Ending this month’s gratitude focus after a sweet Thanksgiving celebration that followed an even sweeter wedding celebration, I want to briefly step back further in time to focus on one ancient couple, to profile two people who were overwhelmingly delighted in and grateful for each other.

We find much of what we know about their relationship in the biblical text called Song of Songs or Song of Solomon. And while many Bible readers have tried to write off the contents of the book as more spiritual than physical, as an allegory about Christ and the church, I wholeheartedly embrace it today as a exquisitely woven reflection of gratitude for the gifts of sexual expression, trust, and physical design as rightly celebrated and embraced only within marriage between one man and one woman.

What does such gratitude for one we love look like, according to the mindset of these two people?

For the husband, called Lover in this epic poem, it means he is thankful for and attracted to his bride among all other women (2:2). He is also overwhelmed with the beauty of who she is all on her own (4:7, 9-10, 12), and grateful that she is content right in the place where she knows she belongs: at his side (7:10).

The wife, simply called Beloved, is also equally grateful for the loving husband to whom she has been joined. She is thankful for what he does (2:4), who he is (5:16), and how he can dwell contentedly in her arms (8:10).

While the Lover highlighted in this poem and blog was, sadly, not married to only one woman exclusively due to both political conventions and cultural norms, the rejoicing and pure revelry we see highlighted in that small book points to a kind of love and an accompanied attitude of thanksgiving that each married person is invited to embrace and nurture. It is one that will even make those observing say, “We rejoice and delight in you, we praise your love…!” (1:4). And it will reap a harvest of beautiful, faithful years together.

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Last week, we looked at one grateful group from the New Testament era. Today, the day of my own wedding, we will look at another.

A dear friend named Kathy gave me a card recently in which she wrote, “May God keep you and Paul, and bless your union as Jesus once blessed the wedding at Cana.” I smiled because of her good words, but I also smiled because I had already planned to profile the Cana wedding guests as the focal point of this next post.

In the story of the Cana wedding, where Jesus performed his first recorded miracle, some characters tend to get criticized. Mary might be called a meddling mother. Jesus himself could be called reluctant to publicly start His ministry. And the wedding guests? Well, I have often figured they were already so joyous from wine imbibing and celebration that their comments sent back to the bridegroom after tasting Jesus’ miraculous supply were just off-handed silly talk from drunk people.

But I think I see them differently now. I consider that maybe they were genuinely happy and even grateful to have really good wine to enjoy as the party rolled on. They just didn’t know exactly who they were to be grateful to. The credit that belonged the Heart of Heaven went to the wedding host instead.

That is the thing about gratitude. It can sometimes be misapplied or misaimed. But that does not make it any less sincere. However, how sweet it is when gratitude is not only sincerely felt but also rightly attributed.

Then, how Jesus must smile.

My Paul has often asked me in the weeks leading up to this day how he has been so fortunate to find a lady like me who would want to love him and share my future with him. And I often smile and just remind him that we are both equally blessed and a gift of God to each other.

As I stand up to marry my love and he marries me, we will be grateful. Certainly, we will appreciate each other for so many reasons. But we will not only be thankful to each other. More importantly, we will be grateful to Jesus for each other. Because He is the one who brought us together and He is the one we will live for, together.

Paul, ultimately, does not deserve my primary gratitude. Just as I do not ultimately deserve his.

We both must always first be grateful to the Maker of the richest wine.

And, when we are, He will smile.

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Photo: Rachel Anna Dohms

A new month of posts about what has so often become a seasonal virtue or a circumstantial virtue rather than a constant virtue peeks for a moment at a group of people rather than an individual.

Who were they?

An eclectic collection of followers from many backgrounds, all banded together with their newfound love of the world’s greatest teacher. Yet in their enthusiasm to join that family and share life together, they sometimes had to be made aware of their personal weaknesses and stumbling blocks, of which they so desperately needed to let go for their own good and for the good of the group. They were infants in faith and they were trying to grow quickly in the midst of a confused culture.

