My lover spoke and said to me,
"Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, and come with me.
See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
is heard in our land.
The fig tree forms its early fruit;
the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come, my darling;
my beautiful one, come with me."
Song of Solomon 2:10-13
I read this tonight, out loud to my husband. We were giggling over the apparent brazenness of Song of Solomon (I swear, we really are grown ups) and the many references to "gazelles" and "pillars" and "fruits", when this passage suddenly caught my attention and brought my giggle fits to a halt. It was one of those moments when the spaghetti noodles in my brain decided to connect, end to end making a perfect linear link, rather than the usual slippery disconnects and overlaps. I'll start at the beginning...., sort of.
Towards the end of last month I found out that I am fully recovered from the preeclampsia that plagued the last few days of my pregnancy and made me one very sick woman. This means that I officially do not have high blood pressure and, big bonus, I also don't have diabetes, which also plagued my last trimester. I no longer wake up with headaches, my hips don't feel like they are going to fall out of joint and I can walk five feet without huffing and puffing like a peeved elephant. This is all extremely good and very encouraging. There should be no down side, right? I should feel confident and ready to move forward...., and to a certain extent I do. Only......, two days ago, as Dustin and I were putting ornaments on Chuck (our special Charlie Brown tree), I was remembering that five months ago I was really looking forward to our Edyth getting to see her first tree. Her first Christmas. Throughout our pregnancy we knew that it was a possibility that she wouldn't be with us, but we hoped, as parents do, and now she is seeing it. Just not with us.
This made me very sad.
I promise. It gets better.
I don't know why this surprises me every time, and mentally I'm slapping my forehead and saying, "duh!", but it still gets me that God knows what I need exactly when I need it. I had reached this emotionally dull, low point without even realizing it when I got a message in my Facebook inbox from a woman who I count as very dear to my heart. It was a simple note to tell me that she was praying for me, that she understood that I was missing my little girl during the holidays, that though she couldn't know my pain, she was cognizant of it and sympathized with me.
God knew. He absolutely knew that I needed to read that message at that exact moment, and suddenly I would become aware again of how very much He loves me and Dustin and our baby girl.
So that's why I stopped short when I read the above passage from Song of Solomon. It's a promise. God's promise to me that the winter is over, the time for singing has come and all around me I am going to see the fruition of God's promises in my marriage, in my home, in my relationships, in my life. I don't know how and I don't know when, but I know that God is promising this to me......, and to you. I know that I am not the only person out there to experience loss and pain and hurt. I am not the only woman to have lost a child, or to struggle with moving forward. God knows. He really knows. I fear that I am beginning to sound redundant here, but the gloriousness of this reality, that God actually knows all of this and is making sure to cultivate time, space, and circumstances to see that the healing happens at just the right pace for His purpose to be worked in me, in us, in fullness....well, shoot. It seriously just blows my mind.
So, thank you Lord for naughty Solomon and his lovely bride and all of their shenanigans, because through them...., I got to meet you tonight and hear you talk to me.
Time to start singing those songs.
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