Book Summary
Amy Carmichael lived a life of radical obedience and sacrifice. As a missionary whose husband, Jim Elliot, literally gave his life so that the Auca people in Ecuador could know the One who died to save them, biographer Elisabeth Elliot was also well-versed in sacrifice and submission, making her an appropriate candidate to chronicle Carmichael’s compelling story. As Elliot asserts in the preface, “The Christian life comes down to two simple things: trust and obedience,” both of which Amy Carmichael exemplified in her 83 years of following the Lord to foreign lands and loving the people he put in front of her (Elliot 16).
Elliot begins her biography by detailing Carmichael’s early years. Amy Carmichael was born in Millisle, Ireland on December 16, 1867. She was one of seven children, and her father died of pneumonia when she was 18 years old. While she grew up in a Christian home and faithfully served the poor in her community for much of her life, a true turning point in Carmichael’s life came at a Keswick Meeting in Scotland about a year after her father’s death when she truly realized for the first time that earthly things don’t really matter and she became “dead to the world,” rejoicing in the faith-awaking epiphany that “the Lord is able to keep us from falling” (37). A precocious, clever, and compassionate child, her adolescence was characterized by peacefulness and contentment as well as a no-nonsense attention to discipline, which would prove indispensable in shaping her into the woman God was calling her to be: “The sternness of Christian discipline put red blood—spiritual health—into the girl who could not have imagined then the buffetings she would be called on to endure” (26).
Another crucial juncture in Carmichael’s life came when Hudson Taylor of the China Inland Mission visited Belfast in 1887 and told of the thousands of souls hourly passing into eternity without the hope of the gospel. Soon after, Amy wrote, “Does it not stir up our hearts to go forth and help them, does it not make us long to leave our luxury, our exceedingly abundant light, and go to them that sit in darkness?” (41). She would go on to identify January 13, 1892 as the day God unmistakably and irrefutably called her to go. Soon after, she was appointed as the first missionary to be sent out by the Keswick Convention.
Originally planning to go to China, her health prevented her from going where and when she had planned. Instead, “‘the thought came’ to Amy that Japan was the place for her to go,” and she prepared to journey halfway across the globe shortly afterward (63). Sickness set in (a condition the doctors described as “brain exhaustion”) and, after nearly two years in Japan, it was settled that she would move to Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka). After a ten-month respite in England, she ultimately moved to India, never again to return to her homeland.
During her nearly 56 years in India, she founded and ran the Dohnavur Fellowship, a home for at-risk and underprivileged children that is still thriving today. A passionate evangelist, she felt called to lay aside an occupation that brought her great joy to serve as “mother” for hundreds of children over several decades. She fought fervently for girls who were taken as children to become temple prostitutes, often risking her life to rescue them from such a fate. In her nearly 400-page biography, Elliot tells extensively of Carmichael’s work at Dohnavur until an accident 1931 left her predominantly confined to her room for the remainder of her life. However, she was still actively involved in the management of Dohnavur and the lives of the people in the community there until her death in 1951. She wrote nearly 40 books in her lifetime, and her voice still rings out across the ages. Her faithfulness impacted millions, leaving an indelible imprint on the world and pointing countless souls to Christ.
Personal Reaction
Amy Carmichael’s story has made a profound impression on me, personally. It was also a timely read, as I am currently wrestling with the possibility of going back overseas. Her courageous example of making the counter-cultural commitment to follow the Lord to far-away places, to be dependent on him for every material provision, and to do it all as an unmarried woman are all particularly inspiring.
