Young Man
‘You are beautiful, my darling, beautiful beyond words. Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair falls in waves, like a flock of goats winding down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are as white as sheep, recently shorn and freshly washed. Your smile is flawless, each tooth matched with its twin. Your lips are like scarlet ribbon; your mouth is inviting. Your cheeks are like rosy pomegranates behind your veil. Your neck is as beautiful as the tower of David, jeweled with the shields of a thousand heroes. Your breasts are like two fawns, twin fawns of a gazelle grazing among the lilies. Before the dawn breezes blow and the night shadows flee, I will hurry to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. You are altogether beautiful, my darling, beautiful in every way. Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, come with me from Lebanon. Come down from Mount Amana, from the peaks of Senir and Hermon, where the lions have their dens and leopards live among the hills. You have captured my heart, my treasure, my bride. You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes, with a single jewel of your necklace. Your love delights me, my treasure, my bride. Your love is better than wine, your perfume more fragrant than spices. Your lips are as sweet as nectar, my bride. Honey and milk are under your tongue. Your clothes are scented like the cedars of Lebanon. You are my private garden, my treasure, my bride, a secluded spring, a hidden fountain. Your thighs shelter a paradise of pomegranates with rare spices— henna with nard, nard and saffron, fragrant calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, and every other lovely spice. You are a garden fountain, a well of fresh water streaming down from Lebanon’s mountains.
Young Woman
Awake, north wind! Rise up, south wind! Blow on my garden and spread its fragrance all around. Come into your garden, my love; taste its finest fruits.’ Song of Songs 4:1-16(NLT)
Maybe you’ve read through Song of Solomon 4 and thought, “You know, this sounds like a really beautiful thing, but I’m a messed-up person and this is a broken world, and it all seems pretty unrealistic.”
All of us have been wounded and hurt in some way. We’re all insecure, fearful, and broken. Maybe you are a husband thinking, “I’ve already blown it. I haven’t led my wife like Solomon, so that ship has already sailed.” Maybe you’re a wife thinking, “I don’t want to be unresponsive to my husband, but I don’t know how to make myself enjoy this.”
Human beings are so complex. When you factor in sin, trauma, insecurity, and anxiety, our brokenness becomes part of that complexity. We can begin to feel indecipherable, unfixable.
When I was growing up, one thing I couldn’t figure out was what was going on at church. Everybody seemed so happy, and I couldn’t figure out why.
Or if you just don’t understand this whole Christianity thing, you may get really confused about why people become emotional when it comes to the thought of God. What’s going on inside of them that thinking about some God up in heaven would make them weep?
So I want to clue you in because it’s something that I learned over time by God’s grace working in my life through the Christian message. What people are celebrating is that while we were at our worst, Jesus still loved us.
Intimacy is hard for broken people. We need Jesus. We need his help. But when you’ve gotten closer and closer to the incredible reality that God chose you, forgave you, and approved of you despite your sin, all because of Jesus Christ, that grace is satisfying and empowering, and it can be carried over into your marriage. It can be carried over in the way you respond to your spouse, confident and free because of Christ’s work in your life. It can be carried over in the way you forgive your spouse’s sins and overlook his or her imperfections, as a way of sharing what God has given you.
* Have you ever meditated on just how big it is that while you were at your worst, Jesus still loved you? How does this affect your relationship and sexual relationship with your spouse?
from The Mingling Of Souls by Matt Chandler