God on Sex: The Creator's Ideas About Love, Intimacy, and Marriage (14 page)

I had just passed them
      when I found the one I love.
I held on to him and would not let him go
       until I brought him to my mother's house—
       to the chamber of the one who conceived me. (v. 4)

MARRIAGE IS THE RIGHT PLACE TO EXPERIENCE
NATURAL PROTECTION (V. 4)

Shulammite's persistence pays off as is often the case when it comes to romance. The guards leave, and suddenly there Solomon is, the one she loves. Notice two things she does that would let him know of her love and that we would do well to emulate.

HOLD ON TO HIM

“She held him and would not let him go.” She had found her man, and she was not about to lose him again. She feels protected and secure in his presence, and I suspect he felt the same concerning her.

HONOR HIM

She took him back to her maternal home, a place that would also feel safe and secure. She is certain he is the man with whom she wishes to spend the rest of her life. There is no indication of resistance on Solomon's part. He loves her and desires her as much as she does him. He is honored by her attention and her intentions. This is indeed the woman for him as well. In sickness and in health, for better or for worse, till death do us part, they will be there for each other.

Young women of Jerusalem, I charge you,
       by the gazelles and the wild does of the field:
do not stir up or awaken love
       until it is the appropriate time. (v. 5)

MARRIAGE IS THE RIGHT PLACE TO EXERCISE
SPIRITUAL PATIENCE (V. 5)

Marriage is as much about being the right person as finding the right person. When you are the right person, you can wait on God and trust both His plan and His timing. When you are the right person, you are ready for God to bring the other right person into your life.

For the second time in the Song (cf. 2:7) we hear the refrain calling us to patience, to wait. The refrain is in the form of an oath, a vow. Though the vow is made by the gazelles and the wild does, ultimately it is the Creator of these beautiful and active animals to whom Shulammite looks. What is her counsel? In a sense we come full circle back to verse 1.

MAKE A COMMITMENT TO GOD TO WAIT FOR THE RIGHT PERSON

We have received good counsel in how we can identify the right person. Be patient. Wait on the Lord. God always gives His best to those who leave the choices with Him.

MAKE A COMMITMENT TO GOD TO WAIT FOR THE RIGHT TIME

God's time is always the right time. When we wait and do marriage, sex, and romance on his schedule, we discover personally what we should have known all along:
God, indeed, knows best!

I came across a story that provides a beautiful witness as we make the case for marriage. See if you don't agree.

Berry Mauve or Muted Wine?

He found me weeping bitterly in the hospital room. “What's wrong?” Richard asked, knowing we both had reason to cry. In the past 48 hours, I had discovered the lump in my breast was cancerous; the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes; and there was a possible spot on my brain.

I was 32 years old and the mother of three beautiful children. Richard pulled me tight and tried to comfort me. Many had expressed amazement at the peace that had overwhelmed me from the beginning. God was my comfort the moment before I found out I had cancer, and He remained the same after. But it seemed to Richard that all that had crashed in the few moments he had been out of the room.

He held me tight. “It's all been too much, hasn't it, Suz?” he said. “That's not it,” I cried and held up the hand mirror I had found in the drawer. Richard was puzzled. “I didn't know it was like this,” I cried. I had found the mirror in the nightstand and was shocked at my reflection. I didn't even recognize myself. After the surgery, I groaned in my sleep and well-meaning friends had freely pushed the self-dispensing medication to ease what they thought was pain. Unfortunately I was allergic to morphine and had swelled like a sausage. Betadine from the surgery stained my neck, shoulder and chest and it was too soon for a bath.

A tube hung out of my side draining the fluid from the surgical site. My left shoulder and chest was wrapped tightly in gauze where I had lost a portion of my breast. My long, curly hair was matted into one big wad.

What hit me the hardest was that over 100 people had come to see me over the past 48 hours and they had all seen this brown and white, swollen, makeup-less, matted-haired, gray-gowned woman that used to be me. Where had I gone?

Richard left the room. Within moments he came back, his arms laden with small bottles. He pulled pillows out of the closet and dragged a chair over to the sink. He unraveled my IV and tucked the long tube from my side in his shirt pocket. He reached down and picked me up and scooted the IV stand with one foot as he carried me over to the chair. As he sat me down gently on his lap, he cradled my head in his arms over the sink and began to run warm water through my hair. He poured the small bottles he had confiscated from the cart in the hall over my hair and washed and conditioned my long curls. He wrapped my hair in a towel and he carried me, the tube, and IV stand back over to the bed. All of this done so gently that not one stitch was disturbed.

My husband, who has never blow-dried his thick dark hair in his life, took out the blow drier and dried my hair, the whole while entertaining me as he pretended to give beauty tips. He then proceeded, with the experience of watching me for the past 12 years, to fix my hair. I laughed as he bit his lip, more serious than any beauty school student. He bathed my shoulder and neck with a warm washcloth, careful to not disturb the area around the surgery and rubbed lotion into my skin. Then he opened my makeup bag and began to apply makeup. I will never forget the laughter we shared as he tried to apply my mascara and blush. I opened my eyes wide and held my breath as his hands shook as he brushed the mascara on my lashes. He rubbed my cheeks with tissue to blend in the blush.

With the last touch, he held up two lipsticks. “Which one? Berry mauve or muted wine?” he asked. He applied the lipstick like an artist painting on a canvas and then held the little mirror in front of me. I was human again. A little swollen, but I smelled clean, my hair hung softly over my shoulders and I recognized who I was. “What do you think?” he asked. I began to cry again, this time because I was grateful. “No, baby. You'll mess up my makeup job,” he said and then I burst into laughter.

