Captivating

I have heard many great comments from some friends about the book, "Captivating", by John and Stasi Eldredge. I decided to go out and buy it the other day. Our Christian bookstore did not carry this book, so I was unsure where to find it. Then I remembered that a friend of mine bought hers at a local discount store, so I went there to see if they had it. I was really happy to find out that they had the book, and it only cost $4.99! I read a lot of books, so it's great when I can find them at a low price. I have not finished this book, yet, but so far it is wonderful! It reminds me of the book, "Fight Like A Girl" by Lisa Bevere, which is a favorite of mine.

"Captivating" is a book that describes the hidden desires of a woman's heart. The world's view of femininity and God's view of femininity are so completely different. This book does a great job helping the reader to uncover her heart's desires that may have been buried long ago due to any number of hurts in the past. This book also describes the lonliness that many women feel despite every effort to develop meaningful relationships in their lives.

This book has really got me thinking about my own life. When I was young, I was the girl who tried her best to blend in and not be seen. My thoughts always seemed to differ from others, so I figured I wouldn't be rejected if I just kept my thoughts to myself. Still, to this day, I am always the "quiet one" in the group. I've also been very good at putting up walls in my life so no one will hurt me. It wasn't until recently that I realized that these walls I built up over the years to protect myself are the same walls that have kept me from developing deep Godly friendships. Over the last year, or so, I have been going through the process of tearing these walls down and building some really great friendships with a couple of the women at my church. This has been a painful process, but it's worth it! I've also realized that my relationship with God was pretty superficial. I had built up walls around my relationship with God. Through lots of prayer and working diligently to keep my heart open to what God wants to do in me, I am deepening my relationship with Him. Although everything is not always going to be "fixed" as quickly as I like, I will continue to trust God to help me through this process. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in me will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6).