Thursday, July 5, 2007

What If...I loved Him the way I love him?

We sent our children off to their grandmother's until Sunday. Ah, 5 days alone with my husband.

Grammy picked up the kids on Tuesday at 11:00. My husband came home to kiss them goodbye and decided to spend the afternoon alone with me. We went to lunch and came home for an afternoon nap. It was wonderful.

I awoke about 3:00 PM in time to make it to work at 4:00. As I worked, I was thinking of our wonderful afternoon. Then a floral deliveryman came into the showroom with a bouquet of beautiful, long-stemmed roses.

"Are you Randee?", he asked.

I opened the card to find the note: You're too good to be true. I can't take my eyes off of you. I blushed. It was an good afternoon.

My husband is an easy man to love. He personifies the strength that I so desperately admire. He is a man of truth choosing never to allow things to simmer but get them out in the open immediately. This can be unsettling to some but for me it's quite refreshing. Something that I've always admired him for. He lives in the present. He is full of gratitude and appreciation. He is hilariously funny.

He is easy to love.

Lately, I have been contemplating God as Lover. I've been pondering just how much energy and effort I put into "loving" my husband. I wondered...

What if I loved my Lover like I love my lover?

How would that look? Feel?

If God established marriage as the ultimate "love" relationship, then why NOT begin seeing my God as my Lover?

5 comments:

Anne said...

Randee, it sounds like it wouldn't be hard for ANY of us to love your husband! :) Really, how sweet. Roses. A beautiful note. A man of faith who makes you laugh. Sheesh!

Interestingly I just ran across some negative article recently about thinking of God/Jesus as Lover. The author thought it bordering on indecency, I guess. But I've been seeing Jesus that way lately. I have imagined looking in his eyes and feeling that overwhelming divine love of his fill my soul. How could I not think of him with the heart of a lover when I let myself experience that kind of heavenly love?

Randee said...

To tell you the truth, Anne, my initial response of "indecency" was similar. But as I pondered it, it really came down to an issue of intimacy. Since, we typically experience the deepest intimacy with our spouses, it makes sense that we would share that intimacy with our Lord. Obviously, a different kind but intimacy nonetheless.

For that matter, is He not the creator of ALL intimacy? Just another way that we sequester God into these neat little departments. As a friend and woman of God told me a while back:

We are not to integrate our faith into all of our lives. Rather, integrate all of our lives into our faith.

(I even found myself praying for God's blessing over my sex life the other day. And, I have NEVER done that before! I mean, can we honestly put sex and God in the same sentence? You better believe it!)

Anne said...

Randee, I appreciate your thoughts about intimacy and our love for God. When I think of God as our ultimate lover it softens my heart, breaks down some kind of barrier I usually erect as a single woman. I'm used to trying to protect myself emotionally, but if I contemplate a God as lover that loves me intensely always, never to abandon me, it does indeed make me feel cherished, humbled and whole.

Recently our pastor talked about specifics for a good marriage during our church gathering and asked couples if they were physically intimate at least twice a week. (Well, he asked rhetorically, he didn't expect a show of hands.) It just made me smile; leave it to my pastor guy to bring sex into a talk about God and how married couples need that intimacy for their relationship. So yes, I understand praying to God about all aspects of our lives as human beings, including the sexual act of love.

Lori Arriaga said...

A few years ago, praying God's blessing over mine and my husbands sex life was probably the best thing I have ever done for our marriage because at the time I had a complete wrong view of it. I had a lot of baggage from my past muddying up my view. Thankfully God has changed my way of thinking and continues to remind me of how sacred it is.

Randee said...

Lori, I think it very insightful of you to bring the private area to the Lord. The truth is that it never occurred to me until now. Isn't that strange? Strange but true.