It starts with you

“A woman in her glory, a woman of beauty, is a woman who is not striving to become beautiful or worthy or enough. She knows in her quiet center where God dwells that he finds her beautiful, has deemed her worthy, and in him, she is enough.”

Captivating

I have struggled with this for years. The first time I read the book, and even the second time, I don’t even think the depth of this particular passage sank in. Correction- I know it didn’t. For many years I think I took the book at a very basic level, it was meant to tell me HOW to be captivating. It was a book I read to give me advice on how to be liked, and loved, and desired. So you can imagine my frustration after many years of coveting this book, I still did not feel the part. The part of a beautiful woman that is.

It took a lot of failed tries and taking some hard looks at myself to really figure out what the message really was. About finding your identity in Christ. About letting HIM mold you into the woman you were meant to be. And most importantly about learning to love yourself, scars and all. That those scars are part of what made me beautiful.

I won’t say that this is a lesson that I have only had to learn once. I am human, and I let the world and people lie to me and make me feel like less of a person than I am. I’ve felt like this a lot over the weekend as a matter of fact. When you are on an honest journey to be open and vulnerable and to allow people to see you, all of you… well, that is usually when you feel the most attacked. It is so scary to be stripped and naked and to just stand in the open and say “Here I am! See me, all of me!” and hope that no one will take advantage. It is a legitimate fear. After all, we unintentionally take advantage of people all the time. So that opens up the bigger questions… who do you trust? Or more importantly, how much of you do you give to others?

“There is an emotional promiscuity we’ve noticed among many good young men and women. The young man understands something of the journey of the heart. He wants to talk, to “share the journey.” The woman is grateful to be pursued, she opens up. They share the intimacies of their lives - their wounds, their walks with God. But he never commits. He enjoys her... then leaves. And she wonders, what did I do wrong? She failed to see his passivity. He really did not ever commit or offer assurances that he would. Like Willoughby to Marianne in Sense and Sensibility.”

You all have read my writing about this before. Maybe it hasn't been this in depth but this is truthfully a big issue. It is so easy to have a false sense of security in a person, especially when you open up or they open up to you. So what part does this play in being vulnerable with people? I guess for me specifically it has been about finding a balance, which I am terrible at most of the time. Here is what I am learning though- is it terrifying to put your heart in someone’s hand, whether it is a platonic relationship or something more? Yes, absolutely. It gives them a certain power, or we FEEL it gives them a certain power. Yet, I believe that C.S. Lewis said it best:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung 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”

The thing that I constantly remind myself is that people only hold power over you when you LET them. Have I been hurt by this in very thing in the past? Yes. Several times. But did I hold some blame for it? Absolutely. Why? Because at some point in the process I forgot that God found me beautiful deemed me worthy and I began seeking out my worth in a person instead of simply being vulnerable and living because that is what we are called to do. And at the end of the day, people will always fail you, even if it is unintentional.

“We think you'll find that every woman in her heart of hearts longs for three things: to be romanced, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, and to unveil beauty. That's what makes a woman come alive.”

The biggest lesson I have learned this year is that your story starts with you. Not someone else. We all want a partner to go along with us and support us on our journey. I want that. It doesn’t mean that your life holds still until that time. It’s the opposite. In order to really attract what you want, you have to be living that life already.

People are not going to fix your problems. They are not always going to make you feel loved and beautiful and sometimes they will not provide you the support you need. After all, to err is human.

That is why it is so important to know what you are living for and do just that. Live.