Elisabeth Elliot By Ellen Vaughn

Being Elisabeth Elliot and Becoming Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn is a two-volume biography set on the life of Christian author, missionary, and speaker Elisabeth Elliot.

These two biographies by Ellen Vaughn have gotten much attention in the online Christian world over the last two years.

Being Elisabeth Elliot and Becoming Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn are the authorized biographies of Elisabeth Elliot.

Elisabeth Elliot’s daughter, Valerie, provided Ellen Vaugn with Elisabeth’s journals, papers, and notes to aid in writing her books.

Becoming Elisabeth Elliot was published in 2020. It is about Elisabeth Elliot’s childhood, her dating and marriage to Jim Elliot, and life on the mission field before and after Jim’s death.

Being Elisabeth Elliot was published in 2023. It covers Elisabeth’s life after leaving the mission field and returning to the U.S. It details her life as a widow, a single mom, and her two marriages later in life.

These two biographies led me to research and assemble my list of all the books Elisabeth Elliot wrote. Until reading these biographies, I had no idea that she wrote over forty books.

A quick side note: Another Elisabeth Elliot biography was published in 2023, called Elisabeth Elliot’s A Life by Lucy S. R. Austen. I will share a full book review of this biography after reading it.

I read my first Elisabeth Elliot book back in the early 1990s when I was in high school. A woman at church shared one of her books with me shortly after I became a Christian. I instantly fell in love with her writing.

Over the years, I have read all of Elisabeth Elliot’s books. Or at least the ones that are still being published. Several of her books went out of publication years ago.

For many Christians, Elisabeth Elliot was viewed as a super Christian. She was someone that they thought Christians should aspire to when it came to dating, marriage, and being a Godly woman. Her books on suffering and loneliness also became those to read if you struggle.

I never really viewed Elisabeth Elliot like that. I loved her writing, and I learned so much from her. But I never agreed with everything she said or wrote. I also never viewed her as someone we should put on a pedestal above other Christians.

I love her writing and am a big fan of her and her works, but I have never been one to think you have to agree with someone on everything to benefit significantly from them.

Who Is Elisabeth Elliot

If you are unfamiliar with Elisabeth Elliot, she was a missionary who, along with her husband Jim, served in the jungles of Ecuador.

Jim Elliot, along with five other men who were missionaries, were killed by the Auca Indians. Their death made the headlines, and their work and sacrifice became known worldwide.

One of the quotes Jim Elliot is known for is, ” He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” He lived out those words.

The death of Jim and the other missionaries put Elisabeth in the spotlight. She spent several years working in Equdor and wrote many books about Jim and their missionary work.

Elisabeth Elliot Biographies

I want to be careful not to give any spoilers in my reviews of the two Elisabeth Elliot biographies by Ellen Vaughn.

Many of the online reviews go into detail about the books and Elisabeth Elliot. I don’t want to do that. I want you to read the book and come to your own conclusions, so I will try hard to give a full review while not giving any spoilers.

I think the best way to summarize both Being Elisabeth Elliot and Becoming Elisabeth Elliot’s book is the quote from Joni Eareckson Tada about Being Elisabeth Elliot.

“ Our hero of the faith was not a bronze statue, impervious to fissures; nor was she in an airbrushed paragon of virtue, untested by the things that thwart and frustrate us all… But as with any hero worth her weight, she would set people straight who idolize her, pointing them to the only hero who will never let us down, Jesus Christ. “

We know Elisabeth Elliot through her writing and speaking. She shared her life with us, but the reality is that it was only a small part of her life. 

Ellen Vaughn shares a more in-depth look into Elisabeth’s life by using Elisabeth’s journals that Elisabeth Elliot’s daughter shared with Ellen Vaughn.

Ellen Vaughn was able to give us a look into Elisabeth Elliot’s life that only her family and close friends saw. 

Ellen Vaughn took the information from those journals and shared Elisabeth’s life in a way that will change how you think about Elisabeth Elliot, but I think it will change it in a good way.

Elisabeth Elliot was not a perfect Christian heroine to be idolized. She was a sinner, longing to serve Christ in a broken, torn world. 

Someone recently said they couldn’t believe that Elisabeth’s family let Ellen Vaughn publish these books as authorized biographies. I’m afraid I have to disagree with that.

I can see why Valerie wanted both Becoming Elisabeth Elliot and Being Elisabeth Elliot published. These books humanized Elisabeth Elliot.

Even Elisabeth Elliot couldn’t always follow Elisabeth Elliot’s advice. I think Valerie wanted us to see the real Elisabeth Elliot.

We needed a way to look beyond what the Christian world, especially the Christian book marketing world, often wanted us to see about Elisabeth Elliot.

