Why Do I Love My Wife?

Song of Solomon 7

1 How beautiful are your sandaled feet,
O queenly maiden.
Your rounded thighs are like jewels,
the work of a skilled craftsman.
2 Your navel is perfectly formed
like a goblet filled with mixed wine.
Between your thighs lies a mound of wheat
bordered with lilies.
3 Your breasts are like two fawns,
twin fawns of a gazelle.
4 Your neck is as beautiful as an ivory tower.
Your eyes are like the sparkling pools in Heshbon
by the gate of Bath-rabbim.
Your nose is as fine as the tower of Lebanon
overlooking Damascus.
5 Your head is as majestic as Mount Carmel,
and the sheen of your hair radiates royalty.
The king is held captive by its tresses.
6 Oh, how beautiful you are!
How pleasing, my love, how full of delights!
7 You are slender like a palm tree,
and your breasts are like its clusters of fruit.
8 I said, “I will climb the palm tree
and take hold of its fruit.”
May your breasts be like grape clusters,
and the fragrance of your breath like apples.
9 May your kisses be as exciting as the best wine,
flowing gently over lips and teeth.

Young Woman

10 I am my lover’s,
and he claims me as his own.
11 Come, my love, let us go out to the fields
and spend the night among the wildflowers.
12 Let us get up early and go to the vineyards
to see if the grapevines have budded,
if the blossoms have opened,
and if the pomegranates have bloomed.
There I will give you my love.
13 There the mandrakes give off their fragrance,
and the finest fruits are at our door,
new delights as well as old,
which I have saved for you, my lover.

WOW! These verses just resonate with passion, enthusiasm, unbridled love, heat, intensity, boldness and a certain sense of being carefree with each other. This is what I think of when I think of young love. When I first started pursuing my wife I was all these things. I can still exhibit one or two of them at a time, but usually not all at once like I did. I don't think it would be bad for me to exhibit them at the same time, but I don't know if my wife would agree.

The more I read in this book the more I fall in love with my wife. Maybe it's because this does remind me of when I first fell in love with her and it sparks that same passion I had back then. I met my wife in the spring of 1991 at college. She had come to my dorm room to borrow a book from my roommate, whom she had a crush on at the time. That short introduction was about the only time I remember talking to her. My roommate was on the hall council with her and told me she was going to be the vice president the next year. I thought about her during that summer and when school started in the fall I tried to reconnect with her. I tried running for hall council president so I could spend time with her. I didn't win the election.

I started to pursue her in October of 1991. At that time I was into a mode of going out to parties quite a bit. I think my whole party scene social life lasted for about a month, maybe a month and a half. Towards the end of that cycle was when I would go and visit her. I would get some liquid courage and would try to talk to her. She was just coming out of a relationship and did not want a boyfriend. I hadn't really dated anyone prior to that for any length of time. I think my longest time I had a girlfriend was six months. I desperately wanted to be in a relationship. I told her that I was OK with just being friends, which was not true.

One night I had gotten her to agree to go bowling with me at the student center after I came back from a party. It was Wednesday, November 10, 1991. The bowling alley was closed when we got there so we walked back to the dorms. She lived on the 3rd floor and I lived on the 13th floor. We went up to my room and were just hanging out. I tried to kiss her and got the Heisman from her. For those who don't know what that means it means she shut me down. Undeterred from that rejection, I went back the next week. We watched a movie in her room and went up to my room after. We did end up having our first kiss that day, Wednesday, November 13, 1991.

I still remember a conversation we had that night about the importance of our religious beliefs. I have worn a cross around my neck for many years and she asked me about it. I told her about the time I prayed the prayer of salvation when I was in the 8th grade. She told me about her saying the prayer when she was in high school. We were not really following the Lord like we are now. We were more into religion than we were a relationship with Jesus. I would go to church every once in a while, but was not living my life for the Lord, was not filled with the Holy Spirit or anything like that. I didn't even know anything about the Holy Spirit yet. She was in the same position.

We started hanging out more and went on our first offical date on Wednesday, November 20, 1991. I was in rare form that night. She had a car so we used her car to go out to for supper. We went to an Italian restaurant in DT St. Cloud. As we were finishing up our meal we received the bill. I went to grab my wallet and it wasn't there. I realized that in my haste to get ready I forgot to grab it. How embarassing! She paid for the meal and then we went back to the dorm.

The next week we had break for Thanksgiving. When we came back to school my parents brought me to school. I had Dawn come and meet them, which lasted about 5 minutes or so. When my mom got back home, which was a two and a half hour drive for them, she called me and said, "If you let this girl go I will kill you." If you don't know or I haven't said this before, I love my mom. I am a big momma's boy. I talk to her 3-4 times per week and always have. I called her three times on my honeymoon. I think it was at that time that I started thinking about her as "the one". We started dating exclusively. We dated for three months when she went to Denmark to study for six months. That was an extremely hard time for me. It was also a very expensive time for phone bills!

Needless to say we got through that period and have been together now for over 17 years! We got married on Saturday, May 27, 1995. When your 37 and you look back and realize that you think to yourself how your lives have changed over that period of time. I would say that I love her more now than I did back then. I may not express my love for her in the same way I did back then, but I know that my love for her grows each day and that I am truly thankful that God brought us together.

I am also very grateful that we decided prior to getting married that Jesus was going to be at the center of our marriage. We both learned about the Holy Spirit and were baptized in the Holy Spirit in the late 1990s. For us that has been the most important thing we ever did. It took all the lessons we learned as kids and had accepted and they moved 18 inches to our hearts and gave the scriptures a depth and a realness to us. We could start seeing how we could apply them to our lives on a daily basis and how God was speaking to us through them. We are continuing to learn from them each day. Praise God!

My whole point to today's verses is that they remind me of the love I exhibited to my wife when were younger and how I can rekindle that type of love for her now. I love that passion that they are expressing and want to show my wife a level of passion that exceeds what is written in these verses. I may not, and probably won't, tell her that I am comparing her to goblets of wine, wheat fields bordered by flowers, animals, towers, pools of water, mountains, trees or fruit, but I will express it in a way that is meaningful to her and relays my feelings for her that will have the greatest impact. That is what these verses are showing to me. Not the exact words to use, but the message to relay to her and how I can form my thoughts about her. I can't assume that she knows how I feel about her. I need to put it into words and actions that let her know without a doubt how I feel about her.

Father I thank You for my wife. She is more precious to me than anything this world has to offer. I love her because You first loved her. I love her because Your Son died for her. I love her because Your Holy Spirit loves her and shows me Your love for her. I love her for the way You reveal Your love for me through her. I love her because she loves You more than she loves me. I love her because You show Your love for our children through her. I love her because You created her to be my wife to complete me in the areas of my weakness. I love her because Your Word reveals to me how important our relationship is and what Your thoughts are towards her. I love her because You show me each day why You brought her into my life. I love her because she is Your creation. I lover her unconditionally. I love her with every part of my being. I love her enough to die for her. I thank You for her and for Your plans for us together. Amen.

Published by Erik L. Vakula
Daily Bread From the Word
Copyright © 2009 Erik Vakula, All Rights Reserved