Finding Your Way through Loneliness

Books by Elisabeth Elliot

A Lamp Unto My Feet

Be Still My Soul

Guided by God’s Promises

The Journals of Jim Elliot

Joyful Surrender

Keep a Quiet Heart

Made for the Journey

The Mark of a Man

Passion and Purity

Quest for Love

The Path of Loneliness

A Path through Suffering

On Asking God Why

Secure in the Everlasting Arms

Seeking God’s Guidance

The Shaping of a Christian Family

A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael

© 1988, 2001 by Elisabeth Elliot

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

Grand Rapids, Michigan

RevellBooks.com

Spire edition published 2011

Ebook edition created 2021

Ebook corrections 11.15.2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-3457-2

Scripture marked NASB is taken from the New American Standard Bible®. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture marked NEB is taken from The New English Bible. Copyright © 1961, 1970, 1989 by The Delegates of Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission.

Scripture marked NIV is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Scripture marked NKJV is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked Phillips is taken from the New Testament in Modern English, revised edition—J. B. Phillips, translator. © J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Scripture marked RSV is taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked KJV is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.

To the memory of Katherine Morgan

Blessed are [those] whose strength is in thee,

in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

As they go through the valley of Baca

they make it a place of springs. . . .

They go from strength to strength.

Psalm 84:5–7 RSV

Contents

Cover

Half Title Page

Books by Elisabeth Elliot

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Preface to the Second Edition

Acknowledgments

1. The Sudden Tide

2. Fierceness and Tenderness

3. Loneliness Is a Wilderness

4. The Pain of Rejection

5. All My Desire Is before Thee

6. The Gift of Widowhood

7. Under the Same Auspices

8. Divorce: The Ultimate Humiliation

9. A Love Strong Enough to Hurt

10. Death Is a New Beginning

11. The Price Is Outrageous

12. The Intolerable Compliment

13. Married but Alone

14. Love Means Acceptance

15. A Field with a Treasure in It

16. Make Me a Cake

17. The Glory of Sacrifice

18. A Share in Christ’s Sufferings

19. A Strange Peace

20. Help Me Not to Want So Much

21. Turn Your Solitude into Prayer

22. How Do I Do This Waiting Stuff?

23. A Pathway to Holiness

24. Spiritual Maturity Means Spiritual Parenthood

25. An Exchanged Life

26. A Gate of Hope

Notes

About the Author

Back Ads

Back Cover

Preface to the Second Edition

Readers will note that this book was originally published in 1988. Some of its contents may seem a bit dated. Nevertheless I believe that the topic of loneliness is of perennial interest to all of us at every season of our lives.

It is my earnest prayer that those who tread this path may find the companionship of One who calls Himself the God of peace. May you also discover what the apostle Paul learned while he was in prison: I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength (Phil. 4:12–13 NIV).

Elisabeth Elliot, 2001

Acknowledgments

My sincere thanks are due to those who gave permission to use their stories.

1

The Sudden Tide

It is midnight. Off the right wing of the plane the moon floods with light a vast field of clouds, like cobblestones. Inside the plane it is dark except for a few dim lights and the exit signs. The stewardess moves quietly up the aisle, taking a blanket to someone. The man and woman next to me are apparently asleep. They have been quiet for a long time. I try to fit my legs into the cramped space allotted, but they are too long. The seat is too narrow. The pillow is too small to cradle my head comfortably against the bulkhead. In spite of the deep thrum of the engines, smooth and regular, I can’t sleep.

The woman beside me moves, opens her purse, finds something, leans back again. The man stirs. Neither says anything. There is a tiny click, then a clear flame, as the man reaches to light his companion’s cigarette. I can see the outline of his hand, the knuckles and fingers, the hairs illuminated for a few seconds. The woman draws, puffs a thin column of smoke. Another click. Darkness.

Only the most ordinary of gestures, meaning almost nothing, I suppose, to them. But for me, sitting there by the window looking out again at the cold stars, it speaks of a whole world that is lost to me now. A man and a woman. Together. His hand stretched toward her to help.

I am traveling alone. I am a widow. I remember another hand—a bit bigger than the one, with fingers strong for wrestling and carpentry, dexterous for drawing, tender for caressing. I can still see the square fingernails, and how the hair grew on the back of that hand. The man it belonged to has been gone for more than a year, long enough for me to have difficulty remembering how it felt when he touched me, how it was to put my hand inside his.

