Captivating: Chapter Three

Chapter Three: Haunted by a Question

A Woman's Deepest Question:

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 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. 

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Every woman is haunted by Eve in the core of her being. She knows, if only when she passes a mirror, that she is not what she was meant to be. We are more keenly aware of our own shortcomings than anyone else. Remembering the glory that was once ours awakens my heart to an ache that has long gone unfulfilled. It's almost too much to hope for, too much to have lost.

Every little girl--and every little boy--is asking one fundamental question. But they are very different questions depending on whether you are a little boy or a little girl.

..Little girls want to know, Am I lovely? The twirling skirts, the dress up, the longing to be pretty and to be seen -- that is what that's all about. We are seeking an answer to our Question.

Nearly all a woman does in her adult life is fueled by her longing to be delighted in, her longing to be beautiful, to be irreplaceable, to have her Question answered, "Yes!".

Why does ths Question linger so? Why haven't we been able to find and rest in wonderful, personal answer for our own hearts?

--Captivating; John & Stasi Eldredge