Are you Captivated yet?

Because I have a love hate relationship with life. Today anyway.
Well. Most days after I've just had a day or two off from work and I have to remember all over again why I really love those days. :p

But that was a sneaky way to bring up Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. Which is a book my friend Kyle lent me to sate some of my boredom. It worked! But now I'm finished with it and complications such as he can't find the counter part to the book and the book Paula from work gave me is depressing and my heart doesn't want to encourage those feelings right now are making  letting me feel bored again.


However... Captivating was awesome. Albeit, there were things I adamantly disagreed with- John and Stasi are a Catholic couple, and they've got some skewed ideas. I think they're on the right track, they just took some concepts far too literally.

Now I'm going to blow your mind (possibly from boredom) with excerpts. Mostly because I'm too lazy to pencil them into my journal all at once so I'm going to type them into my blog. It's my second journal. The overview one.

"Femininity cannot be prescribed in a formula. There is no 'one size fits all' pattern for God's Women." (That's where I was stuck to the book. On page ix. Great sign, right? This is also when I discovered I have no clue in Hades how to say 'femininity'.)

pg. 19

The longings God has written deep in your heart are telling you something essential about what it means to be a woman, and the life he meant for you to live. Now we know- many of those desires have gone unmet, or been assaulted, or simply so long neglected that most women end up living two lives. On the surface we are busy and efficient, professional, even. We are getting by. On the inside women lose themselves in a fantasy world or in cheap novels, or we give ourselves over to food or some other addiction to numb the ache of our hearts. But your heart is still there, crying out to be set free, to find the life your desires tell you of.
You can find that life- if you are willing to embark on a great adventure.

A. 'We are getting by'?? Lame. Stop surviving and decide to live!
B. Numbing your heart seems like a dangerous idea. In the scriptures it always talks about hearts being past feeling as a bad thing. Because it is. In April at a Friday Forum Brother Schlappi(?) talked about pain. He told us the secret to getting through pain is to attach a purpose or meaning to it. Not to numb ourselves and move on. Pain (or feeling in general) inspires change, which causes growth, which makes us beautiful. Who doesn't want to be beautiful, raise your hand. (If you did, you're kicked off my blog, because you're lying! Except I'm not kicking you off. I'm too attention starved. ;) )

One section of the book talked about how women are a mystery. Which is true. But we're not a mystery as in " "forever beyond your knowing", but "something to be explored." "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter," says the book of Proverbs, "to search out a matter is the glory of kings." "

"A woman is not a problem to be solved but a vast wonder to be enjoyed."

"Every woman has a beauty to unveil.
Every woman."
(Even mean, shy, overbearing women. :p Keep in mind who they truly are.)

"Most women hate their vulnerability. We are not inviting- we are guarded. Most of our energy is spent trying to hide our true selves and control our worlds to have some sense of security."
"When a woman falls from grace, what is most deeply marred is her tender vulnerability, beauty that invites to life."
"We have never considered that by living a controlling and domineering life," (Guarding/avoiding vulnerability) "we are really refusing to trust our God. And it has also never dawned on us that something precious in us is squelched, diminished, and refused. Something that God has given us to bring to the world."

"The wounds you have received have come to you for a purpose from one who knows all you are meant to be and fears you."
(Satan doesn't work on wimps, ladies. He spends time on those he is threatened by. So really, when we're being tempted and it's like, "Oh mylanta! I'm never gonna be good enough" or something like that, try feeling awesome. It is because of your beauty and your potential and your goodness that you're being tempted and tried as much as you are.)
"It changes things to realize that, no, it is because you are glorious that these things happened. It is because you are powerful. ... You are hated because of your beauty and power."
(Cool, huh? I like that perspective I think.)

They used a quote from A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett:
"Whatever comes, cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in a cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it."
(We choose our attitude, which is a HUGE weapon against Satan. He can try all he wants, but we can still choose to love Heavenly Father, and trust Him and love life and ourselves anyway.)

The beauty of a woman is first a soulful beauty. And yes, as we live it out, own it, inhabit our beauty, we do become more lovely. More alluring. As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, "Self flashes off frame and face." Our true self becomes reflected in our appearance. But it flows from the inside out.

Women who are stunningly beautiful are women who have had their hearts enlarged by suffering. By saying yes when the world says no. By paying the high price of loving truly and honestly without demanding that they be loved in return. And by refusing to numb their pain in the myriad of ways available. They have come to know that when everyone and everything has left them, God is there. They have learned, along with David, that those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs (Ps. 84:6).

"That's why unveiling our beauty is how we live by faith.

"Yes, we are not yet what we long to be. But we are underway."

(Talking about the proverb, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it", and how it isn't about raising children to be what we would like them to be, or to go where we would like them to go, but, "It is about seeing who a person really is and calling him out to be that person." Which I thought was really kind of a cool thought. Maybe, leading by example and being yourself truly it will allow them to do the same. It's about charity too, I think.)

Talking about women friends: "The capacity of a woman's heart for meaningful relationships is vast. ... It is a great gift to know that you see as another sees, an immense pleasure to be understood, to enjoy the easy companionship of one you can let your guard down with."

"Fallen Eve has been wounded by others and withdraws in order to protect herself from further harm. Redeemed Eve knows that she has something of value to offer; that she is made for relationship. Therefore, being safe and secure in her relationship with her Lord, she can risk being vulnerable with others and offer her true self." (I'd love ultimate confidence and ultimate comfort that lasts... wouldn't you?)

"We do long to be fought for; loved enough to be courageously protected. But there is a mighty strength and fierceness set in the hearts of women by God. This fierceness is true to who we are and what we are created to do.
Women are warriors too."

"Women warriors are strong, yes, and they are also tender. There is mercy in them. There is vulnerability. In fact, offering a tender vulnerability can only be done by an incredibly strong woman, a woman rooted in Christ Jesus who knows whose she is and therefore knows who she is."

"Security is not found in the absence of danger, but in the presence of Jesus."

(This one is a quote from The Sound of Music.) "You must live the life you were born to live."
I promise if you study Daughters in My Kingdom, and the Family a Proclamation to the World... you'll see that women (as well as men, of course,) have an incredible role. We're born to be awesome!

Going back to Brother Schlappi, (who's name I'm probably not spelling correctly, forgive me. I was twitterpated and distracted sitting next to Tyler. :p I misspelled a few things.)
I've thought a lot about beauty, and women's roles, and how life seems to be pretty unstable (at least for me it feels that way. If it doesn't for you, let's talk. I want to know your secret.)
Brother Schlappi is a paraplegic, because of a gun accident where his friend shot a gun they thought was unloaded and hit him. He said something that I thought of while reading Captivating a few different times:
"If you avoid change- you fail. If you cope with change- you survive. If you seek change- you succeed."
I'm pretty sure I just sound ADD and all over the place, but it made sense at one point, apparently.
But the bottom line is:
Women rule,
God is great,
and honestly Heavenly Father (and the gospel) is/are the only one(s) that can fill the void in our life and validate us. There is so much security in just working on your own progression in the gospel and just let life fall into rank after that. It's pretty cool.

That way when a gargantuan family who has a very aggressive grandma comes in when you're trying to close things down, and they rip apart t-shirts and mess up all your sweat shirts and then stay an extra five minutes after closing time (insert song by Semisonic here) you can still feel mostly nice and want to like them anyway.
(Or at least want to want to like them.)

And with that my dear friends, I'll relieve you and quite typing.