I lean my forehead against the glass and a great heaving tide pours over me, drowns me—as it has done a hundred times in the past year. But there are so many so much worse off than I. I remember that. How blessed I have been, to have been a wife even for a short time. Yet, in the most unpremeditated ways, in the oddest places and for the most absurd reasons, as I’m going about my business, generally calm, ever cheerful, that sudden tide sweeps in. It’s called loneliness.

Fifteen years later I am a widow again. Most of my tears were shed before he died, as I watched cancer take him to pieces. The funeral is a celebration of joy—he is at peace, free at last from what he called his vile body. We sing Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah, the hymn which has (except in the newer mutilated versions) that wonderful line,

Death of Death and Hell’s Destruction,

Land me safe on Canaan’s side.

I do not feel at all like crying—except for joy at the thought of Christ’s being the Death of Death. I did not cry at the memorial service for my first husband. It seemed very strange to onlookers, I’m sure—She must be made of concrete!—but I am not the only one who has experienced this. It often happens that those whose loss is greatest receive the greatest share of grace, mercy, and peace. This does not mean that they never cry, of course. But they do not collapse. Those who only watch and pray and try to put themselves in the place of the bereaved find it almost unendurable. Sometimes they weep uncontrollably, for their imaginations never include the grace.

So it happens for me at the funeral. The peace given simply passes understanding, and I am borne up by those intense prayers, as if on strong wings, far above grief.

But suddenly, one day as I am pulling something from the shelf in the supermarket, the tide sweeps in and I find myself sobbing. Happily no one seems to notice. If someone should, would my explanation (My husband died three months ago) make sense to him—here, in the supermarket?

In order to get to the hotel dining room, we have to walk past the disco bar. The noise is too loud to tell whether it’s music or what. The smoke is too thick to see who’s up there making the noise, but in the twirling mirrored lights we can see the writhing shapes on the dance floor. Male or female? I can’t always tell by their dress. They’re not touching. Their hands are moving back and forth in the air in front of them, their bodies gyrating, shaking, grinding. Occasionally one bumps a shoulder to remind another that he/she has a partner. A knot of men stands near the door. Four women sit sideways on bar stools, legs generously displayed, elbows on the bar, hands drooping over the rims of glasses, eyes ceaselessly scanning the room. There is loneliness in their eyes, the acute loneliness one senses, seeking one soul who might be an answerer.

It’s Saturday night. It’s where the singles come in this cow-town west of the Mississippi.

We (a third husband and I) pause, watch the scene for a minute, go on by. We sit in the dining room, thankful for quiet, thankful that we need not join the lonely crowd. We have each other, and it’s for life (a longer one this time, please God).

Why do they come? It can’t possibly be for the food or for what passes for music. They haven’t got dates. They are lonely hunters. What else do you do in Cowtown, or in New York, on a Saturday night—if you’re lonely?

In Toronto, for example, according to an article in an airline magazine, we learn that there are other options. You can join a singles club, call a dating service, go to a dance club or a dining club, or, if you’re into adult education, you can sign up for something called culinary courtship, which lets you eat a progressive dinner every six weeks, with each of four courses consumed at a different table with five or six different faces. If you want to lay out $695, you can buy six introductions to members of the opposite (or, according to your preference, the same) sex and be taught how to act, dress, and talk in can’t-miss ways to lure them. For a cool $1,000 you can get your name on a list that gives you a chance (not a guarantee) to be called by the Rich and Famous, i.e., men who make $100,000 or more (the article did not define Famous).

In Birmingham a hostess pairs her party guests and has a uniformed guard handcuff them together for the entire evening. They had to swim and eat and do everything (except visit the restroom) together, she reported, but it never resulted in any permanent couplings.

Near our home in Massachusetts, an enormous grocery emporium is sponsoring Singles Nights when the unattached can shop for food and each other. They call it the Meet Market.

The Personals columns of newspapers and magazines are a measure of the desperation men and women feel in their loneliness.

What is to be done with loneliness?

2

Fierceness and Tenderness

There is an answer, I believe, to the question asked at the end of the first chapter. But first we need to go back to the beginnings of things.

Paul Tillich, in The Eternal Now, writes,

Being alive means being in a body—a body separated from all other bodies. And being separated means being alone. This is true of every creature, and it is more true of man than of any other creature. He is not only alone; he also knows that he is alone. . . . This aloneness he cannot endure. Neither can he escape it. It is his destiny to be alone and to be aware of it. Not even God can take this destiny away from him.1

When God created the world, He saw each thing that He made as good. But when He made man, He saw that it was not good