Am I Lovely?

"Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself." -Hermann Hesse

 

Every woman knows now that she is not what she was meant to be. And she fears that soon it will be known - if it hasn't already been discovered - and that she will be abandoned. Left alone to die a death of the heart. That is a woman's worst fear - abandonment. (Isn't it?). Rather than turning back to God, reversing the posture that brought about our crisis in the first place (what Eve set in motion and we have repeated ad nauseum), we continue down that path by doing what we can to secure ourselves in a dangerous and unpredictable world.

And down in the depths of our hearts, our Question remains. Unanswered. Or better, it remains answered in the way it was answered so badly in our youth. "Am I lovely? Do you see me? Do you want to see? Are you captivated by what you find in me?" We live haunted by that Question, yet unaware that it still needs an answer.

When we were young, we knew nothing about Eve and what she did and how it affected us all. We do not first bring our heart's Question to God and too often, before we can, we are given answers in a very painful way. We are wounded into believing certain things about ourselves. And so every woman comes into the world set up for a terrible heartbreak.

(Captivating, 58-59)