Lectio Divina

“the Bible tended to leave her cold,
as it had been used

more as a weapon

than an instrument of grace…” Benner

I consider myself a recovering Pharisee which- perhaps- leaves my children with a similar burden of painful misconceptions about God as Angie carried (see the above quote). I pray that this excerpt from David Benner’s book “Sacred Companions” will help someone to take some steps closer to the real Jesus (who is too often poorly reflected by those of us who claim His name)

QUOTE: (clips from pages 110-117)
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Every idea and assumption we have about God must be measured against the person of Jesus. For most of us this will give us an opportunity to redraw our image of God. This is one of the most important ways in which Christian spirituality matures- by allowing immature and incorrect ideas of God to be reformed. The filter for that reformation … is Jesus of Nazareth.

Meditation on the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life has been the core of many Roman Catholic approaches to spiritual formation. We Protestants do well to learn from them in this regard. Bible reading can take many forms. Nonmeditative reading may involve some reflection, but it is usually more oriented toward analysis and comprehension of content. For years I read the Bible this way, attempting to discover or be reminded of things that would help me live the Christian life.

Meditative reading is less focused on the words and more focused on the Word behind the words. In the case of meditation on Gospel accounts of Jesus, the intent is to come to know Jesus better. This involves lingering over the story long enough to allow yourself to meet Jesus in that account. …

No one has anything to fear about imagination that is guided by meditation on Scripture and the Spirit of God…. Any moment in the life of Christ or any of his teachings or parables offers rich opportunities for meeting Jesus. Consider this fragment of a conversation with a woman named Angie with whom I worked in spiritual direction.

Angie struggled in her Christ following. Her personal history made her deeply uncomfortable in the church- any church- and her relationship to Christians was filled with ambivalence. However her spiritual yearning was fervent, and she entered spiritual direction out of a longing to encounter God more deeply.

After we explored the contours of her spiritual journey, I asked her about her experience of God. She told me how much trouble she had relating to Christ. Her perceptions of him were all tainted by dysfunctional childhood family and church experiences. I then asked her about her ability to meet Christ in church or in Scripture. She said that she was sometimes deeply aware of meeting him in the liturgy but that the Bible tended to leave her cold, as it had been used more as a weapon than an instrument of grace in her childhood.

…
Angie had been on the journey of Christian spirituality for a long time. However her progress was seriously limited by her unfamiliarity with the Jesus of the Gospels. Her ideas of God needed reformation in the light of the decisive revelation of God in Christ. She needed to get to know Jesus better…

The only way to come to know Jesus is through the Gospels. There is no substitute for meditation on Scripture as a route to a deep, personal engagement with God. Attunement to the Christian God must always involve attending to Jesus…

For some time after the session I recounted earlier, Angie continued to focus on Jesus, seeking to encounter him through the Gospels. Increasingly , however, she came to speak of the great difference between Jesus and the God of the Old Testament. It seemed important therefore for her to meet God the Father of Jesus as he revealed himself in the rest of Scripture. Again the goal was not simply to teach some point of theology. It was to facilitate her attunement to God.

I did this by encouraging her to meditate on the Genesis account of the creation and fall of humans. My instruction was for her to watch for the hidden presence of Jesus- the God of grace she had come to meet in the Gospels. Praying for eyes to discern grace, she went off to read and meditate on the first three chapters of Genesis.

She returned to our next meeting with considerable excitement. Something totally new had struck her. She was deeply impressed by the care God took to prepare garments of skin for Adam and Eve after they discovered their nakedness and were overwhelmed with their shame. She added, “Had God been like I have often pictured him, he would have wanted to rub their noses in their shame to make sure they learned their lesson. I was so impressed that what he seemed to want was to eliminate their shame, not exploit it.” This was a profound insight for her. It led to a cascading series of subsequent insights about the nature of God as she subsequently meditated on other Old Testament passages.

