words that inspire

taken from the book "Captivating" by John and Stasi Eldredge:


True feminity calls forth true masculinity.

The essence of a woman is beauty. Beauty flows from a heart at rest... a heart that trusts in God, a heart that has been quieted by his love and filled with his peace. Not a heart that is striving and restless.

The essence of a man is strength. To experience the strength of a man is to have him speak on our behalf.

A man's deepest question is "Do I have what it takes?" Failure says "No". And that is why many men avoid any situation where they might fail. They fear exposure. They fear it will be discovered that they are not a man.

A woman's question is "Am I lovely?" To be rejected is to hear a resounding "No". A woman doesn't want to offer her beauty unless she is guaranteed that it will be well received. But life offers no such guarantees. We, too, must take risks.

But somewhere along the way, man take women as their validation, and vice versa. But our core validation has to come from God. And until it does, until we look to him for the healing of our souls, our relationships can be really hurt by this looking-to-each-other for something only God can give.

But if our man is the verdict on us as a woman, we won't be able to truly and freely offer him our beauty. We'll hold it back in fear. Or we'll give ourselves to him in inappriopriate ways, desperate for his attention. And we won't be able to confront him and stand up to him when he needs that from us as well.

Similarly, be aware of the issues in him that could cause him to look to you for his validation or become paralysed.

* * *

so my thoughts on all this?

i learnt that i have, often consciously, sometimes unconsciously, 'used' the men in my life to validate my beauty. like asking "am i fat?" and only longing for the answer to be no, that i am beautiful, and yet still having that lack of self confidence, so that even when they say what i hope to hear, i dare no believe.

i don't think i'm the only girl who thinks like this huh =b

poor guys are at a dead end - no right answer hor.

so i'm gonna try not ask this question so much, and learn to turn to God whenever such thoughts of self-doubt, low self esteem, fear of people's opinions etc plague me. that's lesson number 1.

lesson number 2? i see how beautifully God has weaved together man and woman into His plan. it really is only when a woman is comfortable with herself that a man can truly be empowered to be all that he can be. like the first statement said - true feminity calls forth true masculinity. a real man will WANT to be all that a man is called to be when he encounters a real woman.

i think that picture that the book paints is just so anazing and touching and... like WOW God, You thought of all this???

=)

lesson 3, which i'm still processing, is that it's perfectly right for a woman to 'seduce' her man. in a pure sense. i think, in the media, the words seduce comes with all sorts of connotations, bringing to mind the adulteress or the young prostitutes you see all over the soap operas.

but what i'm seeing is that the Bible does speak of women, godly women, who 'seduce' their men. Not for sex, not for 'fun', but really, just inciting the man's interest. i'm seeing that there's a different between dominating the relationship (which i have been convinced in wrong since reading "Passion and Purity") and inviting a man. The former goes against the way God planned the world to go - for men to be the initiative pursuer, and women the pursued. But the latter is something that is special. Because feminity can awaken masculine strength in a way nothing else can.

so many of us, me included, have seen purity as 'completely ignore the man you are interested in until he proposes to you.' I know i subscribed to that thought at one point in my life! but as the book puts it so bluntly: Why, then, would he propose to you?

How true.

So, a balance is needed. I pray that I will find it, and be the true 'feminist' that I was created to be. =)