Captivating

Today we met with Isaac's surgeon Dr. Tolo and he took one look at Isaac amazed at the progress he has made.  Isaac's able to walk a short distance with no aid what-so-ever and can get around really well with the help of his walker.  He no longer has to wear the brace on his back and he doesn't need to use the wheelchair at school anymore.  So it was a great day of good news and reflecting on how far we have come in just 4 months.  

Over the last two months I haven't worked but have stayed home and taken care of Isaac as he gotten ready to come home from the hospital, got home, went back to school, and adjusted to his new life (which is very different physically from his previous one).  Lets face fact, I wasn't created to be a stay at home mom.  I get bored and then can't wait to get back to the grind.  But being home with Isaac these last two months I have watched in awe as he has rolled with the punches and gotten back up each time he's fallen down. 

Isaac's biggest dream is to be in the military.  It's all he wants, all he talks about.  He wants to go to a military boarding school as soon as he's old enough, and he wants to be a "Military Doctor".  It breaks my heart, because I wonder if the Military would take him, could he pass the physical with a 70 degree curve of the spine and a left foot that won't always do what he tells it too?  I don't know and all I can do is pray that no matter what condition he's in physically when he's older that he never gives up on his dreams.  

Watching Isaac has been an inspiration.  He doesn't let the little things shake him and there isn't a day that goes by that he doesn't force me to examine my own life.  Which brings me to my next topic.  

When I find myself in a contemplative mood I tend to go to the book shelf and pull out the book "Captivating" by John & Stasi Eldredge.  It's the one book (besides Harry Potter) that I can read over and over again and pull out new things each time.  It's the book I read to heal my soul and get back on track when I feel that I'm going in the wrong direction.  

I've felt this way for a few weeks now.  I feel like I've allowed aspects of my life to get off course.  To waiver from where they were meant to be.  So I have once again begun to dive into a book that has helped me sort through so many of my past issues as a woman.  

I have begun to ask myself some questions that I've never asked myself before.  Like, "what does it mean to be a woman?  When did I become a woman?  When I got my period for the first time, or graduate high school, college, grad school... when I got my first apartment in California, when I fill out my adoption paper work, when I held Isaac in my arms for the first time... when, when did it happen?  When did I become the woman I am?  The woman I will be for the rest of my life, when did this happen?

To be honest I'm proud of the woman I have become.  I was raised by the best, the female gender has to offer.  She taught me how to be a mother, how to sacrifice anything for your children.  How to be independent yet vulnerable and needy at the same time.  

Anais Nin once said, "Then the time came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful that the risk it took to bloom." 

When did I bloom?  And does it really matter when it happen or more that it did happen?  That I can look at myself in the mirror and see a woman who is striving to be the very best woman possible.  

Anyone that knows me will tell you that I like to talk, I guess you would say that I think out loud and often say things before I've thought them through, but often that's what I need to do in order to figure things out.  I have to put them out there in the world and pray they are accepted and not pushed away.  

I have found that like many women I compare myself to the women around me.  Much like men in a locker room women look around and see where they fall short and don't measure up. Because of this I often have a nagging sense that I'm failing to measure up.  Not being good enough as a woman.  

This is what society has put in my head and so many others.  Lets face it if I did measure up I wouldn't be raising my son on my own, or my husband wouldn't have walked out on me, or I'd be able to juggle my kids, hold down a full time job and have an amazing well toned body at the same time.  Right?????  It's the thought that "I am not enough, and, I am too much".

When did we begin to feel this way?  In an age when women can do more and go further than ever before, why is it that my generation of women have a feeling of failure?  

Why do our days seem so unimportant, filled not with romance and adventure but with duties and demands?  We as women feel unseen, even by those who are closest to us.  We feel unsought--that no one has the passion or the courage to pursue us, to get past our messiness to find the woman deep inside.  And we feel uncertain--uncertain what it even means to be a woman; uncertain what it truly means to be feminine; uncertain if we are or ever will be.

Unseen, unsought, and uncertain, three things that I feel on a daily basis, as I suspect many woman do.  So how do you break the cycle?  I believe it all comes down to the "Heart of a woman".  

It's our hearts.  The scripture tells us the heart is most important.  "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." (Prov. 4:23).  And yet for me and so many others it's the first thing we give away.

We find a man who makes us laugh and we connect to and we offer up our most treasured possession without him even asking for it.  We as women so long to be found captivating by a man that we are willing to give the most precious thing to anyone who will give us the time of day.  I've made this mistake, and I want to change.  I don't want to be this woman anymore.  

So for tonight I'll leave you with this...

"I believe 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."  

I know it does for me and over my next few post I want to dive into all this.  The first step is admitting you have a problem and facing it head on.  So here I go...

"I will find you.  No matter how long it takes, no matter how far---I will find you." -Nathaniel to Cora in "The Last of the Mohicans"