During that difficult time in our lives, I was given only a 10–40% chance of survival over five years. That was nine years ago. I made it through those years with laughter, with God's comfort, and with the help of a man brought into my life named Richard. We will celebrate our 21st anniversary this year with our three children—our twins, who are 17, and our 18 year old daughter. Richard understood what others might have taken for vanity in the midst of tragedy. Everything I had ever taken for granted had been shaken in those hours—the fact that I would watch my children grow, my health, my future. With one small act of kindness, Richard gave me normalcy. I will always see that moment as one of the kindest gestures of our marriage.
²⁹

The case for marriage is made. The evidence is irrefutable. Now you be the judge.

Chapter 7

How to Have a Great Wedding

THE SONG OF SONGS 3:6–11

Weddings and marriage for life are out! Cohabitation, trial runs, and prenups are in. At least this is the picture you get if you listen to the prophets of popular culture.

Monica Schmidt: “
It's just a piece of paper to me. I consider myself married without that … There's more freedom, I'm allowed to do whatever I like.”

John Nielsen: “
It's outmoded. I'm just as committed to the relationship as I would be if I were married.” Claiming to be emotionally abused from his parents' divorce and now in therapy John adds, “Anything that comes before my recovery has to go. If I'm not putting myself first, the children are not going to see someone who is looking after themselves.”

Robin Hill,
in a cohabiting arrangement: “I've got a life too. If I thought ‘Oh, this isn't doing anything for me,’ I'd move on.” When asked about a wedding and marriage she joked, “I thought ‘well, we do need a new toaster!’ but I can't see the need to be married.”
¹

Aline Fesquet and Frank Embert
who entered into a “civil solidarity pact” in France: “For us, it is a step forward in our relationship, but without the family and all the baggage.”
²

The numbers would certainly indicate that cohabiting is the rage of the day. The number of cohabiting couples has risen from 439,000 in 1960 to 4.2 million in 1998.
³
With so many adopting this new lifestyle, it must be producing some really good results, right? Wrong. Consider the following data:

1. Only about one-sixth of live-ins last at least three years, and only one-tenth endure five years or more.
⁴

2. Living together before marriage increases the risk of divorce. One study found an increased risk of forty-six percent. Living together outside marriage increases the risk of domestic violence for women and the risk of physical and sexual abuse for children. One study found that the risk of domestic violence for women in cohabiting relationships was double that in married relationships; the risk is even greater for child abuse. Unmarried couples have lower levels of happiness and well-being than married couples.
⁵

3. Couples who live together first are more likely to have an affair during marriage than those who don't.
⁶

4. Cohabiting couples are three times more likely to say “hitting, shoving and throwing things” occurred between them and their partner the previous year.
⁷
Pamela Smock summarizes the situation well: “While common sense suggests that premarital cohabitation should offer couples an opportunity to learn about each other, increasing their chances for a successful marriage, the evidence suggests just the opposite. Premarital cohabitation tends to be associated with lower marital quality and increased risk of divorce.”
⁸

So what is the problem? Rita DeMaria, I think, hits the nail on the head when she says, “Being single is a choice that most people do not choose. People want to be married.” However, “some people have never seen a good marriage.”
⁹
For far too many, their perspective on marriage can be easily summed up. First comes the engagement ring, then comes the wedding ring, and then comes the suffering. Perhaps the “case against marriage” is really not too hard to understand, given what some people have seen and experienced. This radical skepticism toward God's divine plan was pointedly addressed by Larissa Phillips in an article entitled “The Case Against Matrimony: If Marriage is Risky, Doomed and Expensive, Why Bother?” It is lengthy, but the message is worth hearing. She writes:

Nov. 18, 1999. The National Marriage Project at Rutgers University recently announced the findings of a new study: the marriage rate has dropped 43 percent since 1960, and increasing numbers of young people are choosing to stay unmarried. The U.S. Census Bureau came out with related big news last week: The number of babies born to unwed parents has increased fivefold since the 1930s, owing, for the most part, to more and more couples rejecting marriage, even after the birth of a child. Suddenly everyone is scrambling to understand. Well, I get it, and I didn't have to scramble to understand. In fact, what interests me is not why the members of my generation (X, if you will) are getting married less, but why anyone is surprised.

What did everyone—i.e., the baby boomers—expect? As the unmarried mother of a new baby, I am the object of much indignant scrutiny among the older generations, who seem to have conveniently forgotten the past 30 years, in which almost everyone I know has been emotionally pummeled in some way by divorce. As my boyfriend asked at a recent family gathering, while playing a board game in which you have to prompt the other players to supply a particular word: “What must you do before you get married?” The answer, of course: get divorced. My father and his wife thought this was hilarious. And yet aging boomers seem shocked and befuddled that someone would choose to avoid the whole swampy mess of broken vows and failed traditions that they've left in their wake.

People over 40 flinched with disdain when I first announced my pregnancy. “Oh,” they would exclaim, barely masking their disapproval. “And … what do your parents think?” They struggled to understand my lack of panic. “Are you going to keep it?” they asked, wide-eyed. As if the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s never happened. As if at least one-third of marriages don't fail. As if everyone in my family and my boyfriend's family, grandparents included, hadn't broken their marriage vows. At least once. “What's with all these people in our family having babies without getting married?” my middle-aged uncle (who is divorced and recently broke up with his live-in girlfriend) asked my 40-ish aunt (who recently divorced her husband because he'd taken up with a married woman, who is now his third wife; my aunt is now living with her boyfriend).