Scripture is given for our instruction and edification. In its totality Scripture presents the God revealed in Jesus and whom we seek to follow. The story of his pursuit of humankind despite our unfaithfulness is a story of grace. Biblical revelation aids our attunement to God by helping us encounter the Lord God of heaven and earth, not simply the god of our imagination, childhood experience or previous religious instruction.

~~~~~~~~~Lectio Divina (pg. 170)~~~~~~~~

… a modification of the classic lectio. It emphasizes four ways of reading (or listening to) Scripture, each named for the corresponding monastic form of meditation. It also involves reading the passage four times.

1. Lectio. Listen with your senses, without thinking too much about the meaning. Attend to your imagination, noting the smells, sounds and images that arise as you hear the passage. Allow yourself to enter into the setting using your imagiantion.

2. Meditatio. This time I want you to follow along in your Bible as I read the passage out loud. Use your thinking to reflect on the meaning and significance of the passage. Consider why the passage is included in Scripture. What does it mean? How does it affect your understanding of God?

3. Oratio. This time as you listen, I want you to attend to your feelings. Note your feelings and silently offer them back to God as a prayer of the heart. Comment in your prayer on anything in the passage to which you particularly respond.

4. Contemplatio. Before I read the passage a final time, quieten yourself, close your eyes, breathe deeply and regularly, and prepare to receive God’s Word. This time I want you to listen with your intuition- your heart. If something impresses you, simply notice it and then refocus your attention on what you are hearing. Don’t worry if you do not seem to have any thoughts or impressions. Simply remain open to the passage and to the Spirit. After expressing gratitude to God for your experience, open your eyes.
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Procrastination

This is from John Powell SJ’s book Why am I afraid to tell you who I am?

It struck me because my 21 yo son is a procrastinator and I realize now, how my/our parenting has contributed to it

quote:

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It has been said that the greatest mistake a man can make is to be afraid of making mistakes. Indecision and uncertainty are ways of avoiding mistakes and responsibility. If no decision is made nothing can go wrong. The inclination to avoid decisions is sometimes manifested by dragging out as long as possible the ones we actually must make. The only real mistake is not learning from our mistakes.The basic problem here is self esteem and the protection of self-esteem. People who are indecisive fear that they will lose respect if their decision turns out to be wrong. Only little men, someone has said, are never wrong. We learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. But the indecisive person is so focused on his own ego and personal value that he does not see the validity of all these truths. The name of the game is safety and self-protection; the motto: Nothing attempted, nothing lost.Very often, too, indecisiveness results in people who have been programed by multitudinous (and sometimes contradictory) instructions and moralizing, or who have been reproached and embarrassed for past mistakes. Finally, indecisiveness can result in a person’s attempting to support more emotionally burdening problems than he can solve. He usually becomes rattled and can decide none of them

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Sexual Sin within Christian Marriage

1Thes 4: 3-6 God wants you to be holy,
so don’t be immoral in matters of sex.
Respect and honor your wife.
Don’t be a slave of your desires

or live like people who don’t know God.
You must not cheat any of the Lord’s followers in matters of sex. (CEV)

From Why do I feel so down When my faith should lift me up? by Dr Grant Mullen

quote:

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Sex is primarily a spiritual act of oneness symbolized with a physical act. For it to be a blessing im marriage, there needs to be emotional and spiritual wholeness, free of domination, manipulation and control from either spouse. Emotional wounding or bondage in either person will damage and distort sexual intimacy. To have a healthy sexuality, you need complete trust, mutual respect and appreciation of each other which leads to oneness of body, soul and spirit. This creates a godly sexual soul tie.An ungodly sexual soul tie occurs when sexuality becomes a tool of control. Yes, there can be an ungodly sexual soul tie even in Christian marriage. There can even be sexual abuse in Christian marriage which gets covered up by insisting on the scriptural submission of women to the will of the male. It is a sin to dominate, manipulate or control a spouse in any way, including sexuality. It shows disrespect and treats the person as an object to meet the emotional needs of the other. Sexuality can be used as a tool of punishment or reward to control the other spouse. When it is used as a way of reassuring yourself of worth or acceptance, it can easily become an addiction that drives you for more. A very simple test of sexuality is to ask yourself this question, during sex are you lovingly giving yourself to your spouse or taking what you believe to be rightfully yours? If you are taking then you are on dangerous ground!In my observation, most sexual problems are emotional and spiritual, not physical. The solution is the healing of our wounds.

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Heb 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for God will judge the immoral and adulterous.
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What “defiles the marriage bed”?

Apparently, normal women tend to shut down sexually when they are treated badly:

