A review by turning_every_paige
The Path of Loneliness: It May Seem a Wilderness, But It Can Lead You to God by Elisabeth Elliot

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.75

This is *almost* 5 stars for me. I gave it 4.75 stars. I love Elisabeth Elliot and her writings speak to me very deeply, but she gives the weirdest relationship advice. So the parts of the book that deal with dating relationships I can’t recommend, especially after reading about her almost toxic-sounding courtship with her first husband, Jim. 

That aside, this book really was wonderful. Loneliness is part of the human experience, and there is something here for everyone— widow(er), friendless, single, separated from friends by distance— you name it, she probably addresses it in this book.
I love the idea of reframing loneliness as solitude that can be offered back to God. As a missionary on a foreign field I definitely have and continue to experience an often achingly deep loneliness. This book gave me comfort, hope, and a lot of things to think about. Certainly worth a re-read.

Some favorite quotes:

…that love, revealed in the Cross, does not exclude but must always include suffering.

When all we have to offer seems pitifully small and woefully poor, we must offer it up nonetheless, in obedience like the widow’s and in the simplicity of a little child who brings a crushed dandelion to his mother. The child is not bitter and resentful at the poverty of his offering. He is happy to have something. 

At the Cross of Jesus our crosses are changed into gifts. 

Turn your loneliness into solitude, and your solitude into prayer. …Loneliness is a wilderness, through receiving it as a gift, accepting it from the hand of God, and offering it back to Him with thanksgiving, it may become a pathway to holiness, to glory, and to God Himself.