"Captivating" by John and Stasi Eldredge

I picked up this book at CAJ's Thrift Shop in October. My husband had a negative response to the author's "Wild at Heart" aimed at men. But this is the one for women (and John Eldredge wrote it with his wife) and I was intrigued.

My reaction is a bit mixed. But here are some good things I've taken away from it:

The authors contend that Creation moved towards a great crescendo. That God moved to greater and greater creations. But after man was made, God wasn't happy. Something was missing and that something was woman. The authors call woman "God's final touch, his piece de resistance" (sorry, cannot figure out how to put the proper bits on top of that). We women can therefore say to ourselves, "The whole, vast world is incomplete without me. Creation reached its zenith in me." p25 Quite a thought!

Women tell us some things about the character of God. 

• He is relational, he has a heart for romance.
• He longs to share adventures with us.
• He has a beauty to unveil. Nature is primarily beautiful, not functional.

They have some good things to say about beauty, that it is powerful for the following reasons (and there are more in the book):

• Beauty is powerful, that is why we are drawn strongly to nature, to art, etc. Of course sin has perverted this and we're also drawn to beauty that is only skin deep in people. But God's intention is that beauty in a woman is much more about her soul than about her face.
• Beauty comforts. That's why we give flowers at times of illness and death.
• Beauty nourishes. That's why when, after living for months in Tokyo, I finally get out and go camping, for example, I feel like my soul is being fed.
• Beauty invites. That's why we listen to a great piece of music again and again. Or why we get stuck in a captivating book or long to go back to see that sight again.
• Beauty has caused so much pain in this world, but it was intended for good. And women are intended to be a part of that in God's plan. To bring beauty into the world. That's why we're the ones who make a home out of a house, we bring relationship and beauty into it.
• Beauty is primarily soulful. It flows from a heart at rest, a heart that isn't trying to hide, that isn't cowered by the fear of being rejected. A woman of beauty knows in her heart that God finds her beautiful, that she is enough.

The authors claim that Satan has a special hatred for women. Ezekiel 28:12-14 indicate that Satan was beautiful before he fell. In fact it was his ruin. He became prideful about his beauty. Therefore his mission is to attack beauty in the natural world (don't we see that in all the natural and not-so-natural disasters all over the world) and in women. So he attacks us in many ways, physically, emotionally, relationally, etc. This was definitely a new thought to me, but it seems to make sense.

Another thing the book helped me with is understanding other people. They explained that men's essence is Strength, a soul strength, and that is what we as women long for from men. We long for them to use their strength to rescue us, to intervene for us, to 'go in to bat' for us. This explained a lot for me. So often at home when I get into battles or have challenges with the boys, I so long for David to rescue me, to take this situation and deal with it for me. 

They also say this, "The scariest thing for a man is to offer his strength in situations where he doesn't know if it will make any difference. Or worse, that he will fail."p140 I think I've seen this. It is good to know, as a wife and mum of three boys.

On the other side of the coin, "The scariest thing for women is to offer our beauty into situations where we don't know if it will make any difference. Or worse, that we will be rejected."p140-1

I learnt too that women often deal with hurt in their lives by being either dominant "I don't need anyone" or desolated "Shut down" or a strange mixture of the two. That helps explains some people who've disappointed me in my life.

The main thing I didn't like about the book was the assumption that everyone has been badly emotionally wounded (intentionally or unintentionally) in their childhood. I don't think I fit that category and hence there were things I struggled to relate to well.

There are other things I could say about the book, but this has already rambled on for too long. For those of you who've read it, I'm interested to hear your feelings about the book.