you and me.
Here are those quotes, and a closing prayer for us:
A dear friend in Hungary has chosen the simple way over the complex. She writes, “My longing for a husband is there, but I offered it up to the Lord. Often I imagine a single future for myself. In fact, the presence of a man in my life would an unexpected gift. Thank you for praying for me. I wouldn’t like to put my own imagined happiness before God’s greater glory."Another who is earnestly trying to learn that abandonment wrote, “I long for marriage and motherhood, but I also want to please God. Are these desires diametrically opposed?” I could not tell her that God would fulfill both, but I assured her there was nothing sinful in the desire for marriage and motherhood. It was perfectly human and normal, but like all our dreams of human happiness must be surrendered as the Hungarian girl’s were, to the one supreme aim: the glory of God, which always leads in the end to more than happiness—to fullness of joy, pleasures forevermore. If she could best glorify God by being married, she could be sure He would, in His time, give her a husband.
A Path Through Suffering: Discovering the Relationship Between God’s
Mercy and Our Pain by Elisabeth Elliot
(pgs. 159-160)
A bright young woman and I were eating lamb sandwiches. I asked her if she is lonely.“Lonely? Why should I be?”“You’re single. Most of the single people I know talk about being lonely.”With a look of surprise and then a laugh she said, “Oh no. You see, I have a sense of expectancy every day. What does the Lord want to do with me today? I have no agenda of my own.”No agenda of my own. There is the key to Linda’s freedom. I continued to question her. Yes, she said, she knows what loneliness feels like—it’s isolation, when you think you can’t reach anybody, nobody reaches you, you’re cut off. You have your own agenda.“What do you mean by agenda?” I asked.“Thinking there’s only one solution and God has to give you that or nothing. You have a closed mind. A closed mind is a closed heart and a closed door.”Now I recognized the reason for the smile which seems always to light Linda’s face. I think it must come from her wholehearted acceptance of God’s “agenda.”“I love solitude,’ she said, “As I drove up here this morning [it was a dazzling winter morning of sunshine and blue sky and blue shadows on the snow] I didn’t have the radio on. I wasn’t listening to tapes. I was just quiet. I love times like that."The heart which has no agenda but God’s is the heart at leisure from itself. Its emptiness is filled with the Love of God. Its solitude can be turned into prayer.
The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God
by Elisabeth Elliot (pgs. 158-159)
A Prayer for Us:
Father God, help me
not to put my own imagined happiness before Your greater glory. I know the desires for marriage and parenthood
are good. Yet, I offer up my longings to
You (1 Peter 5:6-7). Grant me faith in
Your timing—and trust in Your hand—that, if I can best glorify You by being
married, You will certainly give a spouse.
Your gifts, even the unexpected ones, are good and perfect (James 1:17). Lord, grant me a sense of expectancy every
day. What would you have me to do
today? Empty me of my agenda. Open up my closed mind and my closed
heart. May I not believe the lie that
there’s only one solution—my solution—and that You must give me “that or
nothing.” May my heart and my soul long
for You (Psalm 84:2). Give me
wholehearted acceptance of Your agenda (Psalm 86:11)—and joy in the solitude. For in Your presence I
find fullness, and at your right hand I find pleasure forevermore (Psalm
16:11).In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – Amen.
