The Beauty of Marriage, pt. 2
I closed yesterday with a comment about gazing at my wife's beauty. I want to pick up there as I finish blogging for this week.
Every husband out there reading this knows of what I speak. Women have an alien quality to them, an essence and nature that calls out to us to behold its beauty. You see this everywhere. The sex-saturated culture in which we live represents a perverted version of the masculine love for feminine beauty. The singers on the radio who croon only of sex and lust are themselves captivated by feminine appeal. Where they should confine this appreciation to one woman, though, they spread their "affection" to many. This is a cancerous and common practice among contemporary males.
As one can see from the Old Testament, it is not entirely natural for men to restrict their hunger for femininity to just one woman. As we know from Solomon, for example, even the greatest of men regularly distributed their attention to dozens of women. This goes against God's plan for the men who walk His earth. We are called to restrain our natural appetite and take one woman to our side. When we do so, we sign ourselves up for a lifetime of intense joy, of fulfillment, of happiness, of delight.
I gaze at Bethany, my beauty. She is alien to me. She is lovely. I am regularly seized by a love for her that goes beyond mere appreciation and affection. It is something that I cannot articulate. God has made a man to love one woman. When he does this, though he does it imperfectly, he prepares himself for a life of happiness and wonder. The mix of emotion and sensitivity and grace and dignity that is woman can only have been created from an otherworldly imagination. Such complexity, and such beauty. This is woman. This is Bethany. This is God's gift, and this is the beauty of marriage.
Every husband out there reading this knows of what I speak. Women have an alien quality to them, an essence and nature that calls out to us to behold its beauty. You see this everywhere. The sex-saturated culture in which we live represents a perverted version of the masculine love for feminine beauty. The singers on the radio who croon only of sex and lust are themselves captivated by feminine appeal. Where they should confine this appreciation to one woman, though, they spread their "affection" to many. This is a cancerous and common practice among contemporary males.
As one can see from the Old Testament, it is not entirely natural for men to restrict their hunger for femininity to just one woman. As we know from Solomon, for example, even the greatest of men regularly distributed their attention to dozens of women. This goes against God's plan for the men who walk His earth. We are called to restrain our natural appetite and take one woman to our side. When we do so, we sign ourselves up for a lifetime of intense joy, of fulfillment, of happiness, of delight.
I gaze at Bethany, my beauty. She is alien to me. She is lovely. I am regularly seized by a love for her that goes beyond mere appreciation and affection. It is something that I cannot articulate. God has made a man to love one woman. When he does this, though he does it imperfectly, he prepares himself for a life of happiness and wonder. The mix of emotion and sensitivity and grace and dignity that is woman can only have been created from an otherworldly imagination. Such complexity, and such beauty. This is woman. This is Bethany. This is God's gift, and this is the beauty of marriage.
posted by Owen at 11:09 AM
2 Comments:
Owen, I really enjoy reading your posts--I read them via RSS--especially this series on the Beauty of Marriage. Keep churning it out brother!
What lovely things you have said of your wife. You have honored and praised her...
"Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her" Proverbs 31:28
This is beautiful.
May romance thrive in our marriages and God be glorified as a result.
Blessings!
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