Why I Wanted Brown Eyes Like Amy Carmichael

Why I Wanted Brown Eyes Like Amy Carmichael 

When I was little I wanted brown eyes like Amy Carmichael. I can still see the pictures from my childhood of Amy’s life while my mom stood up in our Sunday school class retelling her story. As a little girl Amy had brown eyes but wished for beautiful blue eyes. After she grew up and moved to India as a missionary she realized God had given her brown eyes for a reason.

You see, Amy needed the brown eyes to sneak into the Indian pagan temples to rescue the girls who were being abused. Many believe she saved hundreds of girls from prostitution and abuse in the late 1800’s up until the early 1900’s. A white woman would have never been allowed to enter the temples. But Amy would dress like an Indian woman, cover her face except for her eyes, and walk right in. 

Sitting on the rug in a church in West Virginia, listening to the brave stories of Amy and other missionaries who dared to leave it all behind, inspired my little girl’s heart. I wanted brown eyes like Amy so I could rescue orphans in India too! Today my husband and I are preparing to move to the country of Honduras to become full-time missionaries. We’ve also adopted two little children from China. No brown eyes needed for either of these things!

As a college student I remember finding the biography of Amy Carmichael moving and inspiring. Only when I became a young mom did I really dive into the depths of her life. Elisabeth Elliot wrote her biography, A Chance to Die,  and through the words penned on those pages from one missionary about another missionary. The heart for missions grew and grew so when our family announced a year ago that we would be moving, those who knew us best were not surprised. 

Reading about Amy’s life and her parents you would not be surprised that Amy moved across the world in a time when our world was vastly separated; the connection we enjoy today was not available to Amy and her family. Saying goodbye back then was saying goodbye for months at a time with only letters shared between the miles. Amy spent fifty-three years in India without a furlough (which means she never returned to Scotland, her native land in all those years). The discipline with which she lived her life is both inspiring and encouraging. 

Even as a young girl I knew it was not her great character or massive faith which led her to the mission field. It was her love for the Father, the decision to put Him first in her life, and the ability to “count it all loss” like Paul in the hopes of furthering the Gospel. 

Amy realized the only two things that would last forever were God’s Word and people. The undying love for both spurred her further; which spurred Elisabeth Elliot (who moved to the jungles of Peru) to write about her; and now spurs me, a humble servant of the same High God to serve Him overseas. 

The joy in the giving up of our lives; the comfort and familiar setting, cannot be measured by the world. So our family had questions peppered to us by the world of “why” would we move, leave, give up….. Only Amy faced the same questions and responded with this: 

“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” How often I think of that ought. No sugary sentiment there. Just the stern, glorious trumpet call, OUGHT. But can words tell the joy buried deep within? Mine cannot. It laughs at words.

– Amy Carmichael, letter written in 1922

If God is calling you, friend, to step out of your comfort zone; leave something behind which hurts to let go of, will you for the sake of God? For His love is not about just salvation but for the daily walk with Him. The love of God will follow us, no matter what. Amy saw this first play out in her life growing up. Though trials besought the family many times; the faith of Mr. & Mrs. Carmichael only proved to strengthen young Amy’s faith. So when God called her and she felt the burden to move to the mission field it was not for a lack of trials. Her father died when was sixteen, but her mother continued to live a strong Christian life in front of the children. 

When moving to the mission field after college, Amy lived in Japan for a bit; but soon moved to India and served there for the remainder of her life. Working alongside other missionaries Amy founded a place called “Dohnavur,” which started with one girl running away from a life of abuse and prostitution from a Hindu temple. 

Some reports say Amy rescued over one thousand children from such a life during her lifetime. Amy would dress in traditional Indian clothing, dye her skin brown with tea and even walk a long way to save even one child from the temple. Amy has always been a picture of what a “real missionary” was like. When I read her biography by Elliot, I realized she wasn’t anything special. She was an ordinary girl who said “yes” to God. Even when someone asked her “What is a missionary life like?” Her response is: “Missionary life is just a chance to die.” Aren’t we all living a “missionary life”? A missionary life, I’ve come to see through Amy’s life, is not one that is exceptional – only that it is ordinary people living out this message.

“But it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of every day as a saint, going through drudgery, and living an ordinary, unnoticed, and ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God— but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people— and this is not learned in five minutes.”

Oswald Chambers

Amy learned it over her life, this glorious ordinary life where God gives supernatural grace to live our ordinary, 24-hour days. The glorious ordinary is when we see God in our ordinary days. After battling trials in my own life, God has shown me the beauty of just trusting in God’s Word for strength and constantly seeking a relationship with Him. Amy did not set out to become one of the greatest missionaries of our century. In fact, I think I can almost see the pink in her cheeks if we were to idolize her in this way. Instead, she is a hero of the faith similar to those mentioned in Hebrews 11. 

What makes Amy a hero of faith was not anything in herself but Who she relied upon and Who she sought to please with her life. In the Epilogue, Mrs. Elliot writes this about Amy: “So she finished her house – Amy Carmicahel, one of the tens of thousands of overs of the Lord who staked everything in His faithfulness. 

In this final sentence we can see the secret to Amy’s life was not her bravery, perseverance, her faith, or even her dedication. It was her love and belief in the Faithfulness of the Father and her obedience to Him. For in Amy I see what I need to do in order to live a life of eternal value. My life will end and the words will fade; but a life who trusts in God and obeys the Father will be like Amy’s: a lighthouse in the dark stormy night of this world. 

Will we believe in God’s faithfulness? Will we believe enough to step out in obedience, whatever that may mean? Missions, is in fact, just a chance to die.