Captivating by John & Stasi Eldredge
This is taken from a book about the heart of a woman...this is not some secret code that men should not read this. If anything men should read this more than women.
Reading this book has made me cry at several points. I think it is essential for both men and women to read. It even briefly discusses the fact that men have this sense that they need to back off and choose not to get to know a woman from her depths. This results in making women feel alone. To the very core of them women feel alone. Now I'm not saying that they feel this all the time, and I'm sure some women aren't aware of it...and maybe there are a lucky few who don't feel this, but I know that in my very depths that I feel alone. And it had been unshakeable. It has been unaltered by my circumstances, but now I have hope for a change.
I choose these two quotes...well, because they impacted me. I know that I have a fear of abandonment...and the book goes on to say that women fear everyone, man, woman, friend, husband, family...will abandon them. Even though I have been getting more friends and getting closer to my friends I still feel abandoned. I hate it because I know my circumstances are actually otherwise, but my feelings refuse to change. But I have found relief in the fact that the book constantly mentions that women feel as if what happens to them is deserved and that this is not true, but relates to my first quote. I really can't explain the relief anymore than that.
And most of you are living with the guilt that somehow it's your fault you aren't more deeply pursued now. That you do not have an essential role in a great adventure. That you have no beauty to unveil. The message of our wounds nearly always is, "This is because of you. This is what you deserve." It changes things to realize that, no, it is because you are glorious that these things happened. It is because you are a major threat to the kingdom of darkness. Because you uniquely carry the glory of God to the world. p 85
He plays upon a woman's worst fear: Abandonment. He arranges for her to be abandoned, and he puts his spin on every event he can to make it seem like abandonment. p 89
Reading this book has made me cry at several points. I think it is essential for both men and women to read. It even briefly discusses the fact that men have this sense that they need to back off and choose not to get to know a woman from her depths. This results in making women feel alone. To the very core of them women feel alone. Now I'm not saying that they feel this all the time, and I'm sure some women aren't aware of it...and maybe there are a lucky few who don't feel this, but I know that in my very depths that I feel alone. And it had been unshakeable. It has been unaltered by my circumstances, but now I have hope for a change.
I choose these two quotes...well, because they impacted me. I know that I have a fear of abandonment...and the book goes on to say that women fear everyone, man, woman, friend, husband, family...will abandon them. Even though I have been getting more friends and getting closer to my friends I still feel abandoned. I hate it because I know my circumstances are actually otherwise, but my feelings refuse to change. But I have found relief in the fact that the book constantly mentions that women feel as if what happens to them is deserved and that this is not true, but relates to my first quote. I really can't explain the relief anymore than that.
posted by L @ 2:21 PM
2 Comments:
At Saturday, July 02, 2005 8:59:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
That's awesome Liz, and thanks for sharing this insight. (Yeah, I know I could have read it in the book, had I thought of reading the book, etc...)
To relate, it seems this fear of abandonment is an epidemic on the scale that males have with sexual sins. The thing is that they have this scope even though they aren't supposed to have any scope at all. But if there's freedom from sexual sins for guys, there must be freedom from fear of abandonment for girls. And the path to freedom must be the same: the Father finding the prodigal son/daughter while still in the foreign land-that is, already in sin, and taking them out. All we need to do is get out of the pig pen and turn our gaze homeward.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM. Good thing He's omnipresent.
Matt
At Saturday, July 02, 2005 10:29:00 PM,
L said…
well, it's my hope that the book is going to talk about that. seeing as the next chapter focuses on God instead of issues women have i'm guessing i'll get something good out of it
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