Accidentally Studying Song of Solomon

I realized yesterday that I have been accidentally studying Song of Solomon for the last few weeks. I REALLY didn’t mean to.

First, Anne had me working on a bunch of Song of Solomon commentaries, books, and articles that Mike had used in some of his research. I’m still in the middle of a large bin full of them. (This project may never end. My only hope is that a higher-priority project will put this one on pause for a time.)

Because of what I am doing, I’ve had to read, skim, and even type large portions of the text of these resources. While I have not sat down with the intent of taking in any whole book or article, I have certainly absorbed a lot of what has been before my eyes this entire time.

Despite the wide variety of opinions and angles that these authors have taken on these texts, it is somehow all working together in my mind and really impacting me (in a variety of ways).

At first, I was slightly annoyed. Helping a friend plan her wedding (which I am actually delighted to do) and spending more than 30 hours each week staring at the Song of Solomon did not seem like ideal tasks for someone who was walking through very painful boy-related things. (Lest everyone jump to conclusions, these very painful boy-related things are not about Richard. No… please don’t try to figure out the private details of my and other people’s lives at this moment.) But God has certainly used the project to move my heart, on numerous occasions. Sometimes (read, often-times) this started from the place of intense pain and then moved into deep heart-impact. (Like I’ve mentioned before, God really knows how to use our pain.)

(Just a quick side note, this task has had its painfully awkward moments as well. Honestly, I’m not too squeamish around sex-talk… something that abounds in writings about the Song of Solomon. I won’t get into details about the one book, but I thought the thing was going to kill me. It should have been labeled with serious “Stay away!” warnings for single women. That’s all I have to say.)

And then we have the prayer room.

I did decide, a few weeks ago, to start going to Cassie Campbell’s worship with the word on my night off. I did it for the sake of my heart… and it has really paid off. She is currently doing Song of Solomon. This would be my one intentional step in the direction of Song of Solomon.

However, I have also accidentally stumbled across a lot of this book while watching the prayer room webstream. Just in the last few days, both non-NightWatch sets that I randomly chose to watch from the webstream ended up being Song of Solomon worship with the word sets. (These are from teams that I don’t usually see/hear.)

All of these prayer room sets, (Cassie’s and the two other teams’) have made me cry. A lot. And I have encountered the Lord pretty profoundly.

I don’t think I’ve ever accidentally studied a book before. In all truth, though, I am pretty sure it didn’t just happen. SOMEONE was being pretty intentional about pursuing my heart with all of this.

Beautiful

I had the honor of attending David and Kristen’s wedding on Friday.

Few weddings have impacted me as deeply as this one. Part of the impact is too personal to write about here. But there was one moment in particular that I really want to make note of.

Usually, at weddings, I watch the groom as his bride is coming down the aisle. I just love to see his expression–the ridiculously huge grin or the flood of tears.

I’ve known David for 5 years (a long time in IHOP time) and he is one of my absolute favorite people. So you would ESPECIALLY expect that I would be watching him watch Kristen come down the aisle towards him.

But I hardly even glanced at David in that moment. I did… I glanced. But there was something else that stole my attention.

I wonder if…

“I wonder if two people who are ‘only children’ can get married.”

My roommate was pondering out loud tonight. Obviously, this isn’t a question of the possibility of such a match, but of the compatibility. (This was provoked by the idea of the oldest child frequently marrying the … whatever child… and the like. They always tend leave the only child out of those first-middle-last observations. Sigh… always forgotten and alone.)

Little did she know, this was something I had thought a lot about. You can be sure, however, that she soon knew of my extensive contemplations concerning the matter.

I am an only child. This random life question has a lot of potential significance for my life.

INTJ Ready for Marriage

Those are not my words. “intj ready for marriage” is a recent search that somehow brought an inquiring individual to my blog. I have to admit that I am quite puzzled. I’m not so much thrown off by the fact that these words led someone here. I am, after all, an INTJ. And I have a whole category on marriage an celibacy.

But… seriously… what would lead a person to enter those words into a search engine?

Was it an INTJ who was ready for marriage that made the search? Was it, say, an ENFP who was looking for an INTJ to marry? (According to David Kiersey… that’s the ideal match. Sure, David, sure. I personally think that extroverts can be overwhelming and scarey. Some of them.) Was it an INTJ trying to get google to tell him whether he was ready for marriage or not? Perhaps he asked Jeeves? Was it someone who was about to propose to an INTJ and wanted to feel out the odds of getting a favorable response?

I don’t get it.

(For the record, I am an INTJ… but I’m like a whole relationship away from being “ready for marriage”… as marriage tends to involve marrying another person. Minor detail.)

Marriage as a Picture

And, at last, we have arrived at my third reason for choosing marriage over celibacy. (If you have not read the first two parts of this “series”, I recommend starting there. The first two posts can be found here and here.)

(Please note that this decision was not made without a great deal of consideration. I have a lot of respect for those who choose celibacy. But if we are completely honest about it… I would choose marriage. And these are my reasons.)

Throughout the Bible, God describes His relationship to us through the image of marriage. …

The Great Sanctifier

This is a continuation of the topic that I began yesterday (i.e. earlier today). Welcome to reason number two (by it’s order in being discussed, not necessarily by ranking) of why I would choose marriage over celibacy.

Allen Hood often speaks of marriage as the great sanctifier. One of my favorite messages that he gave was his discussion of growing through mistreatment. In this, he addressed the myth of enduring mistreatment with your spouse by your side to support you. He pointed to the reality that you will most likely endure mistreatment from your spouse far more than you will from any other person. They know your buttons, and they push them skillfully.

I am not an advocate of tormenting ourselves or pursuing pain for pain’s sake, but something in me longs for the painful refining fire of marriage.

I once had the delusion that I needed to attain to this certain level of perfection before I was ready for marriage. While I do believe that a reasonable degree of maturity is certainly a good idea before you dive into this HUGE, life-changing commitment, no one’s wedding vows are stated from the place of absolute perfection. No one. That means you… and your spouse.

I want to learn to love. I want to learn to love well. And this relationship that places you in sometimes uncomfortable proximity to this one who may frequently hurt and mistreat you is an excellent place to learn to love. A relationship where you are committed not to back out and you have to press through the challenges together. I really want to wholeheartedly give myself to choosing love and choosing to serve and prefer another in that way.

You can call it the part of me that loves a challenge. You can call it my desire to be more like Him and to continually grow. Whatever it is… I long for the challenges of marriage and the growth that they can produce.

Marriage or Celibacy?

The following discussion was provoked by Henri Nouwen’s Clowning In Rome. I strongly recommend reading this book… and re-reading it. I am so glad that I picked it back up again.

When I read the book in FITN (ages ago), I was also given a series of questions to reflect on as I read. One of them really stuck with me:

“If God would give you the grace for either celibacy or marriage, which would you choose and why?”

So… God is going to give you everything you need to walk out marriage or celibacy. You would have the strength you needed to persevere through the challenges of either. Which do you choose?

… 

In the last three years, the reasons for my answer have changed a great deal (the effects of maturing and all that), but the answer itself is still the same. I would choose marriage.

In order to spend a bit of time on each of my top three reasons, I am only going to talk about one of them tonight. So, first on my list of reasons why I would choose marriage…