This blog has been quite neglected lately, largely due to the fact that I've been journaling more in an actual journal, with paper and everything. Also, school has started back up for me, after a seemingly endless summer. I welcome fall with open arms, as it means cooler weather and the fact that I get to buy pens.
A few weeks ago, I was having dinner with a friend and she mentioned starting a Bible/book study for the girls in our church's youth group. She wanted to go through the book
Captivating by John Eldredge and his wife Stasi. Three or four years ago, when I was still in youth group, our group of girls went through
Wild at Heart, another one of Eldredge's books.
Wild at Heart is a book for men about their wounds and their hearts.
Captivating is the
Wild at Heart for women, basically. Both books have a lot of great thoughts and contain some challenging insight. I read through
Captivating a few months ago and was encouraged by it. As the planning for the Bible study progressed, I knew that if I was going to co-lead this thing, that my heart had to be on its way towards healing or else my impact on these girls would be little.
Captivating deals with the heart and soul of a woman. It addresses issues of beauty, friendship, romance, the desire to be seen as lovely, and how easily a woman's heart is broken and also how often it stays that way. The book makes the claim that all women are haunted by a question which is "Am I lovely? Am I worth something? Am I captivating?" This is certainly a question I have asked. The book also says that each woman has been wounded at some point in her life, that the answer to her question has been a loud and angry "no."
When I was involved in the
Wild at Heart study a few years back, we talked about the idea of being wounded. For the first time, those few years ago, I saw my wound. I had been blind to it for quite some time, not quite understanding how much it had shaped the way I acted and the way I interacted with other people, especially men. When I picked up
Captivating a few weeks ago to get my heart ready to lead this study, I thought my wound was almost healed, or was certainly on its way. But it was still very present. It had been years since my wound was received, and years since I acknowledged it and asked for healing. But there it was, still present, still aching, and still convincing me that I was not who I was meant to be.
While all the claims in
Captivating may not be true for every single woman, so many of the ideas in the book were true for me. I took the book chapter by chapter, writing down my thoughts, prayers, Scriptures, etc. I have allowed myself to grieve, not just over my wound but for the fact that I have believed so many of the lies Satan has fed me.
Satan is an aspect of Christianity I don't consider much, to be honest. I'll talk about God freely with any person, but when I speak of Satan I almost feel silly. But I shouldn't. Evil is a real thing. Satan is evil incarnate, the opposite of God in His splendor.
Captivating made a point I found interesting. Satan, once Lucipher, was at one point heaven's most beautiful and powerful angel. But it wasn't enough. He wanted more. He wanted to be God. Because Satan was once beauty, the Eldredge's pointed out that he attacks beauty anytime he can. He whispers lies in the ears of the Bride of Christ, attempting to convince her she is ugly, not worthy, too much or too little. And I believed these lies for so long about myself. I am still struggling to let go of some of them.
It is amazing the lies we believe about ourselves. For so long now, I have believed that I am anything but lovely. On some days I might consider myself cute, even fewer days pretty. But beautiful? Captivating? Never.
It wasn't just physical lies that I believed. I doubted each and every one of my friendships. I would analyze conversations to death, dwelling on any negative thing. I would take something completely mundane and turn it into this dramatic scenario inside my head. I was always the victim. I would never have a true friend. No one really loved me. No one would ever stay.
I believed that I was too dirty for God. I believed for so,
so many years that I had to be clean before I prayed or worshipped, that I could not come flawed or with dirty hands. It was not until just this year, my 19th year of life, that I realized for the first time that God loves me.
All of me. I have learned that I cannot earn His love, and I have learned that I cannot lose it. He chose me, and He delights in me.
God has started an amazing process of healing in my heart. I no longer believe that I am some ugly duckling that no man would ever choose to pursue. I believe that I was created in the image of God, the epitome of beauty.
I no longer believe that I am alone. I believe in my friendships, and I see how blessed I am to know the people I do.
I no longer believe that I am too much for God to handle, too unclean for Him to chase. God sees me, all of me. He knows my scars, yet loves me anyway. He always has. He always will. When a person truly understands that God loves him or her, they cannot help but be changed by that knowledge.
There are still days my heart is not completely whole. There are still days when I ache for romance with a man instead of romance with God. There are still days when I see myself as flawed and unpretty. But there are more days when I feel joyful, when I feel lovely, when I feel loved and pursued by a Lover no man could ever be.
I have been craving romance for so long now. I have believed that a man could fix me, that he could heal my wound. I have realized that I can't expect for another human being to ever fix me. I still crave romantic love, but it's not because I feel I need it. I simply
want it, as most do. And now I am convinced that it will happen, when my heart is a bit more healed and when I am ready to accept it.
It feels good to rest in the knowledge of love and beauty, being so certain of both.
Song of the Moment: "All the Stars", eastmountainsouth
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