They were the early believers at Corinth.

What can we learn from them about gratitude?

We so often wish we could avoid suffering, correction, admonishing, and struggles in this life. But those who have experienced more of such things and not been crushed by them, those who have kept faith and grown to love more deeply and not taken anything or anyone for granted because of them: these are the people who show us by their maturing lives how thankful they are for the multiple chances they have been given to start again.

Thought of another way, a person’s life is like a clay cup. And the things we go through can stretch that cup as it is formed, to make our cup wider and deeper. And if we will learn and grow and see the blessing in each struggle, our heart will have so much more room to hold a greater volume of love and thankfulness.

Let us choose today to empty out any bitterness so that our cup can be filled to the brim with gratitude.

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Rounding out a month of posts on purity: a glance at what it means to be pure mentally.

Who comes to mind if you think of the phrases Biblical woman and mental purity? Mary, perhaps? Or Lois? Yes, certainly.

But today I want to shine a quiet light on the woman from Luke 7. She was not respectable enough to be known by any other name than “woman who had lived a sinful life” among her neighbors in that community. But she was worth so much to Jesus that He would both love and forgive her — and that He would have her story recorded for a millinea-long display.

We don’t know her exact sin(s), but we can guess what they likely included. And yet, no matter what she had done or what had been done to her, she certainly ached, as shown in her sacrificial display, to scour her mind, heart, body, and soul of what she had done, of what had been done to her.

Here, in her story, we seen a beautiful domino effect of truth. Perhaps mental purity is the most miraculous purity of all. And it is the one that must be sought and granted every day of our lives in a fallen world. Because the person who craves it cannot undo what they have done or unsee what they have seen or unknow what they have known. But the bitter tears that have flown down can be collected to baptize that mind, and the redeeming gifts and blessings that come after can slowly but surely staunch the craving to renew that mind to what it was meant to be.

And now, a final short poem in the series:

~ Purity 4: Woman (That is Me) ~

Does the salt in my tears

Sting the scratches on Your toes

The way it burns up from my soul? I need

These tears to say what my mouth cannot:

A prayer that You would choke

Memories of horror and missteps I took,

That You would uproot those weeds

And let a grove of olive trees —

Peace-filled branches —

Sprout up in their place. Pour back

On me sweetness and kisses so that

I will again dance: renamed, renewed.

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She was not virginal in her purity. Not completely. Not like the younger maidens working near her to glean in the master’s field. She had been married before; she had been known.

And she came to him in the dead of night, where he rested, in obedience to her mother-in-law’s advice. Advice that put her in a very prone position. He could choose to further mar her reputation or he could choose to respectfully protect it.

And he could have chosen another woman from among so many. A younger woman. A non-foreign woman. A richer woman. A previously-unmarried woman.

But he saw her. And he chose her. And he protected her with his own robe, his own presence, and later his own follow-up actions. Until he could bring her home as his bride.

The woman he loved. The woman he saw as beautiful and pure. The one he had been waiting his whole life to meet and cherish.

Today, in honor of this couple and the renewal of physical purity through the eyes of love, a third short poem.

~ Purity 3: Ruth ~

Numbing-cold. The sandy soil,

Chaff-dusted, nipped at my skimming feet,

Bare after my sandals slipped off

Against my palms, to cancel flapping

Alarms. Shivering, in my fear-hope,

I lay at his feet and prayed he would wake

On his own. And ask that I stay — that only.

Nothing more. Unless there could be more.

But how could there?

Unless he covered me?

Yes. Unless he covered me…

And then He covered me!

So, ever after, I was to be His: clean.

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Next in this series on purity, we pause to consider the power of beauty via emotional purity. According to Genesis 12, Sarah was exceptionally physically beautiful, even as she aged. Yet, she is more fondly remembered and rightly praised in 1 Peter 3 for her projected image of one with a gentle and quiet spirit, living in a proper and good sense of humility and obedience. Certainly she laughed and doubted and jumped the gun. But in the end, she learned how to master her feelings and accept her assigned place in life with hope.

