Kate > Kate's Quotes

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“We desire to possess a beauty that is worth pursuing, worth fighting for, a beauty that is core to who we truly are. We want beauty that can be seen; beauty that can be felt; beauty that affects others; a beauty all our own to unveil.”
― Stasi Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“The vast desire and capacity a woman has for intimate relationships tells us of God's vast desire and capacity for intimate relationships. In fact, this may be The most important thing we ever learn about God--the He yearns for relationship with us. "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God" (John 17:3). The whole story of the Bible is a love story between God and His people. He yearns for us. He cares. He has a tender heart.”
― Stasi Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“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. (C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves)”
― John Eldredge, Captivating Revised and Updated: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Grief is a form of validation; it says the wound mattered. It mattered. You mattered. That’s not the way life was supposed to go.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Because she bears the image of God. She doesn’t have to conjure it, go get it from a salon, have plastic surgery or breast implants. No, beauty is an essence that is given to every woman at her creation.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating Revised and Updated: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Made in the image of a perfect relationship, we are relational to the core of our beings and filled with a desire for transcendent purpose. We long to be an irreplaceable part of a shared adventure.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating Revised and Updated: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“the reason there are so many struggling women is because there were so many wounded girls.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Just like God, a woman is not a problem to be solved but a vast wonder to be enjoyed. This is so true of her sexuality. Few women can or even want to “just do it.” Foreplay is crucial to her heart, the whispering and loving and exploring of one another that culminates in intercourse. That is a picture of what it means to love her soul. She yearns to be known and that takes time and intimacy. It requires an unveiling. As she is sought after, she reveals more of her beauty. As she unveils her beauty, she draws us to know her more deeply.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“A woman in her glory, a woman of beauty, is a woman who is not striving to become beautiful or worthy or enough.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Grief is a form of validation; it says the wound mattered. It mattered. You mattered.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“In the spacious love of God, our souls can lie down and rest. This love from him is not something we must struggle for, earn, or fear to lose. It is bestowed. He has bestowed it upon us. He has chosen us. And nothing can separate us from his love. Not even we, ourselves. We are made for such a love. Our hearts yearn to be loved intimately, personally, and yes, romantically. We are created to be the object of desire and affection of one who is totally and completely in love with us. And we are.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Your feminine heart has been created with the greatest of all possible dignities—as a reflection of God’s own heart.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Every song you love, every memory you cherish, every moment that has moved you to holy tears has been given to you from the One who has been pursuing you from your first breath in order to win your heart.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating Revised and Updated: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“The beauty of a woman is first a soulful beauty. And yes, as we live it out, own it, inhabit our beauty, we do become more lovely. More alluring. As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “Self flashes off frame and face.” Our true self becomes reflected in our appearance. But it flows from the inside”
― John Eldredge, Captivating Revised and Updated: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Prov. 4:23). Above all else. Why? Because God knows that our heart is core to who we are. It is the source of all our creativity, our courage, and our convictions. It is the fountainhead of our faith, our hope, and of course, our love. This “wellspring of life” within us is the very essence of our existence, the center of our being. Your heart as a woman is the most important thing about you.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Beauty speaks of heaven to come, when all shall be beautiful. It haunts us with eternity. Beauty says, There is a glory calling to you. And if there is a glory, there is a source of glory. What great goodness could have possibly created this? What generosity gave us this to behold? Beauty draws us to God.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“You might recall that the Scriptures use a number of metaphors to describe our relationship with God. We are portrayed as clay, and he is the potter. We are sheep, and he the shepherd. Each metaphor is beautiful and speaks to the various seasons of our spiritual lives and to the various aspects of God’s heart toward us. But have you noticed they ascend in a stunning way? From potter and his clay to a shepherd and his sheep, there is a marked difference in intimacy, in the way they relate. It gets even better. From master and servant to father and child, there is a wonderful progression into greater intimacy. It grows more beautiful and rich when he calls us his friends. But what is most breathtaking is when God says he is our Lover (our Bridegroom, our Fiancé), and we his bride. That is the pinnacle, the goal of our redemption (used in the last chapter of the Bible, when Christ returns for his bride) and the most intimate and romantic of all.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Forgiveness is a choice. It is not a feeling– don't try and feel forgiving. It is an act of the will. 'Don't wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving,' wrote Neil Anderson. 'You will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made.' We allow God to bring the hurt up from the past, for 'if your forgiveness doesn't visit the emotional core of your life, it will be incomplete,' said Anderson. We acknowledge that it hurt, that it mattered, and we choose to extend forgiveness to our fathers, our mothers, those who hurt us. This is not saying, 'It didn't really matter'; it is not saying, 'I probably deserved part of it anyway.' Forgiveness says, 'It was wrong. Very wrong. It mattered, hurt me deeply. And i release you. I give you to God.”
― Stasi Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“We don’t get to stay in hiding until we are whole; Jesus invites us to live as an inviting woman now, and find our healing along the way.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Adventure requires something of us, puts us to the test. Though we may fear the test, at the same time we yearn to be tested, to discover that we have what it takes.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Every story has a villain. Every story also has a hero. The Great Love Story the Scriptures are telling us about also reveals a Lover who longs for you. The story of your life is also the story of the long and passionate pursuit of your heart by the One who knows you best and loves you most.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“A woman who is striving invites others to strive. The message—sometimes implicit in her actions, sometimes explicit through her words—is, “Get your act together. Life is uncertain. There is no time for your heart here. Shape up. Get busy. That’s what is important.” She does not say, “All is well. All shall be well.” Her fear doesn’t allow it. She is withholding the very things her world needs.”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“God’s version of flowers and chocolates and candlelight dinners comes in the form of sunsets and falling stars, moonlight on lakes and cricket”
― John Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“In fact, this could be the most important thing we ever learn about God– that he yearns for relationship with us... We see him as strong and powerful, but not as needing us, vulnerable to us, yearning to be desired.”
― Stasi Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“The longing in the heart of a woman to share life together as a great adventure– that comes straight from God, who also longs for this. He does not want to be an option in our lives. He does not want to be an appendage, a tagalong. Neither does any woman. God is essential. He wants us to need him– desperately.”
― Stasi Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Your heart itself, as a woman, is an invitation. An invitation delivered in the most intimate and personalized way. Your Lover has written something on your heart. It is a call to find a life of Romance and to protect that love affair as your most precious treasure. A call to cultivate the beauty you hold inside, and to unveil your beauty on behalf of others. And it is a call to adventure, to become the ezer the world desperately needs you to be.”
― Stasi Eldredge , Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“His wife was a tiny woman who I can best describe as being very present. She was not a woman hiding, nor a woman afraid. She was a woman at rest, at home with herself and with all pistons firing. She was alive and beautiful.”
― Stasi Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“There is a song written on your heart and you must sing it. The world is waiting, needing what it is you have to offer. You must live the life you were born to live.”
― Stasi Eldredge, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

“Given the way creation unfolds, how it builds to ever higher and higher works of art, can there be any doubt that Eve is the crown of creation?”
― John Eldredge, Captivating Revised and Updated: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul