I Give Up

When Kristin and I were teenagers, Mom took us through Let Me Be A Woman by Elisabeth Elliot. For us, that book dampened the allure of feminism, and sparked a delight in the beauty and glory of biblical womanhood. It’s fun to reread and see what I highlighted in pink when I was fifteen.

Last week, I was perusing the book (yet again!) and noticed a prayer in the preface—one I have prayed many times since I was a girl.

It’s a prayer written by missionary Betty Scott Stam, who stayed at Elisabeth Elliot’s house when Elisabeth was just a little girl and Betty was a young woman. She was on her way to China, to marry her fiancé John and join his mission work.

Elisabeth Elliot copied the prayer in her journal:

"Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Your will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to You to be Yours forever. Fill me and seal me with Your Holy Spirit. Use me as You want, send me where You want, work out Your whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever."

Betty Scott Stam meant that prayer. And God answered it. She and her husband were killed only a few years after Elisabeth first met her.

While most of us may not be called to die for our faith, we can all follow Betty’s example—by giving up all our own plans and purposes and joyfully accepting God’s will for our life.

God's will--as Elisabeth Elliot reminds us, "is always different from what [we] expect, always bigger, and, ultimately, infinitely, more glorious than [our] wildest imaginings."