Suffering to Salvation

Gladys Aylward's relationship to God is by far the most important thing in her life. It is this relationship, based upon faith, that allows Gladys to continually leave friends, family, and acquaintances, in the woman's everlasting search for those ignorant of the Christian faith. Gladys states that God has a "claim" on her, and she is meant to serve him. Gladys' life is thus a purpose-driven life, though sometimes retrospection is needed to find that purpose.

Related to this, Gladys imbues her narrative with a sense of pathos, the sense that one must suffer and endure misery and pain in order to reveal character, grow, and emerge changed for the better at the end. Gladys' various episodes clearly demonstrate pathos. This "noble suffering" is common in hagiographies (biographies about the saints; this volume is not a hagiography according to this definition, but nonetheless is the account...