Captivating

The women's biblical ministry of Ste Marie's held a book study on the book Captivating by John and Staci Eldredge yesterday morning. I attended along with some of the girls from the young adult group, and it was wonderful to sit and talk about the different aspects of the book with women of all ages.

If you haven't read the book yet, then you need to shut down your computer, go to Barnes and Noble, and purchase it. Immediately. Then you should go home, make yourself a cup of tea or coffee or hot chocolate, call in sick to work tomorrow, and curl up on a couch with a blanket and this book and read until you are finished. Maybe you should have your cell phone or your best friend handy so you can stop to read them passages which strike you significantly. If you are in a relationship, you will want your husband or boyfriend to read it as well - Matt refers to this book as "Cheating at life" because it gave him so much insight into how a woman's mind and heart works.

I first read the book about two or three years ago, when I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me and why no man was interested in me. I read several other christian woman's books at that time - "Lady in Waiting," "What to do until Love Finds You" - and while some of them made some good points and sort of prompted some thoughts about God and my life, none of them really resonated for me. It just seemed like their image of a good Christian desirable woman didn't fit with who I was and wanted to be. There was a lot of Proverbs 31.

Captivating was different. It didn't portray God's plan for women as limp, washed out creatures with little power and and a lot of labor. In Captivating, John and Staci talk about women as amazingly beautiful, strong creatures who have been wounded by the fall and have questions that need to be answered by the people in their lives but more importantly by God. When I came to the chapter on the wounded heart, and they said that women walk around with that voice in their heads saying "You are too much... and not enough" I put the book down and cried. I cried for two reasons.

The first was because that was the voice and the exact sentence I had been hearing at least since my college day. I know it was at least since then because I have a poem I wrote in college with the lines "I am tired of the men who say/ I am too much/or not enough/ or not exactly what is wanted right now." I don't know when I wrote it, but that refrain's been sounding in my head for at least 10 years.

The second reason: I had thought that even the fact that this thought was repeating in my head proved I was unlovely and desirable. What man would want someone so insecure and needy? To read that most women have the same thoughts was a strange relief for me. I wasn't crazy, I wasn't needy. Those question in my head and heart - am I lovely? am I desirable? am I good? - came from the fall and the separation from God we all experience as a result of the fall. The good news is that God is always seducing us, filling our lives with romance to draw us back to Him.

I was thinking that I would like to read the book again. I think I might see things differently now. The first time I read it, I was searching for a reason why I was so alone. I wanted someone to tell me what was wrong with me (almost as if I imagined that it was like a hygiene issue I had that my friend were too polite to mention) so I could fix it. Now I am in a relationship, I would like to read it again and see where the book takes me this time. I will post my comments on each chapter here as I finish them. We'll see where that takes us.