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Captivating
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Wednesday, 15 August 2007 00:00 |
I finished the book about a week ago. This book has changed my life. Below are some of the quotes I highlighted as I read.
To pursue intimacy with Christ, you'll have to fight for it. pg 125
Come to God in Worship not to get from him but to give to him. pg 126
Women are creatures of great mystery; not problems to be solved but mysteries to be enjoyed. pg 132
You are a woman, are you not? An ezer kenegdo to your core Your lingering disbelief that anything important hangs on your life is only evidence of the long assault on your heart by the one who knows who you could be and fears you. pg 205
Our enemy despises relationship, hates love in any form, fears its redemptive power. This is why God created Eve. 209
You must not let the (the world) shape you into the view of what a woman is. You'll end up a man. What you have to offer is as a woman. Uniquely feminine. 212
What have we to offer, really other than who we are and what God has been pouring into your lives? pg 216
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Captivating
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Monday, 13 August 2007 00:00 |
Chapter Eight begins talking about strength. It continues to say,
"To experience the strength of a man is to hae him speak on our behalf. For when men abuse with words, we are pierced. When they are silent, we are starved. They have offered us no strength, they have abandoned us. BUT, when they speak with us, hear us, offer their words to us and on our behalf, something in our hearts is able to rest.
We long for the protection masculine strength offers,... but also to have them shield us from emotional hardm and spiritual attack...as women we long for someone strong to stand between us and the vicious assalt of our Enemy." Captivating, John & Stasi Eldredge, page 129.
As I read these words, I thought of a lot of different things. First, I realized that I really did want a man, my man, to stand up and speak on my behalf. I'm tired of being the strong, indestructible woman. I'm ready to be the woundable, vunerable woman that God wants me to be. But more important, I want my man to stand in the gap for me between me and the Enemy.
I am not strong enough to thwart evil alone. At least I know this. I need my husband to be there for me. As I continued to read the chapter, I read that Stasi fell under attack one night and she awoke to her husband praying over her, commanding the demons to leave his wife. She said it was the most valient act her husband had ever done on her bahalf and I agree. As our husbands, it is their job to protect us physically, emotionally and spiritually.
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Captivating
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Monday, 13 August 2007 00:00 |
In Chapter 6, it says in part, from Captivating, John & Stasi Eldredge, page 96-97.
"Why did God curse Eve with lonlieness and heartache, an emptiness that nothing would be able to fill?...He did it to save her...In love, he has to block her attempts until wounded and aching, she turns to him and him alone for her rescue.....
Jesus has to thwart our self-redemtive plans so that we turn to him and only him." and then I read it...
"He'll make what once was a great job miserable, if it was in her career that she found shelter."
That's when I realized it. I took shelter in my career. I always have. When I was a single mom, I would work overtime, even weekends to get away from the reality that was my life. I loved my son, but I hated my life. Even once I found my new life, with my new family, I would hide behind my office walls. SO what did God do? He took the "love" out of my job. Once, not long ago, I couldn't wait to get to work everyday. Now, I can't wait for 5pm. God has taken the haven I had and broken the barriers down so that I can only come to him for shelter and nowhere else, especially within myself.
God will work out my career in his own time. If I am meant to stay, he will have me stay. If I am meant to move on, I will know that too.
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Captivating
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Monday, 13 August 2007 00:00 |
This entire book is filled with words that pierce my soul. I am understanding who I am and who I was always meant to be in the pages of this book. I am understanding the role that God intended for me to play and the role that the earth has squeezed me into. In talking about how our parents mold us, it says, "
"Women learn from mothers what it means to be a woman, and from their fathers the value that woman has - the value they have as a woman." Captivating, John & Stasi Eldredge, page 61-61.
It's my mom's job to teach me how to be a woman. It was her job to put femininity into my lifestyle. But it was my father's job to give me my value. Did he do that? Yes, but not in a biblical sense. My father taught me (as did my mother, albeit not her job for purposes of this blog) that I was a smart, strong, brave American woman. Anything I wanted could be mine if I worked hard enough and wanted it bad enough. I succeeded in everything I did. Every employer considers me a wonderful employee. I was taught that I can do anything, just challenge me. Did that give me value, yes, in my mind it did. But it was not the only value I needed. Did I ever think I was beautiful? No, not really. Did I ever think I was captivating? Certainly not.
"But as for our Question - that is primarily answered by our fathers."
If our fathers don't answer our Question, we will go searching for the answer until we think we've found it. So, instead, I did what so many other girls do at my age - I turned to boys. If I couldn't get my dad to answer my Questions (Remember, the Question for girls is, Am I lovely? For boys is Do I have what it takes?) I would get boys to answer it.
You know how it goes.
"How a father relates to his daughter has an enormous effect on her soul - for good or evil."
Fathers who are not godly men have no idea of the damage they are inflicting on their children by not answering their Questions. It forever defines then, forever scars them if the Question goes unanswered. Fathers have an enormous responsibility to define their children as their mother molds and nurtures them. This is one of the greatest gifts parents have, yet so often remains unused.
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Captivating
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Friday, 27 July 2007 00:00 |
My good friend Sandy has loaned me the wonderful book Captivating. Every woman and her husband should read this book. I am finding out that I am supposed to be relational and emotional and I am supposed to want to feel and look beautiful. That's the way GOD made me. WHAT A RELIEF! I'd been fighting those feelings all my life trying to compete in a man's world. I never realized that I was the one that was looking at life wrong the whole time.
I recently wrote a post I AM a Girl! I wrote this post before beginning the book and I think it was God's way of getting me ready to accept what the book has to tell me.
I am excited to be a woman. I am excited that God wants me to have all these feelings and that they are OK. An excerpt from the beginning of the book says:
"She is the crescendo, the final astonishing work of God. Woman. In one last flourish creation comes to a finish not with Adam, but with Eve...."
"Given the way creation unfolds, how it builds to ever higher and higher works of art, can there be any doubt that Eve is the crown of creation? Not an afterthought. Not a nice addition like an ornament on a tree. She is God's final touch, his piece de resestance. She fills a place in the world nothing and no one else can fill. Step to a window ladies, if you can. Better still, find some place with a view. Look out across the earth and say to yourselves 'the whole, vast world is incomplete without me. Creation reached its zenith with me.' " Captivating, John & Stasi Eldredge, page 25.
Wow. How wonderful to know that everything we are is exactly the way God planned it.
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