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quoted from Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas
I remember talking frankly to two Christian men once about the ideals of Christian marriage. I cracked them up when I freely confessed, “You bet I’ve swallow arguments because I wanted something from my wife later that night.” They both admitted, somewhat sheepishly, that they too had done the same thing. I’m not proud of the fact that I’m less willing to stand up for my beliefs when I feel “the urge”- and I particularly don’t like the fact that what feels like a physical need directly my spiritual attitudes- but I can learn to use that physical need for spiritual benefit.Let me put this succinctly: We can learn to use the sex drive to groom our character. Out of a need to be intimate with their wives, husbands may learn to show tenderness and empathy.

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From 1Thes 4:3-8, it seems there exist choices in how one possesses “his vessel” (some translations render “vessel” as “wife”; some render “vessel” as his own body. I think GOD deliberately used a word which can mean wife or body- and the teaching of the passage applies to BOTH. John Piper thinks the RSV rendering “wife” is more accurate- link ).
Does he possess his wife/his body in “sanctification and honour”?
Or does he do so “in the lust of concupiscence”/”passion of lust”?
Engaging in the “passion of lust” is to “go beyond and defraud his brother”. I think “brother” can be his WIFE (or her husband). His transgression/ his lusting transgresses boundaries and DEFRAUDS HER. Here is the passage in 3 Bible versions:

quote:

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1Thes 4:3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from unchastity;
1Thes 4:4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; 5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: 6 That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: (AV)

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4 that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor,
5 not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God;
6 that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly forewarned you.
7 For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness.
8 Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. (RSV)

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1Thes 4: 3 God wants you to be holy, so don’t be immoral in matters of sex. 4Respect and honor your wife. [a] 5Don’t be a slave of your desires or live like people who don’t know God. 6You must not cheat any of the Lord’s followers in matters of sex. Remember, we warned you that he punishes everyone who does such things. 7God didn’t choose you to be filthy, but to be pure. 8So if you don’t obey these rules, you are not really disobeying us. You are disobeying God, who gives you his Holy Spirit. (CEV)

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Because this post is filed under “abuse” categories, I will include some links which were helpful to me:

• Retrouvaille Marriage Help
• The Silent Killer of Christian Marriages
• The Wounds of Spouse Abuse
• Cloud and Townsend Articles

 

 

Are You a Doormat?

from Unbreakable Bonds by Meier:

The characteristics below reveal what you are choosing to give away in your choice to stay a doormat:

Doing things for others that they ought to be doing for themselves. I give away my praise. I live for the praise of others.

Others make my choices. I give away my priorities. Others direct my life. Others determine my self worth and define my identity. I give away my personhood. Others determine my value.

Rejection is what I fear most. I give away my purpose. I reduce my purpose to fear.

Mad at myself for not measuring up. I give away my pardon. I am perpetually self-critical.

Afraid of conflict. I give away my power. I teach myself that I do not deserve to be powerful.

True love is missing from my heart. I give away my plenty. I relinquish the abundance I could experience from loving myself unconditionally.

"From Bondage to Bonding"

Quotes from Nancy Groom From Bondage to Bonding: Escaping Codependency, Embracing Biblical Love

“Gentleness is possible even when rebuking those who harm us, because we know our purpose is not to destroy but to redeem. And patience becomes our habit because we know God isn’t finished with any of us yet, and because His presence enables us to endure out fiery trials with perseverance, if not always tranquility… Because Christ dwells within us, we can choose to act like Him… The first ingredient of forgiveness is loving confrontation… But it’s more loving-and more respectful-to hold others accountable. When codependents set appropriate boundaries for themselves by refusing to accept mistreatment, they are doing what is good not just for themselves but for their abusers as well… But setting limits and reestablishing boundaries meet the criteria for biblical love only if the focus is on mutual welfare, not revenge or personal safety. Forgiveness and restoration are impossible if sin is not addressed.” 158-9

 pg 20 “a codependent person is addicted… to a destructive pattern of relating to other people, a pattern usually learned from childhood in an abusive or non-nurturing home”

pg 34 “people damaged by childhood experiences who cope with their world by trying to please and who end up being controlled instead”

pg 36 “People pleasers lack the strength of character necessary to confront what may be a wrong attitude or action…”

pg 120 “Self-forfeiture… is counterproductive to the mutuality of relationship… A marionette has nothing to offer but compliance, and compliance isn’t intimacy. When we act like pawns in someone else’s chess game, we destroy God’s image in us disenfranchising ourselves from making out own choices. Our chosen self-forfeiture is a self protective strategy we must both repent and hold ourselves accountable to change”

