I am My Beloved's and He is Mine

Have you ever wondered what it was like to be Eve?
The first woman?
Crown of God's creation?
What it must have been like to walk in unbroken communion with God?
To know you were deliberately formed and fashioned for his pleasure?
To be intimately aware of his joy in you?
To be the object of his attention.
To see and be seen..nothing marring your sight.
No barriers.
Completely satisfied in the One who created you.
Aware of His pleasure in you.
You are His completely.
Beloved.

What must it have been like...
To embrace the enemy?
To taste the lie?
To feel that chord snap?
To sense separation for the first time?
To be naked?
Ashamed?

Where is your beauty now?
Swallowed in death?

What must it have been like to crave the attention, the affirmation...the glory of what was once all you knew?

I can hear her cry...
See me...
Notice me....
Accept me...

What was full..is now empty.

The silence must have been excruciating
 And then she covered herself.

She.covered.herself.
.
And thus the world is infected.
Thus woman...women...us...me....
We crave...
Eyes...
We fear...
Invisibility...
We long..
For significance...
We fear...insufficiency
We desire attention...
Hunger for meaning....
 ....communion, connection..intimacy.... Love...

Worthiness...

What makes us worthy?

Beauty? Intelligence?Success? Strength?

Skin.Eyes.Lips.Hair.

The curve of the hips?
The length of the leg?
Proportions?

There is a silent...yet not so silent scream filling the earth today.
It  proceeds from the lips of young girls...teens...women. of all ages.

Can you hear it?
 It is the cry that has echoed down through the ages...

What must Eve have felt..when she went from knowing..to un-knowing?
Sure to unsure.
Confident to insecure.
Eve's knowledge and experience of being seen and known was gone.
She was blind and deaf.

The cry of women all through the ages.
Manifested in our dress..cosmetics..scents..lotions....
Our potions...elixirs...silks and satins...

See me.
Attend to me.
Hear me.
Celebrate me.
Know me.
Love me.

We long to distinguish ourselves from the others.
We compete for attention.
For value.
For worth.
We trade ourselves..our attributes...our bodies... like commerce.
We offer.
We hunger.
We starve.

We fear invisibility.
We will do everything in our power to stand out.
The one pair of eyes that was so satisfying to feel upon us..
We no longer sense...
That intimacy shattered in the garden ...
Has set us adrift...
Who sees me?
Who knows me?
Who wants me?

The bible is full of the wanderings of Israel.
She...wandering through the desert...
Portrayed as a woman.
Selling herself.
Sleeping with the enemy...
Laying herself out...
The imagery is startling.
The Lord....God...Holy...Righteous..
Portrayed as her husband.
Sees her.
Knows her.
Dwells with her.
Yet she craves the attention of others...
And she prostitutes herself.

Hosea.
Take Gomer as your wife.

And he found her, ragged, torn, sick, dirty, disheveled, destitute, chained to an auction block in a filthy slave market, a repulsive shadow of the woman she once was.Hosea bought her from her slavery for fifteen shekels of silver and thirteen bushels of barley.

(Hos. 3:2)

My God.You love me that much?

I ..who long for eyes to see me.
To be captivated by my beauty.
To extol my virtues.
To esteem.
Pay homage.
To Worship?

  But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 

1Sam 16:7

I know God was speaking about the sons of Jesse and Samuel was choosing a King, but the truth is...this has struck such a knife in my heart as a woman.

Do not consider his appearance.

Us women can be all about the outside.
If we are honest.
We spend more time shopping for clothes, make-up, shoes...accessories.
We spend more time grooming.
We spend more time admiring.
We spend more time taking photos of oursleves.
Primping.
Posing...and posting for all to see.
Comparing.
Competing.

Catalog the hours.The countless minutes.
Look back over the years.
It is astonishing.
Terrifying.
My heart is sick.
Convicted.
I am Gomer.
I am Eve.
I am Israel.

Today.... I have given myself a challenge.
The challenge of a lifetime.
It is tough...a dying of sorts.
I am determined.
I am motivated by a love that is deeper.
An acceptance that has nothing to do with my physical beauty.
An intimacy that is mine for the asking.
A knowing that is sure and true.
I am ransacking my closet.
Going through my make-up drawer.
Culling.
Purging.
Sacrificing...
Obeying.
My time is better spent with him..loving, serving, worshiping...
I am living out the words of scripture today as I sing:

We bow our hearts
We bend our knees
Oh Spirit come make us humble
We turn our eyes
From evil things
Oh Lord we cast down our idols

So give us clean hands
and give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another..

Oh God let us be

A generation that seeks

Your face Oh God of Jacob.

~~Chris Tomlin ~~

The true reflection of myself is found in the face of the One who made me...
Not in the mirror.
My heart is his most cherished treasure.
He has bought me back.
Paid the ransom.
Covered my nakedness.
Taken away my shame.
It's his gaze that matters.
He doesn't stop at the surface.
The fine lines and wrinkles.
The stretch marks.
Age spots.
The belly.
The breasts.
He sees me.
He knows me.
And still loves me.
He gives me meaning. Defines my existence.Gives me worth...value.
His love is set like a precious jewel over me.

 

See my beloved....she is mine...

…clothed in my beauty…

…My Glory...

I am the keeper of her heart.

I am his.
He is my Glory and the Lifter of my head.

I challenge you today....crave his gaze...revel in his attention...find satisfaction in your reflection in his eyes...
Be captivated...live out of the shelter of his affection.
Do not lift your soul to another.
Come up out of the desert...on the arm of your beloved....