This sounds foreign to me as a modern American woman. But when I dig deeper, I see this is not just an antiquated cultural demand. No. According to Peter, such submission shines from a pure heart, from an honest-core self that wants good and chooses service for the sake of those who are loved. Will there be fear, negative reactions, and mistakes? Yes. But inner beauty lights a woman’s face and shines through the storms of life (and marriage) like low car beams glowing through a dark, snowy drive.

We do not know exactly what Sarah looked like physically. But it doesn’t really matter. We know the essence of her heart: a much more enduring legacy.

So, a poem in her honor…

~ Purity 2: Sarah ~

Queen of this house,

This moving, growing home:

Collection of tents-servant memories.

I have presided with smiles, tears, screams.

Princess of my Father,

Living to love my master:

Challenge of ever-changing complexities.

I have blossomed through bitter to sweet.

Naming the feelings, seeing the fears,

I stand up on choices, cling to what’s dear.

And see a face so beautiful in my mirror.

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Growing up, I quickly came under the impression that the central focus of purity as a virtue had to do with sexual chastity or keeping one’s body and thoughts clean and unblemished in that area of life. While that certainly is important to consider, especially in our evermore-desensitized culture, I now stand on the cusp of marriage in these last few weeks of singlehood and ponder what it will mean to approach my husband as a pure bride in each sense of my person: spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

In that light, four times over the course of this month, I want to share a piece of word art and a short poem to highlight the life of each of four different women from the Bible. In each case, focusing on one of those aspects, I hope to think differently about who they were, who I am, and who each of us (men and women alike) is meant to be.

So, this time, I begin with the mother of all mankind. Not the first woman who usually comes to mind when we think of spiritual purity, is she?

Perhaps she should be…

~ Purity 1: Eve ~

Initial fruit tasted strangely sweet

On my tongue

But felt bitter-heavy

When it sank into my bowels.

Slow burn of something foreign

Had begun with me,

In me.

Third stirring felt strangely bitter

In my heart

But tingled sweetly-light

When it washed over my womb.

Deep joy of something granted

Had begun with me,

In me.

Heaven saw my kiss of death

But kindly placed in me this Seth

And restored my purity,

Once more setting my spirit free.

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Today, I want to share a bit more about diligence through the concept of BALANCE.

We often think of people who practice diligence as being workaholics, or at least so focused on getting more work done that they don’t know how to relax. Sometimes women who care tirelessly for their families or who feel driven to prove their worth in a certain career field fall into such a category. To the outside observer, they simply don’t know when to stop.

But the beauty of a truly diligent woman is found in one who knows how to work hard and well and also how to rest her heart and renew her body and soul.

I have known a number of such women in my life. Today, I would briefly like to describe two of them.

In one of my childhood communities, a woman and her family were long time members of our church. She had taught the youngest children in Sunday School for years and kept many children in her tiny house each weekday through a humble in-home daycare operation. By the time I met her, she was already a biological grandmother, but so many people in the surrounding area lovingly called her “grandma” too. I used to think she just worked all the time and never stopped, never slowed down.

BUT then, one weekend, my parents had to got out of town and they dropped me off at her house as a safe place to stay. It just so happened that weekend there was a bad winter storm so she and I were promptly stuck inside the house from Friday night onward. Early on Saturday morning, we got up and tackled several household chores. Yet, after a delicious, hearty lunch, she surprised me by declaring it was time to rest. And rest we did. She threw blankets in the dryer until they were toasty-warm. We wrapped ourselves and fluffy pillows up in them in side-by-side recliners and watched classic western reruns while fading in and out of naps for the next four hours. It was a sweet, drowsy day like I had rarely known. And while the wind and storm raged outside, I felt no fear nor worry. Only peace.