pg 198 “The change process is almost never even; usually one person is ready to drop the wrong dependency long before the other. In such cases, offering one’s whole heart may need to be postponed until the other is ready to receive it. Jesus told his disciples shortly before His death, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear”… Someone we love deeply may be unable to bear the depth of our pain or to share the burden of our self discoveries. We may need to suffer the loneliness of a waiting love, walking the tightrope of inviting the other in without revictimizing ourselves. [italics mine] Finally, we may need to relinquish the dream of deep intimacy with that person and turn to God with our overflowing hearts.”

“…abused women… convert their rage and self contempt into a passionate commitment to never be hurt again.” Pg. 54 “Codependents typically refuse to let themselves need the freely chosen tender involvement of others. Neediness terrifies them because it wasn’t safe to be needy in childhood… Neediness for some is also shameful. A woman, shamed as a child for being fearful or upset, represses instinctively her anxiety or sadness as an adult.” 55

“Often the anger experienced in their contemporary relationships is really a displaced anger from an earlier event or situation… Soul wounds do not heal if they are ignored. They continue to govern our emotions, our self-images, and our ways of interacting in relationships.” 90

“Depending utterly on God for our ultimate well-being is the doorway to intimacy, to a renewed freedom to love, to hurt, to laugh, to make mistakes, to ask forgiveness, to feel our feelings, to start each day new.” 147

“I must enter the abject humiliation of needing, of asking for what my soul longs for, instead of protecting myself from the pain of its loss… Most of all, surrendering to God requires that I fully own my personal responsibility ro love others well.” 148

Quotes from Nancy Groom From Bondage to Bonding: Escaping Codependency, Embracing Biblical Love
 

“Codependents with blurred boundaries often allow someone to hurt or abuse them because they somehow think that person has a right to invade their privacy, plans, or personal well-being with impunity…. In fact some of the messages she heard in church about submission reinforced her belief that she didn’t have any rights to claim for herself in relationship to [her husband]” pg 28

“Their behaviors might mimic the way Jesus lived, but in their inner spirits they are far from being the free, loving, glad servants Jesus modeled to His disciples. In fact, they see themselves as not only powerless but essentially worthless.” pg. 30

“The expectation of emotional deprivation goes hand in hand with low self-esteem… a part of her felt she didn’t really deserve a happy home or kind treatment from her husband and children. After all, she hadn’t always been the perfectly loving wife and mother she had wanted and always tried to be.” 39 “Self-contempt can wear many faces, sometimes passing for humility or selflessness. Her husband Jake batters her emotionally with critical, demeaning words. Because Angie blames and despises herself for the childhood incest, she never defends herself. She thinks she deserves Jake’s accusations and keeps trying harder to be the loving, chaste wife she inwardly despairs of ever being.” 39“Jesus was confidently aware of his own value. Self-contempt was the furthest thing from His mind… and in his awareness He yielded his rights for His chosen. The two go together: self-valuing and genuine love.” Pg. 41

“He [Jesus] never masked his feelings but expressed them openly and without shame. He wept… verbalized His frustration… expressed His anger… agonized… gave up His live with a loud scream…” 71

“God’s ‘solution’ is not to somehow get us to work harder to achieve what He commands us to do- ie love Him and others. Rather, He calls us to admit that we have not done and cannot do what He commands- our fallen nature makes it impossible. In the face of that impossibility to be perfect, we are left with the ultimate choice: despair or grace.” 131

“If we choose to move toward repentance we discover that our scrupulously polished exteriors camouflage deep self centeredness… God invites us to open our whitewashed tombs and expose the decadence of our lives to the cleansing power of His grace… We have shunned God, rejecting His grace in order to maintain our self-sufficiency. We have failed to love others with the kind of passionate other-centeredness God requires. And we have revictimized ourselves refusing to believe we’re loved with an everlasting love that prompts genuine self-love and grateful obedience.” 122

“An important part of my own recovery process is experiencing a redeemed Parent-child relationship with God, seeing myself as His beloved daughter and practicing a childlike relationship with Him in my spiritual walk. Young children have nothing to offer but themselves- their need, their trust, and their love. In His grace God reduces me toe the raw nakedness of needing and receiving- the stuff of children, even infants.” 142

“One of the most profound effects of being deeply connected to God is a renewed sense of our own preciousness. When I know and can believe God cherishes me as a beloved child, I can know and believe my worth as a person… We are children of the Great King and special to our Father. Princes and princesses don’t let themselves be abused; they like themselves and expect to be respected.” 144

"Taking it to Eve" by John Eldredge

Here is part of a chapter from Wild At Heart by John Eldredge.

Quote:
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Taking It To Eve

