Excerpts from a beautiful book

For those who are interested, here are some excerpts from John Eldredge's book Captivating, as previously discussed in my post Beautiful.

"Beauty is the essence of a woman. We want to be perfectly clear that we mean both a physical beauty and a soulful/spiritual beauty. The one depends upon and flows out of the other. Yes, the world cheapens and prostitutes beauty, making it all about a perfect figure few women can attain. But Christians minimize it too, or overspiritualize it, making it all about 'character.' We must recover the prize of Beauty. The church must take it back. Beauty is too vital to lose." (p. 36)

"Every woman has a beauty to unveil.
Every women.
Because she bears the image of God. She doesn't have to conjure it, go get it from a salon, have plastic surgery or breat implants. No, beauty is an essence that is given to every woman at her creation." (p. 42)

"...it is God who longs for Romance; it is God who longs to be our ezer [treasure]; it is God who reveals beauty essential to life. You are the image bearer of this God. That is why you long for those things too. There is a radiance hidden in your heart that the world desperatly needs." (p. 42)

"Finally, most women doubt very much that they have any genuine beauty to unveil. It is, in fact, our deepest doubt. When it comes to the issues surrounding beauty, we vacillate between striving and resignation. New diets, new outfits, new hair color. Work out; work on your life; try this new discipline or that new program for self-improvement. Oh, forget it. Who cares anyway? Put up a shield and get on with life. Hide. Hide in busyness; hide in church activities; hide in depression. There is nothing captivating about me. Certainly not inside me. I'll be lucky to pull it off on the outside." (p. 45)

"Controlling women are 'the sortof women' C.S. Lewis said, 'who live for others. You can tell the others by their hunted expression.'
Controlling women tend to be very well rewarded in this fallen world of ours. We are the ones to receive corporate promotions. We are the ones put in charge of our women's ministries. Can-Do, Bottom-Line, Get-It-Done kinds of women. Women who have never even considered that our Martha Stewart perfectionism might not be a virtue. We have never considered that by living a controlling and domineering life, we are really refusing to trust our God. And it had also never dawned on us that something precious in us is lost. Something the world needs very much from us." (p. 53)

"We need not be ashamed that our hearts ache; that we need and thirst and hungar for much more. All of our hearts ache. All of our hearts are at some level unsatisfied and longing. It is our insatiable need for more that drives us to our God. What we need to see is that all our controlling and our hiding, all our indulging, actually serves to separate us from our hearts. We lose touch with those longings that make us women. And the substitutes never, ever resolve the deeper issue of our souls." (p. 58)



Now reading back over these excerpts, I want to make clear that I DO NOT believe there is anything wrong with being an active woman in the church. I do, however, caution you not to hide, or push aside, or coverup, or ignore your beauty by staying busy. There are certain qualities that God graced women with-- qualities of nurturing and compassion for example-- that are needed in the church. This concept of beauty is important to get ahold of to bring out the genuine qualities God has gifted you with.