First of all, she surrendered her life to overseas mission work, leaving behind the comfort of all things familiar and amidst initial opposition from those dearest to her. Upon her mother’s resistance to her going, she responded with, “My Precious Mother, have you given your child unreservedly to the Lord for whatever he wills? …O may he strengthen you to say YES to him if he asks something which costs” (54). Despite her conviction of her calling, leaving her loved ones behind was by no means easy: “I feel as though I have been stabbing someone I loved…The certainty that it was his voice I heard has never wavered, though all my heart has shrunk from what it means, though I seem torn in two” (54). Eventually, the Lord aligned her mother’s will with his own and she was able to write, “He is yours—you are his—to take you where he pleases and to use you as he pleases. I can trust you to him and I do…All day he has helped me, and my heart unfailingly says, ‘Go ye'” (55). It is a comfort to know that even the great Amy Carmichael faced doubt (her own and that of her family) and opposition before taking the leap of faith to journey to far-away lands for the sake of a Kingdom greater than her own and that the Lord was faithful to lead her loved ones to ultimately support her going, heart-wrenching as it was not to be able to hold on to someone they loved so deeply.
Additionally, Carmichael’s legacy serves as an encouragement and challenge to live a life of spiritual fervor and what she called “Calvary Love.” During her time in India, Carmichael wrote, “Our prayers for the evangelization of the world are but a bitter irony so long as we only give of our superfluity and draw back before the sacrifice of ourselves” (164). How often are the priorities of Christ-followers skewed and sidetracked in favor of earthly comforts, pleasure, and ambition? Carmichael would have none of it. She understood that the call to follow Christ was one of suffering and sacrifice, as she beautifully puts it in one of her poems:
No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And pierced are the feet that follow Me,
But thine are whole; can he have followed far
Who has nor wound nor scar? (264)
Carmichael understood the importance of faithfully loving those in her community, and love was a pervasive characteristic at Dohnavur. She fought to protect her community from divisiveness and disunity, with love being the tie that bound them all together. Additionally, she did not believe in fundraising or living in abundance. Instead, she and the Dohnavur community lived on very little, monetarily speaking, and funds were always miraculously provided for the work at just the right time. Elliot mentions numerous instances in which a need was prayed for and the money (often in the exact amount) would arrive nearly immediately afterward. There can be no doubt that God was and continues to be at work in the ministry there.
Lastly, Carmichael did it all without the help, comfort, or headship of a husband. This aspect of her life is the one that, for me, is most intimidating to consider imitating. If I’m honest, what scares me most about returning overseas is the thought of doing so without the built-in support system of my own family. Did she ever mourn the life she missed out on—a life consisting of marriage and motherhood (although, in reality, she was “mother” to hundreds of children throughout her life)? She apparently never said much on the subject, but she did once write to a friend of a time when she might have chosen “the other life”: “Deep down in me a voice seemed to be saying, ‘No, no, no, I have something different for you to do,’” going on to say, “Remember our God did not say to me, ‘I have something greater for you to do.’ This life is not greater than the other, but it is different. That is all. For some our Father chooses one, for some he chooses the other, all that matters is that we should be obedient…” (287). So, is the fear of going alone a good enough reason to stay when he is calling you to go? Carmichael would probably laugh and give her rebuttal in her usual straightforward and witty way, perhaps offering another of her poems in empathetic encouragement:
If Thy dear Home be fuller, Lord,
For that a little emptier
My house on earth, what rich reward
That guerdon were. (288)
Amy Carmichael is a beautiful example of faithfulness, trust, and obedience for fellow Christians to follow. Her life of Calvary Love should compel the church today to live sacrificially for what truly matters and to “count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:8). Christians can also learn from her commitment to trust him even in ambiguity and amidst danger, doubt, discouragement, and discomfort. Carmichael’s trust in the Lord to meet all her needs also flies in the face of American notions of independence, individuality, and self-sufficiency. Where are the men and women today who would surrender all to serve Christ and love others so wholeheartedly? Could I trustingly allow him to lead me where, as Hillsong’s “Oceans” says, “my trust is without borders…where feet may fail and fear surrounds me”? Am I strong enough to do it alone? Amy Carmichael would answer, “Yes,” because “the called and chosen can by God’s grace be faithful, and to follow the Crucified is all that matters to the true lover and disciple” (287). So, with examples like Amy Carmichael and Elisabeth Elliot before me, I can follow him into “the great unknown, where feet may fail,” knowing that “his grace abounds in deepest waters” and “[his] sovereign hand will be my guide.”
