(Photo courtesy of Ransomed Heart Ministries)
Cultivating Romance With God
Author Stasi Eldedge Shares on Her Latest Book Releases
By Sarah Komisky
Every girl wants to be romanced. We want the white horse, prince charming, and a happily ever after too. But when life’s disappoints and hurts hit us, we wonder if romance exists beyond the pages of a storybook. Author Stasi Eldredge assures us it can. Dubbing God, “The Ageless Romancer,” she shares with women the truth that God desires to sweep us off our feet and call us into the greatest romance we will ever know.
The wife of author John Eldredge, who penned “Wild at Heart,” Stasi wrote the female counterpart entitled “Captivating.” Her installment helped many unlock the mystery of the feminine soul and a life transformed with God as our Romancer. Together, they created the ministry Ransomed Heart.
“The message is that you have a heart. That you were created in his image and that you were created either masculine or feminine, where gender is the core of the soul, and he wants you to walk intimately with Him,” Stasi says.
For Stasi, that all began when she fell in love. She shares, “I loved Jesus and I was serious about following Him, but I didn’t really understand how loved I was by Him. It was in the mid-nineties when I came across the word “beloved.” I thought it was a term that you only used in weddings but I had no idea what it meant and that we are called that by our Father — we are His beloved, we are Jesus’ beloved, and that means cherished, dearly loved, chosen. And then I began to ask God what He thought of me and I remember the night when He first told me, and it was like, ‘What? You love me?’ And the romance with God, that He was pursuing me, that He loved me in my day to day, in my moment to moment, transformed my Christianity from one of duty to one of a love affair with Him. And that was a matter of my heart: that He cares about my actions but what He wants is for me to love Him with my whole heart.”
Beginning as a ministry primarily for men, the wives of these men began to ask for a counterpart ministry. As she began to go further with God, a women’s retreat entitled “Ransomed Femininity” was held in 2002 and “Captivating” was born.
Wanting others to experience the romance with God she has personally, Eldredge encourages readers to begin taking those steps towards romance. They begin in asking Jesus to open up our eyes to recognize the ways He is speaking to us.
“One of the most beautiful things that I’ve learned is the things that we love, the things that take our breathe away, for all of us it’s all a form of beauty. It might be a song on the radio that moves us to tears, or a deep conversation, or running really fast, or hiking in the woods or walking on fresh lawn grass in the snow or baked bread. There’s a thousand things that we actually love, but they are personal to us. They are unique. Some of them we share but many we don’t. And the things that take our breathe away are actually love notes sent to woo our heart to God, who I love naming as the ‘Ageless Romancer,’ because the things that move our hearts are all His idea: like falling stars or the smell of moss. He created it all for our pleasure and delight and to let us know more of who He is,” Stasi says.
Eldredge assures readers that this revelation is key, not only because it will bring us closer to God, but it will also assure us that everything God says in Scripture is true and personal for us. Additionally, she encourages women to embrace the “irreplaceable role” God has given them and to take the risk of offering their femininity to others.
“It takes wisdom, because everybody has been hurt and so we self-protect. We don’t live in a world that we were created for, we’re living people who are on their way: unbelievers, sinners, and even other Christians, with intention or without. As we get older and as Jesus increasingly comes, He’s the healer and He wants to come for the places that we are wounded, hurt, and bring His ministry, His healing,” Stasi shares.
She continues, “We want to walk with Him into the places where He’s inviting us to be true. To actually offer our strength. To say what we think. To step in by risking and speaking up in the meeting [at work], or offering to one another the truth of who they really are in Christ. And it really does take wisdom … But God makes it clear that if we live a life of hiding ourselves and self-protecting, then we are actually not loving people.”
Eldredge acknowledges the pain and hurt we as women face, including the horrible statistics of abuse: one in every four women will be domestically abused in their lifetime. Stasi, who has experienced her own hurts in life, calls women to begin to ask God to tell them the truth of who He is and actively pursue their healing.
“The truth is that He is love. He loves. He has and always will, and there is nothing you can ever do to get out of His love. So another really key thing is to just to sing it out loud: you are a good Father. You love me. To proclaim the truth. To memorize Scripture. To tuck it into your heart and ponder it. To say it out loud. To write it down. To peel back confusion. To really do the hard work of setting your mind on what’s the truth, and that’s fixing your gaze on Jesus. We grow in that through our lives, but it is essential to not look at our circumstances, or our stories, or our histories, or other people but to look at Him. And the truth is that the Father has displayed His character once and for all at the cross,” Stasi shares.
As we begin to heal from the hurts of the world, God desires us to step out into our irreplaceable roles and be used for Him — not simply standing on the sidelines of life. In turn, when we desire to leave a mark for good on the world, we reflect God’s heart.
Stasi explains, “Whatever it is, you’re meant to do [it]. Because there’s no one in the world now or ever that is you. And every woman is here for a reason, for a purpose. And we’re meant to discover it. Let our life guide us, let the Lord guide us, and our desires guide us and step into that and partner with Jesus and offer that.”
In her second book, “Becoming Myself,” she shares more on the topic of allowing God to love you, saying, “I think one of the good things about the goodness of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us is that He wants to show us that He made us on purpose. We’re not alone in that we feel like we’re different or that we feel like we don’t fit it. But for Him to show us that, ‘I actually like you. I like your sense of humor. You have a certain taste in clothes. You have a quirkiness that is all your own.’ And to say: I am who I am, and yes I want to change and grow and live in holiness but I actually have a favorite color. There is actually an ice cream that I do like, I prefer historical fiction. You’re meant to be you, and you’re made to be you on purpose and it really ties into your irreplaceable role, because you can’t offer if you’re not yourself, you have to be you.”
She continues, “When you feel like you’re just a disappointment to Him, or a failure, or you’re feeling like He just rejects you, it doesn’t really draw your heart to Him. But when you come to know that God is not disappointed. In fact, He already knows, so it’s not like a shock that we’re struggling in the ways we do and we’re not taking Him by surprise. He wants to help us and He’s already made arrangements for us not to stay that way, and we are being transformed into the very image of Christ, but we are not cookie cutters. We have a unique way that we display him because God is a multifaceted God, and he needs all of us to display Himself.”
Read Stasi’s blog, listen to podcasts, get a copy of her books (including her latest for young women, “Free to Be Me”), and find out more about Ransomed Heart Ministries at:
MARKED MINISTRY 