Biographies: The Real-Life Epics That Shaped My Dreams
(OR, HOW REAL-LIFE HEROES INVITE US TO REAL-TIME HEROISM)
WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, my parents were always pushing biographies into my hands. They seemed intent on cramming my brain with real-to-life tales of heroes—historical and biblical, spiritual and artistic. I read them as quickly as I could and then turned to what was usually my reward: a novel of some fantastical or imaginative bent. Tending as I did (and still do) toward the world of imagination, with the open horizons of the possible, I was never as interested in the more defined horizons of the actual—at least until I reached the cusp of adulthood. It was only then that I began to understand what those countless biographies had built within my heart: an expectation that I was meant to do something worthwhile with the life I had waiting before me and evidence, actual evidence, that all sorts of worthy options awaited me.
There is particular power in well-crafted biographies. Such works do not obscure the flaws or frailties of their human subjects, but they manage to reflect the vision burning at the heart of the artist or preacher, the driving love or force that led them to exceptional acts of compassion, artistry, sacrifice, or courage. To glimpse such vision is to desire that fire in yourself.
My parents knew exactly what they were doing. Following their example, I set the following list before you. It’s mixed: missionary tales and nature-centered memoirs, stories about the lives of musicians and the ruminations of old writers, but they are the true-life epics that glimmered for me with that contagious, inspiring fire.
God’s Smuggler by
My siblings and I sat riveted as we listened to my mom read aloud this real story of a mischievous Dutch boy who grew up to become a famed and fascinating smuggler of Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. A memoir that thrums with the adventure of radical trust in God and the divine intrigue of mission work under communism.
The Life You Save May Be Your Own by
I listened to this one on a road trip in an autumn of vocational confusion, and at the end of the book (and the journey), I knew I wanted to be a writer because I hungered for what I saw in the lives examined here. A fascinating exploration of four Catholic authors—Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Walker Percy, and Flannery O’Connor—Elie’s book traces the way in which each person was formed to both a strong faith and an articulate faith and then expressed that belief in words. A fascinating look at the way each wrestled with the issues of their day and wrote uniquely to the hunger and doubt of the turbulent 1960s.
A Chance to Die by
This was one of those landmark biographies I read as a teen that startled me into a consideration of my own looming adulthood. Elliot’s insightful biography follows the life of Amy Carmichael, the intrepid and determined Irish missionary and writer who spent a lifetime serving the orphaned and poor in India. I still clearly recall Elliot noting that the surname of Amy’s mother was Dalziel, literally, “I Dare,” a name and characteristic that defined Amy Carmichael’s fierce and creative faith. Elliot’s account of Carmichael’s sacrificial life gave me a vivid model of womanhood and godliness as my own daring dreams began to form.
Also by Elliot:
- Through Gates of Splendor (Elliot’s moving memoir about five missionaries martyred in Ecuador, including her husband, Jim Elliot)
The Diary of a Young Girl by
This well-beloved, poignant record of a young Jewish girl in hiding during the Nazi occupation makes the heart ache with the sheer normalcy of a teenage girl’s thoughts and hopes, her curiosity about the world, and her brush with romance, all of it undiminished by the tragedy of the outer world or the limits of her own daily experience. This book made me deeply grateful for the ordinary I so easily took for granted as a teenager.
Tolkien and the Great War by
I loved this book for the way it got to the roots of Tolkien as a writer—a career forged by his remarkable friendships, his love of beauty, and the devastation he witnessed in the trenches of World War I. This is the story of Tolkien’s youth: the school friends who formed his ideals and urged him to write, the love of language that began to blossom into a myth of his own creation, the terror of the trenches, his early marriage, and the faith that burned in him despite a culture steeped in despair. A book I loved partly because I loved The Lord of the Rings but also because it examines the way in which idealism, when tempered by suffering, can be forged into a redemptive, hopeful vision.
No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green
This is the story of Christian musician Keith Green, whose music touched thousands with the love of Christ and whose tragic death grieved the Christian world. Something about this loving biography, written by his widow, has stirred and encouraged every person I know who has read it to a quickened sense of God’s love and of the gospel’s power to transform. My siblings and I all read it with the same sense of wonder. There is an immediacy to this work; you feel immersed in the same joy that drove Green and his wife in the early days of their faith.