Becoming Elisabeth Elliot

Becoming Elisabeth Elliot is the first of the two books. It gives us a more in-depth look at her childhood and her family. It gives you a look into her college life and meeting Jim Elliot.

It gives us a behind-the-scenes look into Jim and Elisabeth’s dating and early missionary years. It shows Elisabeth’s true struggles in her relationship with God, Jim, and others.

It goes into quite a bit of detail on her decision to go to Ecuador and her years there before and after her marriage to Jim.

I appreciated how Ellen Vaugh explained Elisabeth’s struggles after Jim died. It was not easy for her to stay in Ecuador, and she did not always get along with the other missionaries serving with her.

Because Ellen Vaughn had access to so much more information than is available to others, she was able to bring Elisabeth’s emotions and thoughts into the story.

This was a benefit because you saw Elisabeth’s raw and honest feelings and how she worked through her struggles.

Being Elisabeth Elliot

The Being Elisabeth Elliot book goes into details about her life after she left Equador and came back to the U.S.

It talks about her struggles adjusting to life back in the U.S. and being a single mom.

It deals a lot with her struggles with working through what she believed and the pressure she received from other Christians to live by rules she didn’t always agree with.

I enjoyed reading the excerpts from her journals during this time. Reading some of Elizabeth’s thoughts as she worked through her struggles was fascinating.

Being Elisabeth Elliot also gave you a look at Elisabeth’s struggles with writing and figuring out what she wanted to write versus what others thought she should be writing.

In her early years, she struggled with her speaking engagements and often thought they were shallow and not the intellectual challenge she wished they were.

This is why she connected intellectually so well with her second husband, Addison Leitch, from the start.

Through Elisabeth’s journals, we also see she struggled with dating and marriage.

It was fascinating to realize that what Elisabeth wrote about in Passion and Purity wasn’t exactly how she lived while dating. This comes out in both Being Elisabeth Elliot and Becoming Elisabeth Elliot.

Without giving spoilers about Being Elisabeth Elliot, I will say I had no idea how Elisabeth and her second husband met, nor did I realize how passionate they were about each other.

Some may say that it makes her a hypocrite. I think it makes her human. She struggled with passion and purity just like everyone else.

I also had no idea how much joy Elisabeth had in her second marriage. Addison Leitch was her intellectual equal, who challenged her intellectually and spiritually.

Addison’s cancer, sickness, and death were difficult on Elisabeth in a different way than Jim’s death.

I think a lot of what Elisabeth wrote on suffering came from her life with her second husband as much, if not more than it did from Jim Elliot’s life and death.

I don’t think most of us have seen this side of Elisabeth Elliot.

As I said before, I don’t want to give spoilers, but I will say that Being Elisabeth Elliot was fascinating and probably my favorite of the two books. Although I think they do need to be read together to get the best picture of Elisabeth Elliot.

Her third husband, Lars Gren, was not the man many imagined him to be, but at the same time, without Lars Gren, I am not sure we would have the forty-plus books Elisabeth Elliot wrote.

Elisabeth’s life and writing would have taken a different path had she not married Lars Gren. Most people had no idea what Eliasbeth’s third marriage was like.

Elisabeth’s writing changed after her marriage to Lars Gren. It appears, and I think Ellen Vaugn implies, that in her later years, Elizabeth wrote more for what her audience wanted than what she actually wanted to be writing.

Like most authors and writers, writing and speaking was a job and a source of income for Elisabeth Elliot, which is evident in her later books.

Elisabeth Elliot was married three times to three very different men. She grew up in a structured, legalistic world, and Elisabeth Elliot changed her views over the years, which many did not like.

She was not afraid to challenge people in how they thought about God, the world, and how we are to live for Christ.

She was an intellectual and spiritually minded person. She was constantly learning and studying in order to live her life better for Christ.

I listened to an interview with Ellen Vaughn talking about this book, and she said she tried to share the truth in love with these two books. I think she did just that.

Towards the end of the book, Ellen Vaugh says, “ We can’t paint Elisabeth’s story with lovely pastels and blurred edges, pretty and placid. It is through the sharp edges and cracks in the veneer that God’s grace, no matter what, shines through.”

Elisabeth Elliot was not perfect. She was human, just like us. She had flaws. She had struggles. She was tempted, and she sinned.

She changed her views on some things that might surprise you.  She made some bad decisions that cost her dearly. 

But don’t we all do those things, too? Elisabeth Elliot is just like me. She is just like you. She was a sinner saved by God’s grace. 

My hope is that those who read these books will not judge Elisabeth Elliot but that they will instead realize how much there is to be learned from the life of a sinner striving to live a life for Christ in a fallen, sin-filled world.

If you have read them I would love to hear your thoughts.