Captivating

I am reading this book [captivating] by John and Stasi Eldredge. I started it a few weeks ago and I have really enjoyed it so far. The subtitle is "Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul." pretty interesting. It basically revolves around 3 main desires that women have- to be swept into a romance, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, to be the Beauty of the story. They call these things the secret to the feminine heart.

Whether all or some women really do have these desires because we were created with them, or even one of them, I think makes a lot of valid points. But none struck me very deeply until Chapter 4: Wounded. It talks about the relationship between mothers, fathers & their daughters, and how we are deeply affected for the rest of our lives by the things we experience as a child. It talks about wounded hearts, and how common they are in many women today. It talks about fathers, and the two extremes they could fall in to: becoming driven & violent, strength gone bad - or becoming passive, silent men [like Adam], strength gone away. [Important distinction: I [and the authors] are not saying every man is like this, or turns out to be this way]. The chapter goes on to explore the wounds our mothers give us.

It really picks up when the issue of our wounds is put under a light - how the messages of our wounds shape us- the way our feelings, as a product of these wounds, turn us into who we are. Then comes the topic of wounded femininity, which is where my eyes grew wide.

"As a reulst of the wounds we receive growing up, we come to believe that some part of us, maybe even every part of us, is marred. Shame enters in and makes us look away, so we avoid eye contact with strangers and friends. Shame is that feeling that haunts us, the sense that if someone really knew us, they would shake their heads in disgust and run away. Shame makes us feel, no, believe that we do not measure up-not to the world's standards, the church's standars, or our own. ... "We are lacking. We know we are not all that we long to be, all that God longs for us to be, but instead of coming up for grace-filled air and asking God what he thinks of us, shame keeps us pinned down and gasping, believing that we deserve to suffocate. If we were not deemed worthy of love as children, it is incredibly difficult to believe we are worth loving as adults. Shame says we are unworthy, broken, and beyond repair."

There are a few more pages after this paragraph but I won't go in to any more detail. This chapter might seem kind of random right now but read in the context of the book it makes more sense. I guess you will have to just read it! :]