Not Til I Have Done: A Personal Testimony

In this brief but full autobiography, Elizabeth Achtemeier brings us full circle from her Oklahoma childhood, her theological education in New York and Germany, her years as wife and mother, and her unplanned vocation in teaching homiletics at a time when women were just beginning to enter the pulpit. Her prose is sharp, witty, but gentle too. Throughout this book, her theme is God's hand on her life, in joys and frustrations. I especially enjoyed reading how she and her husband met and how their scholarship has complimented, rather than competed against, one another. I also think it is so important for retiring scholars to write such personal accounts, sharing with those who have admired their intellectual prose the humanity from which it stems. It is clear God is "not done" with her yet, noe with any who seek His voice.