Captivating?? Yes I am!!

In my Christmas post, I mentioned how I got the book "Captivating" for Christmas from my prayer sister... Well, I've finished it!
I would like to encourage all my friends, but mostly my female friends that if you have NOT read this book, READ IT! It is so amazing!
As I was reading it, God was totally encouraging me on my road of healing, it was so awesome. While I was reading it, God was showing my phrases that I needed to write out and read to myself over and over again.
So I sat there reading, and writing... it was so good.
The passages that affected the most I've included here...

To live as an authentic, ransomed, and redeemed woman means to be real and present in this moment. If we continue to hide, much will be lost. We cannot have intimacy with God or anyone else if we stay hidden and offer only who we think we ought to be or what we believe is wanted. We cannont play the 'ezer' [helpmate] role we were meant to play if we remain bound by shame and fear, presenting only to the world the face we have learned is safe. You have only one life to live. It would be best to live your own.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wronged and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it careful round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable... The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers... of love is Hell." (C.S. Lewis "The Four Loves"

This last one was written from the author to all women, after I read it, God showed me that I need to write it out to me. So as I copied it out of the book, I changed all the "you"s to "I"s.

I am a woman. An image bearer of God. The Crown of Creation.I was chosen before time and space and I am wholly and deeply loved. I am sought after, pursued, romanced, the passionate desire of my Fiance, Jesus. I am dangerous in my beauty and my life-giving power.
And I am needed
As a woman who has been ransomed and redeemed, I can be strong and tender. I speak to the world of God's mercy, mystery, beauty, and His desire for intimate relationship. I am inviting; I can risk being vulnerable, offering the weight of my life as well as my need for more because I am safe in God's love. I labor with God to bring forth life - in creativity, in work, in others. My aching, awakened heart leads me to the feet of Jesus, where I wait on Him and wait for Him. The eyes of His heart are ever upon me. The King is captivated by MY beauty.
I am needed. I am needed to awaken to God more fully and to awaken to the desires of teh heart that He placed within me so that I will come alive to Him and to the role that is mine to play. Perhaps I am meant to be a concert musician or a teacher. Perhaps I am meant to be a neurologist or a horse trainer. Perhaps I am to be an activist for ecology, or the poor, or the aged, or the ill. I am certainly called to be a woman, wherever else He leads me.
And that is crucial, dear heart. Whatever my particular calling, I am meant to grace the world with my dance, to follow the lead of Jesus wherever He leads me. He will lead me first into Himself, and then, with Him, He will lead me into the world that He loves and needs me to love.
It is by Invitation.

(all these quotes can be found in the book "Captivating" by John and Staci Eldridge.)
PLEASE BUY THE BOOK, or if you don't buy it... BORROW it from someone...
(the reason why I say buy it is because EVERYONE should own it, and for those that own it, they usually don't want to loan it out :D)

Anyway. Women, be encouraged. God loves you.
and I do too!