Becoming Myself: Embracing God’s Dream of You

Stasi Eldredge (David C Cook)

Stasi Eldredge has felt like a failure many times—in her past, in her struggles with weight, in her role as a mother. And she’s not alone. She believes many women feel like a failure in at least some area of life.

But she now understands that while she may fail, she isn’t a failure. This freeing revelation is rooted in a biblical understanding of her identity and of God’s love for her. In Becoming Myself: Embracing God’s Dream of You, Eldredge guides women to become who God always wanted them to be.

The best-selling author, who teamed up with husband John to write the best-seller Captivating, is also leader of the women’s ministry of Ransomed Heart. In Becoming Myself, she shares personal stories of pain and joy—her mother’s pressure on her to lose weight, mistakes she made in relationships, abuse she suffered from a stranger. With a personal touch, she addresses the reader as “my sister,” as though counseling a friend.

With God’s help, people can truly change, Eldredge says, but it’s not a matter of shaming or disciplining ourselves into it. Rather, it’s a process God invites us into, one that requires time and surrender but results in a “beautiful paradox.”

“The more God’s we become,” Eldredge writes, “the more ourselves we become—the ‘self’ he had in mind when he thought of you before the creation of the world.”

Eldredge emphasizes the importance of honestly reflecting on the past in order to heal and move forward.  

Her own past included tension and alcohol in her childhood home, plus the pressure to be athletic. She writes that at her core she felt “the tangible ache of wanting to be accepted, approved of, and enjoyed.”

Healing, Eldredge says, begins with understanding God’s view of women. Though the world often despises women, the truth is that they are image-bearers of God and co-heirs with Christ, “valued, worthy, powerful, and needed.”

Throughout the book, Eldredge repeats, “Love is always the highest goal”—meaning a love of God, of others and of “the woman God has created us to be.”