Remember the story of my first kiss, that little darling I fell in love with in the seventh grade and how she made my bicycle fly? I fell in love with Debbie the very same year my father checked out of my story, the year I took my deepest wound. The timing was no coincidence. In a young boy’s development, there comes a crucial time when the father must intervene. It arrives early in adolescence, somewhere between the ages of eleven and fifteen, depending on the boy. If that intervention does not happen, the boy is set up for disaster; the next window that opens in his soul is sexuality. Debbie made me feel like a million bucks. I couldn’t have put words to it at the time; I had no idea what was really going on. But in my heart I felt I had found the answer to my question. A pretty girl thinks I am the greatest. What more can a guy ask for? If I’ve found Juliet, then I must be Romeo.

When she broke up with me, it began what has been a long and sad story of searching for “the woman that will make me feel like a man.” I went from girlfriend to girlfriend trying to get an answer. To be the hero to the beauty – that has been my longing, my image of what it means to really, finally be a man. Bly calls it the search fot the Golden-haired Woman.

He sees a woman across the room, knows immediately that it is “She.” He drops the relationship he has, pursues her, feels wild excitement, passion, beating heart, obsession. After a few months, everything collapses; she becomes an ordinary woman. He is confused and puzzled. Then he sees once more a radiant face across the room, and the old certainty comes again. (Iron John)

Why is pornography the most addictive thing in the universe for men? Certainly there’s the fact that a man is visually wired, that pictures and images arouse men much more that they do women. But the deeper reason is because that seductive beauty reaches down inside and touches your desperate hunger for validation as a man you didn’t even know you had, touches it like nothing else most men have ever experienced. You must understand – this is deeper than legs and breasts and good sex. It is mythological. Look at the lengths men will go to find the golden-haired woman. They have fought duals over her beauty; they have fought wars. You see, every man remembers Eve. We are haunted by her. And somehow we believe that if we could find her, get her back, then we’d also recover with our own lost masculinity.

You’ll recall the little boy Phillip, from the movie A Perfect World? Remember what his fear was? That his penis was puny. That’s how many men articulate a sense of emasculation. Later in life a man’s worst fear is impotence. If he can’t get an erection, then he hasn’t got what it takes. But the opposite is also at work. If a man can feel an erection, well then, he feels powerful. He feels strong. I’m telling you, for many men The Question feels hardwired to his penis. If he can feel like the hero sexually, well, then mister, he’s the hero. Pornography is so seductive because what is a wounded, famished man to think when there a literally hundreds of beauties willing to give themselves to him? Of course, it’s not just to him, but when’s he’s alone with the photos, it feels like it’s just him.)

It’s unbelievable – how many movies center around this lie? Get the beauty, win her, bed her, and you are the man. You’re James Bond. You’re a stud. Look carefully at the lyrics to Bruce Springsteen’s song, Secret Garden (from his Greatest Hits recording, 1995):
She’ll let you in her house
If you come knockin’ late at night
She’ll let you in her mouth
If the words you say are right
If you pay the price
She’ll let you deep inside
But there’s a secret garden she hides.
She’ll lead you down a path
There’ll be tenderness in the air
She’ll let you come just far enough
So you know she’s really there
She’ll look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
She’s got a secret garden
Where everything you wantWhere everything you need
Will always stay
A million miles away.

It’s a deep lie wedded to a deep truth. Eve is a garden of delight. (Song 4:16) But she’s not everything you want, everything you need – not even close. Ofcourse it will stay a million miles away. You can’t get there from here because it’s not there. It’s not there. The answer to your question can never, ever be found there. Don’t get me wrong. A woman is a captivating thing. More captivating that anything else in all creation. “The naked woman’s body is a portion of eternity too great for the eye of man.” Femininity can arouse masculinity. Boy oh boy can it. My wife flashes me a little breast, a little thigh, and I’m ready for action. All systems alert. She tells me in a soft voice that I’m a man and I’ll leap tall buildings for her. But femininity can never bestow masculinity. It’s like asking a pearl to give you a buffalo. It’s like asking for a field of wildflowers to give you a ‘57 chevy. They are different substances entirely.

Dave, whose father blew a hole in his chest when he called him “mamma’s boy”, took his question to the woman. Recently he confessed to me that younger women are his obsession. You can see why – they’re less of a threat. A younger woman isn’t half the challenge. He can feel more like a man there. Dave’s embarrassed by his obsession, but it deosn’t stop him. A younger woman feels like the answer to his question and he’s got to get an answer. But he knows his search is impossible. He admitted to me just the other day, “Even if I marry a beautiful woman, I will always know there is an even more beautiful woman out there somewhere. So I’ll wonder – could I have won her?”

It’s a lie. As Bly says. it’s a search without an end. “We are looking at the source of a lot of desperation in certain men here, and a lot of suffering in certain women.” How often I have seen this. A friend’s brother hit rock bottom a few years back when his girlfriend broke up with him. He was a really successful guy, a high star athelete who became a promising young attorney. But he was carrying a wound from an alcoholic, workaholic father who never gave him what every boy craves. Like so many of us, he took his heart with it’s question to the woman. When she dumped him, my friend said, “it blew him out of the water. He went into a major nosedive, started drinking heavily, smoking. He even left the country. His life was shattered.”