In my grad school community, I was honored to study under an advisor who had both personal and professional standards of excellence, yet who was immensely approachable and caring. She seemed to work endlessly to rework courses, meet with students, supervise interns, and complete writing projects.

BUT then, she surprised me one day when she told our research class about a family tradition. She and her husband (also a diligent worker) always dropped everything on Friday nights to make homemade pizza together while enjoying classic operatic recordings. More recently, he infant grandson had started staying with them on weekends and he would sit is his little seat and join in the fun. She spoke of that relaxing time with such joy, I could clearly see how it rejuvenated her.

I wrote of these two women in the past tense just now as I remembered them in those moments. But they are both still living, and I still love each of them. Thank you, Donna Hardy and Cheri Pierson, for teaching me the importance of balancing hard work with beautiful rest.

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This month, I will just post twice, with two brief discussions on diligence. Talk about a virtue-word that sounds antiquated…and one that is so easy to misconstrue. Yet, has there ever been a time when we needed a greater appreciation for diligent people–and a greater understanding of what diligence is?

Today, I will mention two people who reflected wisdom about this topic as WORK in their own lives, one in what he wrote and one in how he lived.

The first is King Solomon, said to be the wisest man who ever lived. In the annals of his wisdom recorded for us, we find a lot of helpful tidbits to describe the diligent worker. Here are a few. Such a person is willing to work steadily for a long time to reach his goal or earn his due (Prov. 21:5). He shows himself faithful and true in both his actions and his words while he does his work (Prov. 12:14). He (shock of all shocks) actually works and is not afraid to dive in (Prov. 14:23)! She doesn’t wait around for someone else to wait on her but she gets up and faces even the hard tasks with what strength God gives her (Prov. 31:17). His soul is well-fed, nourished and satisfied (Prov. 13:4).

Solomon knew these things and recorded them. But he was royalty, rich at material levels many of us can only dream of, even from his early years.

The second is a person known only as Timothy, a young man potentially raised primarily (or even only) by his mother and grandmother. Yet, years later, words written to him by a mentor paint a picture for us of the diligent man Timothy must have been. We see in him a person who sought to do his work at above-reproach levels and who paid close attention to his personal growth so that he could seek to always continue progressing (1 Tim. 4:15-16). And he earned the honor he received because he was not afraid to stand up and be an honorable example for others (1 Tim. 4:12, 5:17). All of this sprung out from that mentor’s early confidence in the diligent, honorable man Timothy could become with meaningful support. What (or rather who) the mentor diligently invested in gave a good return.

Timothy learned about these things and took them to heart. And, as we see that he lived them out while showing no particular signs of living with any great financial means, we are reminded from his life that diligence does not always lead to material wealth. But, when consistently pursued, it should lead to a fruitful and honorable life.

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Among modern songwriters, one of my favorites by far is Jon Foreman. Many of his themes center around the journey of and battle in the human heart when that heart comes, surrendering, face to face with the Grace that longs to embrace it.

He writes of deep and honest emotions, sometimes daring to pen lines about things and thoughts we would rather not acknowledge or discuss. He writes of precious love born out of honorable intentions. He writes of internal workings anyone who has lived with awareness long enough can somehow innately understand.

And to hear him speak in recordings, I get the sense that while he is a very talented musician, he is also a really humble, average, approachable man. A man who has been embraced by the compassion he often refers to, the Grace that flows through his music. It has shaped him well over the years.

While I was preparing to wrap up this month of blog posts, I came across one of his songs that has moved me deeply time and time again.

I love the words which remind me that none of us can truly ever be compassionate until we remember that it is only God’s compassion which is our model for being compassionate… even though He has more of a right than anyone else to be our judge and to demand that we stop judging others unfairly. It is His compassion which can turn our hearts around, melt them, and reshape them into hearts that beat more like His.

As I began the month with Christ, so I end it with the Trinity: still our best source of compassion. Father, forgive us when we lack mercy. Jesus, teach us when we need multiple lessons in understanding Your heart. Spirit, help us in our weakness. Amen.

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