Taken from 'Captivating'
To do any sort of justice to a book for women would require me to go deeper, listen even more carefully, study, delve into the mystery (okay – bloody mess) of a woman’s soul. Part of me just didn’t want to go there. I had what felt like an allergic reaction. Pull back. Withdraw.
I was keenly aware of this going on inside me, and I felt like a jerk. But I also knew enough about myself and about the battle for a woman’s heart that I needed to explore this ambivalence. What is this thing in me – and most men – that just doesn’t want to go deep into a woman’s world?
You are too much. Too hard. It’s too much work. Men are simpler. Easier. And isn’t that just the message you’ve lived with all your life as a woman? “you’re too much, and not enough. You’re just not worth the effort.” (And why is it such an effort? There must be something wrong with you.”
Now part of a man’s fundamental reluctance to truly dive into the world of a woman comes from a man’s deepest fear, failure… He fears that having delved into his woman’s world, he won’t have what it takes to help her there. That is his sin. That is his cowardice. And because of her shame, most of the time a man gets away with it…
The effect is that most women feel alone.
Some of this is simply selfishness on the part of men. Lord knows men are selfish and self-centred. When Eve was first assaulted, Adam didn’t do jack squat. Men sin through violence and through passivity. It’s that plain and simple… and ugly.
But there is something else. There is something even more diabolical at work here…
Now, you must understand that each of these women have deep and meaningful relationships in their lives. I knew that if they feel alone, my God – what must every other woman feel as well? And this strong message of back off – if we feel that after years of fighting for them, what must all the other guys out there feel? I bet they haven’t ever identified it, or put words to it, but I’ll guarantee they’ve felt it… and probably just thought it was what they, or their woman, or both of them wanted…
Oh but you are alone. This is the way of the Evil One toward you. He plays upon a woman’s worst fear: Abandonment. He arranges for her to be abandoned, and he puts his spin on every event he can to make it seem like abandonment.
"I called,You answered
And you came to my rescue and I
Wanna be where You are...""
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be 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 carefully 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 alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." CS Lewis, The Four Loves
Like he would say, Well Said.