This is why so many men secretly fear their wives. She sees him as noone else does, sleeps with him, know’s what he is made of. If he has given her the power to validate him as a man, then he has also given her the power to invalidate him too. That’s the deadly catch. A pastor told me that for years he’s been trying to please his wife and she keeps giving him an “F”. “What is she is not the report card on you?” I suggested. “She sure feels like it…and I am failing.”

Another man, Richard, became verbally abusive toward his wife in the early years of their marriage. His vision for his life was that he was meant to be Romeo and therefore, she must be Juliet. When she turned out not to be the Golden-haired Woman, he was furious. Because that meant, you see, that he was not the heroic man. I remember seeing a picture of Julia Roberts without costume and makeup; Oh, I realised, she’s just an ordinary woman.

“He was coming to me for his validation,” a young woman told me about the man she was dating. Or, had been dating. She was drawn to him at first, and certainly drawn to the way he was taken with her. “That’s why I broke up with him.” I was amazed at her perceptiveness and her courage. It’s very rare to find, especially in younger women. How wonderful it feels at first to be his obsession. To be thought of as a goddess is pretty heady stuff. But eventually, it all turns from romance to immense pressure on her part. “He kept saying, ‘I don’t know if I have what it takes and you’re telling me I don’t.’ He’ll thanks me for it one day.”
What’s fascinating to note is that homosexuals are actually more clear on this point. They know what is missing in their hearts is masculine love. The problem is that they’ve sexualised it. Joseph Nicolosi says that homosexuality is an attempt to repair the wound by filling it with masculinity, either the masculine love that was missin or the masculine strength many men feel they do not possess. It, too, is a vain search and that is why so many of them suffer depression and a host of other addictions. What they need can’t be found there.

Why have I said all this about our search for validation and the answer to our question? Because we cannot hear the real answer until we see we’ve got a false one. So long as we chase the illusion, how can we face reality? The hunger is there; it lives in our souls like a famished craving, no matter what we’ve tried to fill it with. If you take your question to Eve, it will break your heart. I know this now, after many, many hard years. You can’t get your answer there. In fact, you can’t get your answer from any of the things men chase after to find their sense of self. There is only one source for the answer to your question. And so no matter where you’ve taken your question, you’ve got to take it back. You have to walk away. This is the beginning of your journey.
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"Captivating" Quotes

This book was influential in my personal healing and recovery.
I facilitated a group of ladies from my church through a book study, and many were deeply touched.
I recommend having the companion journal together with the book (see the link)

Quotes from Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge

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Intro:Rest assured- this is not a book about all the things you are failing to do as a woman. We’re tired of those books. As a new Christian, the first book I (Stasi) picked up to read on godly femininity I threw across the room. I never picked it up again. In the twenty-five years since, I have only read a few I could wholeheartedly recommend. The rest drive me crazy. Their messages to women make me feel as through, “You are not the woman you ought to be- but if you do the following things, you can make the grade.” They are by and large, soul-killing. But femininity cannot be prescribed in a formula….

God has set within you a femininity that is powerful and tender, fierce and alluring. No doubt it has been misunderstood. Surely it has been assaulted. But it is there, your true heart, and it is worth recovering. You are captivating

So we invite you to take a journey with us, a journey of discovery and healing. For your heart is the prize of God’s Kingdom, and Jesus has come to win you back for himself-all of you. We pray that God will use this book in your life, in your heart, to bring healing, restoration, joy, and life!”

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Your feminine heart has been created with the greatest of all possible dignities- as a reflection of God’s own heart……the story of Eve… We clearly haven’t learned its lessons- for if we had, men would treat women much much differently, and women would view themselves in a far better light…

Adam steps forth, the image of God. Nothing in creation even comes close. Picture Michelangelo’s David. He is… magnificent. Truly the masterpiece seems complete. And yet, the Master says that something is not good, not right. Something in missing… and that something is Eve…

She is the crescendo, the final astonishing work of God. Woman. In one least flourish creation comes to a finish not with Adam, but with Eve. She is the Master’s finishing touch… His piece de resistance. She fills a place in the world nothing and no one else can fill… (Ladies) Look out across the earth and say to yourselves, “The whole, vast world is incomplete without me. Creation reached its zenith in me.”

And she, too, bears the image of God but in a way that only the feminine can speak. What can we learn from her? God wanted to reveal something about Himself, so he gave us Eve… Eve is created because things were not right without her. Something was not good. …Something is missing? What could it possibly be? Eve. Woman. Femininity. Wow. Talk about significance.

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Back in Genesis when God sets his image bearers on the earth, he gives them their mission:
