It is so c-c-c-cold in my dad's office! My fingers are turning blue under the nails. burrrrr.

Sometimes, no offence guys, I kind of miss the days when it was all girls on BlogSpot. Well, no I don't. But there's my declaimer for this post. ;-) It applies to everyone, I guess, but it's sort of something I would usually just talk to girls about. I still have to share it though, lol.

Anyone read Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot? I have no idea why I picked it up, I kind of decided what I beleived about that subject a few months ago and I've already read way too many books on it, but I guess God wasn't done with it so neither am I. Some of the things she has to say are really annoying, like her continual habit for taking fractions of verses out of context.

But she does present a very, very new perspective on purity than anything I have ever heard before. Most people treat purity as something we do for the sake of having really great marriages. "If you wait now, your marriage will be 100% cooler- and you'll protect the future marriages of the guys in your life, too." That, and purity is something we do just because we're not married and the only place where love and perfect physical and emotional intamacy can properly exist is within marriage.

All of that is, of course, very right and accurate. But according to Elisabeth Elliot, purity isn't all about marriage and the lack there of. It's not just something we do for the sake of a perfect marriage or until we're married, all for the sake of our husband and other guys who's purity we have the duty of protecting. For her, purity was something she did for God.

What does that mean? I think it means that she was willing to resign herself compleatly to life-long singleness. It wasn't even a resignation, it was an offering - a sacrifice - from her to God. She layed marriage its self, along with Jim Elliot, on the alter and burned them in the sigh of God. Take a look at this:

"...Jim and I walked out to a cemetary and sat down on a stone slab.
I told him I did not think it would help us much in discerning God's direction
if we started right in on a heavy correspondence...

"Jim thought that over for a few minutes. Then he spoke of the story
he had read in his Bible study that morning- the story of Abraham's offering up
of the most precious thing in his life: his son Issac. 'So I put you
on the alter,' he said.

"Slowly we became aware that the moon, which had risen behind us, was
casting the shadow of a stone cross on the slab between us...

"When the silence became heavy, Jim said, 'and what is to be done with the
ashes?'"

Elisabeth didn't necessarily feel called to singleness, and obviously Jim and she did eventually get married. That's not the point. The very fact that she was willing to say, "If you don't want me to get married, God, then i'm fine with that" is astounding.

The question is, why? Why did she feel it was so important to let go of marriage and Jim even when it all seemed so perfect? They were both college seniors that night in the cemetary- just on the brink of graduation. They were both greek majors, they were both called to mission work, and they agreed on everything. I don't even think there was any doubt in their minds that they were supposed to be together. It wasn't between themselves that things wern't right, it was between each individual and God.

It's really hard to wrap my mind around it... the idea that dreams have to be surrendered not because there is anything necessarily wrong with them but just because they are dreams.

Doesn't God want us to be happy? He wants us to be holy. And he wants us to turn absolutly everything over to him and fly blinded in the passengers seat. Obviously he is going to work it all out in our best interests. He can't do that perfectly until we give it all to him, though. There's just something about surrender.

He wants my dream of becoming a writer, my dream of adopting kids, my dream of going to a 4-year college, my dream of passing Accounting 101, my dream of never saying the wrong thing in public again, my dream of being this kind of girl or that kind of girl... he wants me to give it all to him so compleatly that I can honestly say, "if you're never going to give this back, I'm perfectly okay with that. Have it all, I am an empty vessel, I wanna go where you wanna take me, and be who you wanna make me, sanctify me for your glory Lord!"

Maybe like a match being lit
Or the sinking of a ship
Letting go gives a better grip
I am yours... forever.