Christy
Part novel, part memoir, this engrossing story is based on the experience of the author’s mother and follows the idealistic Christy Huddleston, a young teacher inspired to volunteer for an Appalachian mission program, as she moves into the mountains to become a teacher to the needy youngsters of the fictional Cutter Gap. Her resolve is challenged within the first hours of her arrival as she witnesses the filth and poverty, the violence and revenge of the mountain world even as she comes to respect the beauty and resilience of its people. A story of spiritual endurance, of conversion, even of romance (will Christy favor the sarcastic doctor or the earnest preacher?), Christy put courage in my bones when I was a teenager in a season of physical illness.
A Man Called Peter
Also unforgettable is Marshall’s memoir about her husband, Peter, who started life as a poor Scottish immigrant and became a beloved minister and the well-respected chaplain of the United States Senate. The book has excerpts of Peter’s sermons, and I still recall the sweeping life and vision in his words. Marshall’s story is tender, an account of Peter’s deep faith and her own loving marriage.
The Seven Storey Mountain
A memoir that speaks with urgent truth to Merton’s wide readership, this is the autobiographical story of his conversion, his search for truth and hunger for meaning, and his ultimate choice to leave behind a literary career for the confines of Gethsemani, a monastery in the hills of Kentucky. Rich with Merton’s luminous prose, the book (according to Time magazine) “redefined the image of monasticism and made the concept of saintliness accessible to moderns.”[1] Through his books, Merton is a mentor and friend, with his humorous, insightful grasp of human nature; his yearning for transcendence; and his choice to submit himself to the religious life in all its beauty and demands.
A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lilias Trotter
Told by the famed Victorian art critic John Ruskin that she could be “the greatest living painter and do things that would be Immortal,” Lilias Trotter easily could have chosen a life of privilege, uninterrupted creativity, and social approval. Instead, she chose the life of a missionary to Algeria, taking both her talent and her prospects into the desert, where they were spent bringing the gospel to the Muslim world. But she never stopped drawing, and this excellent biography of her life includes samples of the paintings and sketches she made of the desert world she served with every ounce of her remarkable creativity.
L’Abri
In the years just after World War II, Francis and Edith Schaeffer moved into a chalet amid the rugged peaks of the Swiss Alps. Their goal was to open their home to seekers and searchers, those whose faith had foundered in the confusion of the postwar world. Any question could be asked, no spiritual topic was out of bounds for discussion with Francis, and no one was excluded from the warmth and beauty of Edith’s wide table and home. This is a memoir of adventurous faith, of God’s provision, and of the power of hospitality and fearless spiritual search in opening the way to faith. Edith’s account of the power of home and table to communicate spiritual reality deeply influenced the rhythms of my own childhood home and continues to shape my philosophy in the home and ministry I share with my husband.
Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven
This is the story of Rich Mullins, beloved Christian songwriter and musician, whose lyrical skill and spiritual insight drove his creation of songs that echo with timeless awe of God’s grace in the face of human frailty. (These songs also accompanied all the road trips of my childhood, I might add.) From his boyhood in Indiana to his tragic early death in a car accident, this book traces Rich’s unconventional life—his discomfort with affluence, his desire to serve the poor, his love for Saint Francis, and his embrace of a gospel for ragamuffins. Reading this biography helped me understand the power and love I sensed behind the music that shaped my childhood, while leading me deeper into an encounter with that love myself.
The Hiding Place
It was only upon marrying my Dutch husband that I discovered I had pronounced Corrie’s name incorrectly all my life. (Corrie is pronounced by trilling the r’s at the back of the throat—not easy for a native English speaker. And Ten Boom sounds more like “tin bome”—o as in “boat” rather than “room.”) That didn’t diminish my love for this remarkable story of a Dutch family whose deep, obedient faith drove them to risk their lives to protect their Jewish neighbors during the Nazi occupation. Both riveting narrative and heartrending memoir, this story is rich in its exploration of conviction, forgiveness, and the power of God’s love.
A Severe Mercy
I’ll admit, I both love and hate this book. I love it for its idealism; for the total affection of the young couple at its heart; for the painful, inexorable journey they traveled toward faith during their sojourn in Oxford. I just can’t stand the gushiness at times. (Do everything together and share everything? We’d go crazy, said my husband—and I had to agree.) But that objection is small beans and does not temper my appreciation for this story of conversion driven by loss; its account of C. S. Lewis’s kindness and insight; and the deep, severe mercy that came to its author in his acceptance of faith.