Gen 1:26-28.Call it the Human Mission- to be all and do all God sent us here to do. And notice- the mission to be fruitful and conquer and hold sway is given both to Adam and to Eve. “And God said to them…” Eve is standing right there when God gives the world over to us. She has a vital role to play; she is partner in this great adventure. All that human beings were intended to do here on earth- all the creativity and exploration, all the battle and rescue and nurture- we were intended to do together. In fact, not only is Eve needed, but she is desperately needed.

When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo. “It is not good for the man to be alone, I shall make him [an ezer kenegdo]” (Gen 2:18 Alter). Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, who has spent years translating the book of Genesis, says that this phrase is “notoriously difficult to translate”. The various attempts we have in English are “helper” or “companion” or the notorious “help meet”. Why are these translations so incredibly wimpy, boring, flat… disappointing? What is a help meet, anyway? What little girl dances through the house singing “One day I shall be a help meet?” Companion? A dog can be a companion. Helper? Sounds like Hamburger Helper. Alter is getting close when he translates it “sustainer beside him.”

The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the entire Old Testament. And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately.

Most of the contexts are life and death, by the way, and God is your only hope. Your ezer. If he were not there beside you… you are dead. A better translation of ezer would be “lifesaver”. Kenegdo means alongside, or opposite to, a counterpart. Pg 31-32

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pg 103-4Melissa was the young girl who “vowed I would be tough; hard like a rock,” and became so for many years. But that is not the end of her story. She came to the place where Jesus asked to heal her wounded heart. She gave him permission to come in. This is what happened.

God went back and got the shaking little girl that was hiding under the bed and convinced her to come out. He unclenched her little fists and took her hand and placed it in his and answered her question. He held her and told her it was OK for her not to be tough. He would protect her. She didn’t have to be strong. He told her she wasn’t a rock but a child. His child. He didn’t condemn her for anything but instead understood her and loved her! He told her she was special… like no other and that she had special gifts like no other. She knew His voice and trusted him. She could hear the pleasure He had for her in His voice and felt His delight in her as He talked. He was so gentle and loving she couldn’t help but melt in His arms.

This is available. This is the offer of our Savior- to heal our broken hearts. To come to the young places within us and find us there, take us in his arms, bring us home. The time has come to let Jesus heal you.

Jesus come to me and heal my heart. Come to the shattered place within me. Come for the little girl that was wounded, Come and hold me in your arms and heal me. Do for me what you promised to do- heal my broken heart and set me free.

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clips from pages 82-85
The story of the treatment of women down through the ages is not a noble history. It has noble moments, to be sure, but taken as a whole, women have endured what seems to be a special hatred ever since we left Eden. …You might know that through the thousands of years of Jewish history recorded in the Old Testament, Jewish women were considered property with no legal rights (as they were and are in many cultures). They were not allowed to study the Law, nor to formally educate their children. They had a segregated place in the synagogue. It was common practice for a Jewish man to add to his morning prayers, “Thank you, God, for not making me a Gentile, a woman, or a slave.”

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The assault on femininity- its long history, its utter viciousness- cannot be understood apart from the spiritual forces of evil we are warned against in the Scriptures. That is not to say that men (and women, for they, too, assault women) have no accountability in their treatment of women. Not at all. It is simply to say that no explanation for the assault upon Eve and her daughters is sufficient unless it opens our eyes to the Prince of Darkness and his special hatred of femininity.
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Satan fell because of his beauty. Now his heart for revenge is to assault beauty… he hates Eve.
Because she is captivating, uniquely glorious, and he cannot be.

Eve is his greatest human threat, for she brings life. She is a lifesaver and a life giver. Eve means “life” or “life producer”…

Put those two things together- that Eve incarnates the Beauty of God and she gives life to the world. Satan’s bitter heart cannot bear it. He assaults her with a special hatred. History removes any doubt about this….

The message of our wounds nearly always is, “This is because of you. This is what you deserve.” It changes things to realize that, no, it is because you are glorious that these things happened. It is because you are a major threat to the kingdom of darkness. Because you uniquely carry the glory of God to the world.
You are hated because of your beauty and power.

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Pg 91
You really won’t understand your life as a woman until you understand this:You are passionately loved by the God of the universe.
You are passionately hated by his Enemy.

And so, dear heart, it is time for your restoration. For there is One greater than your Enemy. One who has sought you out from the beginning of time. He has come to heal your broken heart and restore your feminine soul.

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Leveraging Anger into Spiritual Growth

