book report part 2: "Captivating"

we all our wounded. we all deal with shame. in a section from "Captivating" by John & Stasi Eldredge, they discuss "wounded femininity".

As a result of the wounds we receive growing up, we come to believe that some part of us, maybe every part of us is marred. Shame enters in and makes its crippling home deep within our hearts. Shame is what makes us look away, so we avoid contact with strangers and friends. Shame is that feeling that haunts us, the sense that if someone really knew us, they would shake their heads in disgust and run away...

Others seem to master their lives, but shame grips our hearts and pins them down, ever ready to point out our failures and judge our worth. We are lacking. We know we are not all that we long to be, all that God longs for us to be, but instead of coming up for grace-filled air and asking God what he thinks of us, shame keeps us pinned down and gasping, believing that we deserve to suffocate...

Shame causes us to hide. We are afraid of being truly seen, and so we hide our truest selves and offer only what we believe is wanted...we are silent and do not say what we see or know when it is different from what others are saying, because we think we must be wrong...

Shame makes us feel very uncomfortable with our beauty. Women are beautiful, every single one of us. It is one of the glorious ways that we bear the image of God...

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.

...There is a One greater than your Enemy. One who has sought you out from the beginning of time. He has come to hear your broken heart and restore your feminine soul.

when i read that, i think of the song lyric, "Greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world". we have such tremendous power and hope through God.

i stumbled upon this song when i was looking for something else on youtube. i think the Lord showed it to me for a reason. it's called "Praise His Name". when we struggle with our wounds and shame we should look to the One who can help us through...we can "praise the hurt away".