Image by Melissa Clayton
Song of Songs 3 (whole chapter)
If only you knew how much this chapter meant to me. In the days before, I have talked about nourishment for our hearts. This is one of those things where I can get spiritual nourishment from. When at Franciscan, I joined a household; which is a group of women or men that gather together with same interests regarding their spirituality. The one I joined is called Love of the Lamb. Each household, has a covenant and a song that they sing and is dedicated to their household. My household song is based after this chapter. So when I start reading it, it brings me to a place that is so dear, where so many memories and hard times were made, this I know is something you will all be able to relate to. So hold onto that and read on.
On my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves—I sought him but I did not find him. “Let me rise then and go about the city, through the streets and squares; Let me seek him whom my soul loves.” I sought him but I did not find him. The watchmen found me, as they made their rounds in the city: “Him whom my soul loves—have you seen him?”
We, as women, seek to be loved. We, as women, are constantly searching for not only to be loved physically, but spirtually as well. We seek out love in the Cinderella movies. We seek him in the smallest amounts of affection; yet, this is not where we find this love.
Hardly had I left them when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him and would not let him go until I had brought him to my mother’s house, to the chamber of her who conceived me.
Sure, you can find ‘love’ in the smile on someone’s face or the small hug you just received as we run around in our lives holding onto our memories of love and future memories to be had. But as we circle around and go crazy looking for the love of the Lord and the love of others in all the wrong places (cue the song), we have to go running back to who created us in his image and likeness; and love like Him. And love him for that.
You see, even when we are emotionally or spiritually attacked, even when we think we found love but haven't, even when we are lost: it is in those dark places that when we find the Love that we are being provided. It is in those dark places that we find joy, that we can finally commit ourselves to the Lord. It is in those places we can commit to the Lord and go to battle defending Him and loving him. We not alone are armed with knowledge of the Lord’s love, but we are also armed with a shield and sword to defend those that are falsely showing us love. In the advertisements that tell us what love is, in the guy winking at you as he walks by, in the flirty guy at the grocery store- this is where we have to put up our defenses, pull out the sword and shield and show what real love is. The real love that the Lord shows us on adaily basis. That love is our ammunition. That love is worth fighting for, and that love is worth keeping the memories for.