from Make Anger Your Ally :

THINK (at the first sign of anger, and derail the usual “reaction”)
WHY am I angry? (hurt, frustration, fear)
WHAT do I want from this encounter?
HOW can I use my anger to get as much of what I want from it as possible?

from Unbreakable Bonds

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Anger too is not wrong in itself but an indicator that some part of us feels unprotected. In other words, when we begin to feel angry, we can listen to that anger and know that we are communicating to ourselves that we somehow feel vulnerable, violated, attacked, threatened, or neglected in some capacity. It is our psyche’s natural way to wake us up, to motivate us to learn how to attend to ourselves, offer lasting protection, offer nurturing, and build up inner strength by putting outer boundaries in place…

Controlling anger doesn’t do a lot to change the underlying situation or problem. It just pushes the anger down to come out in another form. We can learn, instead, how to listen to our anger and learn where our pain is, where we feel unprotected. Then we can choose to offer ourselves protection. Instead of working really hard to control our anger, it is important for us to apply that same effort and energy toward leaning how to listen to our anger and direct our responses. We distract ourselves from further self-knowledge when we explode…

When you become angry, practice communicating to yourself what you feel. Explore where you may feel unloved or unprotected. Recognize your initial response choice… Take the time to probe what prompts your response…. use the energy you have expended on being angry…to heal!

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Self Evaluation

From Serenity A Companion for Twelve Step Recovery Complete with New Testament Psalms & Proverbs :

“Step 10 encourages the taking of a personal inventory, which, for recovering persons, should be a daily process. Here are five components of this ongoing inventory:

1) What are our needs? These include basic needs, such as the need for love, acceptance, and security. Do we recognize these needs? Are they being met in some reasonable fashion?

2) What are out feelings? Especially we need to allow grief feelings to surface and be expressed. We also need to watch out for deep feelings of resentment, because resentment covers anger, anger covers hurt, hurt usually covers fear, and again, the deepest fear is that our basic human needs are not being met. In relationships we fear being rejected or abandoned.

3)What counterfeit, codependent, addictive means are we using in trying to meet out needs? Are we manipulating others? Are we overcontrolling others? Are we being perfectionistic or compulsive with ourselves or others? Are we attempting to win acceptance by playing the martyr or the victim role in relationships? Are we compulsively rescuing or enabling others? All of these are trigger questions to help us assess whether we are using bogus means to meet our needs.

4)What is our relationship with out own boundaries and with the boundaries of others? It is very important to know we can set appropriate interpersonal boundaries that are neither too rigid nor too fragile. Can we keep people out as we need to? Can we allow people in as we need to? Are we capable of saying yes to other persons and are we capable of saying no as necessary? Also, do we respect the boundaries of others? Do we hear and honor the yeses and noes they give us regarding their boundaries?

5) If we are aware of violating our own boundaries or the boundaries of others, are we able to reestablish new, proper boundaries? Are we able to make amends to those who have been harmed by our violation of their boundaries?

6) Do we admit our wrongs promptly? Unless we admit them promptly, we will store these wrongs which can be rationalized into “wrongs against us.” They may then become resentments which sabotage our recovery.”

from "The Wounded Heart" by Dan Allender

Quote From The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse by Dan Allender

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The abuser-surrogate is usually the person who offers the abuse victim the most intimate relationship in principle or actuality. It will be the relationship where all the past damage and self-protection is intensely played out. It seems that a spouse is most often the abuser-surrogate. In the marriage relationship intimacy, trust, and sexuality are set against the issues of powerlessness, betrayal, and ambivalence. As stated before, the abuse victim usually will have chosen a relationship with a man who is dead to intimacy, untrustworthy, divorced from passion or a user of passion. The marriage of an abuse victim is usually dull and stable or painful and chaotic. It is not unusual for a marriage to swing between the two ends like a ride on a roller coaster… Some women are married to hard, angry, cold, but somewhat open men. Others are enmeshed with extremely closed and self-centered men, or worse with men who are evil, cold-hearted, and potentially violent…. If a husband will not pursue counseling with his wife, the woman can still benefit from a counselor who will help her explore what it means to love a man who will not involve himself in the process of change.

What are the basics of loving the abuser-surrogate? The process includes building consistent boundaries, deepening intimacy, leaning to sorrow and rejoice, and persevering in faith toward God’s redemption of one’s spouse as a person clothed in dignity and strength…

If the relationship deepens through honesty, travail, and repentance, it is unlikely the spouse will be used as a surrogate. However, when new boundaries and pursuit of depth in relationship result in irreconciled division, the victim will find it even more of a battle to boldly love her spouse who, in turning against her has become a capital-A abuser.

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