Captivating

Captivating-John & Staci Eldredge
I am thinking about pulling this book out again and re reading it. I keep thinking about how it really captures what we as women struggle with. "I am too much. I am not enough." I feel those things often. So often. When I think I've finally resolved them something else happens and I have to start over. It makes me tired to think about it.

Here are some of the discussion questions from the Journal...I found them online...I got rid of the journal because I got rid of a lot of things. I probably should have kept it.

I am not prepared to answer these questions in a blog forum but thought they were good enough to share, maybe some of the ladies who read this blog might find it thought provoking.

Anyone else read this book? What did you think?



Unseen, Unsought, and Uncertain

I know I am not alone in this nagging sense of failing to measure up, a feeling of not being good enough as a woman. Every woman I've ever met feels it--something deeper than just the sense of failing at what she does. An underlying, gut feeling of failing at who she is. I am not enough, and, I am too much, at the same time.

Have you ever felt that way? Are you feeling it these days? In what ways?

The result is Shame, the universal companion of women. It haunts us, nipping at our heels, feeding on our deepest fear that we will end up abandoned and alone.

After all, if we were better women--whatever that means--life wouldn't be so hard. Right?

Do you believe that? That if you were "better" life wouldn't be so hard? "Better" in what ways?

Why is it so hard to create meaningful friendships and sustain them? Why do our days seem so unimportant, filled not with romance and adventure but with duties and demands? We feel unseen, even by those who are closest to us. We feel unsought--that no one has the passion or the courage to pursue us, to get past our messiness to find the woman deep inside. And we feel uncertain--uncertain what it even means to be a woman; uncertain what it truly means to be feminine; uncertain if we are or ever will be.

Do you feel like you know what it means to be a true woman? Do you feel like you are?

Aware of our deep failings, we pour contempt on our own hearts for wanting more. Oh, we long for intimacy and for adventure; we long to be the Beauty of some great story. But the desires set deep in our hearts seem like a luxury, granted only to those women who get their acts together. The message to the rest of us--whether from a driven culture or a driven church--is Try Harder.

Do you resonate with that? Do you ever feel that way? How have you--how are you now--"trying harder?"