Solomon’s Song for this Sunday (2)

With Valentine’s Day around the corner I thought I would take a couple days to muse on the Song that is Solomon’s. Yesterday I looked at two questions for husbands: Do you gush over your wife? And, do you pursue your wife? Today, two questions for the ladies.

For the Wife

Question 1: Do you desire your husband’s desire? Yes, women, I am talking about sexual desire, because that’s what Song of Solomon is talking about. She was so eager for “him whom my soul loves” that she started traipsing through the city looking for him, or at least had a dream that she was (3:1ff). Her desire for her man revved her chariot engines (6:12).

“But I can’t just turn on a desire like this,” you might say. True, but it was almost surely turned on once upon a time. So what will help turn the ignition again?

Marriages go through different seasons. We shouldn’t expect the years with three children under the age of three to be like second honeymoon. But if the husband said, “Eh, I don’t find my wife attractive any more; I don’t really think she is “most beautiful among women” we’d tell that chump to check his eyes and figure out a way turn the ship around. So shouldn’t we challenge women in the same way? Husbands should think their wives are beautiful, and wives should think their husbands desirable. It’s time to catch the little foxes spoiling the vineyard of desire (2:15).

And here’s a hint for the guys who want to help with catch: the little foxes are probably related to you, cry a lot, go stanky in their pants, and cling like barnacles to your wife’s leg. Get a sitter.

Question 2: Does your husband know of your desire? “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am sick with love” (5:8). Jiminy Cricket! Guys, can you imagine the ladies at church approaching you at the nursery station, “Your wife is waiting for you in the car and she wanted us to pass along that she is sick with love for you.” You would be out the door faster than a Baptist benediction. Dear wives, I don’t know a single husband who wouldn’t be absolutely thrilled to get a message like this. And if you don’t trust your gossipy girlfriends to deliver it, an email from you to his work account at around 4pm will more than suffice. He won’t be late for dinner.

But perhaps, ladies, you fear that your husband will expect the world if you ever spoke to him like this. That’s possible, but I doubt it because you just gave him the world. You expression of desire means more than you can possibly know. Five carefully chosen verses from Song of Solomon will keep your man galloping for a week.

One last thought for husbands and wives: don’t be afraid to say more than you may even be feeling. I know that sound ghastly, like forced romantic hypocrisy. But why do we always assume that it has to be wrong to say what we may not exactly be feeling? Maybe the problem is in the other direction, that we don’t feel enough of what we are saying. If so, the antidote isn’t to stop saying romantic things. In fact, maybe you’ve stopped feeling certain things because it’s been too long since you’ve said them. It’s ok sometimes to speak better than we feel. Share your attraction and share your desire. Say it loud and proud. Your spouse’s heart will skip a beat, and yours might just run ahead to catch up with your mouth.