Day 11

Deer Creek to Lake Virginia

Verses: Song of Songs

Song: https://open.spotify.com/track/0J9TFCYyjLHYJOcenwxblB?si=PVQP5AY5RBqtqAKrKixUzQ

Today, after the struggle bus from yesterday and losing my flip flop… was an easy day, so I took extra time with morning prayer time to find a place that was particularly beautiful. A small meadow on the other side of the bridge for Deer Creek. It had the sound of the water fall, flowers and I could see mountains above me.

I asked the Holy Spirit to search me for places or brokenness that needed to be tended to. It brought me my friend Catherine’s voice who had urged me to began to pray through the Songs of Songs. My dear friend Catherine, who has a prophetic talent of speaking exactly what my soul most needs but my head most dislikes, suggested for me to do this book over a year ago. I told her it wasn’t really my favorite and wasn’t that excited about it. She was curious about my resistance and periodically would ask me if I had spent any time with the book.

“Larissa, the passion between the lovers is a metaphor for how we are supposed to love God and He loves us.”

I know that cognitively, but this book may be the hardest one for me to open my heart up to. In every time I’ve done a bible plan or had a section come up on a study… I have always found myself actively skipping it.

It’s not the passionate pursuit of the woman for her lover. That sort of output of love feels normal to me. Most women I know are in one sided love relationships. They output more than they feel they receive. That model plays out to me in how God has always been painted to me. To love God passionately and desire Him with your whole heart… that makes perfect sense.

What is hard for me in the book is that what is comfortable for me is challenged.

The love in that book Is not one sided. It’s not cajoling the man to relent and give emotional support. It’s not coaching him how to love you well. The man is passionate, active and pursues her, desires her, then continues to respond to her above all the other options he has.

Today, sitting in such immense care and beauty from the Father, I felt ready. I opened the Bible App on my phone and began reading.

“Arise my darling, come away my beautiful one.”

When I imagine a man saying this to me… I couldn’t hold composure.

When I imagine that it’s God that says this about me… I started to sob.

I wasn’t able to make it past the second book without falling apart.

My heart so deeply desires to be cherished. To be set aside, pursued and deeply known.

I think of where this desire has led me. How I relentless chased, opened myself up, sacrificed myself to men who didn’t even notice they had held of some of the most sacred and best parts of me.

One face blends into another as I realize the same story played out all the way back to my earthly father. I would choose men who were luke warm in their interest of me, an intellectual friendship based on compatibility… the smart choice, the seemingly safe choice. One that didn’t awaken the desires of my heart… because those desires could lead me to dangerous places. Places that were unsafe and out of control. Or worse, I would choose a man who did see those desires but he would dismiss them as silly, temporal or not to be trusted.

A memory of my father comes to mind. My father when I was young was very attentive when he was able to be (he had a horrible commute and a job with long hours and often wasn’t able to be home). He played with me when I didn’t have any playmates (I was the only child until 4 and a half). We would play stories and often I would get very involved with the story line I was making up and cry. I can remember getting a sense that was very silly to my dad. It was just make believe. I think somewhere along the process, I believed that my emotions were very silly.

If I could go back to that little girl…

The image of eagle’s wings covering her, creating a shelter for her tender emotions and imagination… the foundation for her passions as a woman, her ability to dream and feel those dreams. That when she was ready, she could reach through the wings to interact with the world (like I sit in my tent and only unzip the smallest opening to grab things outside of the tent so I don’t let in mosquitos). She became strong enough, the wings could be pulled back and she would emerge confident and known.

“Little Larissa. You are not silly. Your Father delights in who you are, in your tenderness and in your passionate pursuit of story. He loves you and desires to know more of you.”

I wear my intellectualism like a shield.

It’s almost like the bottle neck that is just small enough that you can’t access the bottom 20% of the lotion bottle. The issue is that it’s at the bottom that so much of my deep desires reside.

I have been willing to go places and do things for shadows of goodness. For things that tasted like love, but in the end were only echos. I’ve cajoled my own heart into settling for less, because somewhere deep in past, reinforced by experience, I believed there wasn’t enough for all of me.

All of me.

All.

I believed that only parts of me were worthy. The funny, the enjoyable, the low maintenance, the agreeable, the polite, the productive, the talented etc. I believe that once I improved myself to a standard, had the right BMI, right hair, right clothing, right job, right finances, right credit score… I could be chosen.

Lies.

Lies from the enemy to keep me doubting the goodness available.

I am the daughter of a King.

Adopted by Him. Treasured above all else.

Above the angels. Above Creation (which had no Sin but bears the consequences). He treasures His chosen people, and through Jesus I am one of them.

He wants my heart.

All of it.

He wants to pursue me. Know me and love me and He asks me to give Him the parts of myself I am scared of, that have been damaged and even broken.

It’s not the one sided unrequited love that I am used to, comfortable with and have an enormous capacity to settle.

It’s a chosen, set aside and cherished love that I have always deeply desired.

I don’t have to earn it. I just have to receive it, because it’s been there all along.

“But my dove, my virtuous one, is unique;”

God is safe to go to those places with. He can hold all of me. I am not too much or too little. I am exactly as He designed me. In Him I can trust to open up in ways that I have been failed by those here on earth. He knows exactly how special and sacred the most delicate parts of me are… and asks that I trust He won’t discard them.

He says,

“ let me see your face.

Let me hear your voice.

For your voice is sweet,

And your face is lovely.”

I am lovely.

I am worth pursuing, not just pursued to the point of being caught but always to be delighted and curious about.

“How delightful your love is, my sister, my bride.”

As I write this, I realize how important this is for any marriage I may want to enter.

Perhaps Song of Songs is easier for me to enter it because I am a woman and the way the story is written is of a King pursuing a woman. But it really has no gender. God pursues His Son’s hearts just as ferociously and tenderly as He does His daughter’s.

“You are absolutely beautiful my daring, with no imperfection in you.”

I imagine sharing a life with a man that understands that He is also pursued by our heavily Father. He has a passionate love for Him, a hunger for the Word and a deep understanding of where we come from (a Kingdom where we are chosen and set aside). It’s out of that deep and passionate security that would want him to love me. I want him to pursue me from the reservoir that is filled when the Lord pursues you, and I will love you with the same generosity and abandon which I love the Lord. When either one of us feels they cannot hold all of the other, we can ask for help from Jesus and direct our hearts to the Father. We love, because we have been loved first. Our brokenness must first be reminded of our core identity as beautiful and without flaws. Then, out of that identity we can engage each other’s hearts.

“Let my love come to his garden and eat his choicest fruits.”

I heard once the best gift you can give your children, is to love your spouse well.

I think the best gift I can give my husband … is to love God well, then out of that love we can love each other.

“He is absolutely desirable, this is my love, this is my friend.”

Passionate.

Life giving.

Filled with gifts from the Father.

Willing to pursue Him, wherever He is and receive Him wherever He meets us.

Because we are His loved and delightful children.

Because, I am worth it.

After reading the book, I hiked to Ram lake and re read it.

Then to Purple and re read it again.

Then when I got to Lake Virginia, I read it again.

Each iteration letting the words minister to my soul. I am thankful for the study that I did in Israel, that I can understand and visualize some of these adornments. I’m

Also thankful for dear friends that are willing to encourage me to see the goodness in myself and ones that challenge me when I’m avoiding places or pain.

Mostly, I am so, so, so thankful for our God who even when I run from Him, patiently let’s me seek Him so I can grow towards Him.