Robert & I have spent the last few days in Perry as his sister, Marynan, got married today. We will update soon with a blog and pictures, but as promised--today is a "Saturdays with Ashley" kinda day--and she appropriately wrote about THE Marriage...so here you go...enjoy....
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Well my roommate has recently decided to get dreadlocks. When she told me what I thought, I was all in, I think they look cool. So after a week of not washing her hair we are finally to the dreadlock stage. She went over to one of our friend’s house who knows how to do dreadlocks. She came back about four hours later; honestly I was really excited to see how they turned out. She comes into my room with half of her hair in dreads and the ones she had just looked like frizzy sticks of hair and they were sticking out to the side. Well only half of her hair was in dreads because they ran out of time, and the other half looked so bad because apparently that’s what they’re going to look like for the first few weeks and then they won’t even fully lock for three months. My response was just wow that stinks, because honestly it just looks like someone teased her hair and tied a few rubber bands in along with it.
So why am I tell you about my roommate's dreadlocks? Good question. Now I know all of you may not agree (including my mom) with the statement I'm about to make.....dreadlocks look really good when they're fully done. Ok I said it, whew that wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Now I want you to have that mindset when reading this email, even if you don't agree just pretend for this email's sake that dreadlocks look really good when they're done. Many of you know that this module I'm taking Song of Solomon which has been absolutely amazing. They have taken the book and shown us how we are the bride and Jesus is the bridegroom (this is NOT a physical thing it's spiritual we are not going to be marrying Jesus in the physical sense). So our main objective and goal in life is to become wholehearted lovers, fulfilling the first commandment. Not only is Jesus our reward, but we are His inheritance and believe it or not He is really excited about receiving us as His inheritance. Throughout the Song you see as the bride (us) first is really focused on her inheritance in Jesus, but then she shifts that focus to Jesus' inheritance in her. This makes her strive to be a wholehearted lover. The verse about being equally yoked doesn't just apply to our relationships on earth, but also to our relationship with Jesus. He longs for a bride that will be equally yoked to Him in love. Through this journey in Song of Songs this is what Jesus is bringing the maiden (us) into, full mature love.
So what does full mature love have in common with dreadlocks? Everything! Ok, you're right not everything but enough to make a good point. Just as we are striving to become mature lovers, my roommate is trying to get these dreadlocks. However at first it doesn't look like we expected. Instead it looks like a big mess, we mess up, we give ourselves to other lovers (things of this world), and no matter how hard we're trying it feels like we're just running in circles. We feel like we aren't even close to being wholehearted lovers. We expect to put ourselves in a microwave and BAM three minutes later tada we are whole hearted lovers! Well just like the dreads it doesn't really work like that, it is going to take some time. For a long time (more than three months) we're going to be a mess trying to figure out how to even love this God-man.
Want to know what keeps the maiden going in the story? The same thing that is making my roommate keep her dreads in, she knows in the end what it's going to look like. Throughout the whole story Jesus keeps reaffirming her. He tells her she has doves eyes (doves can only look straight ahead they can't look to the sides so she is only looking at Him). I could give a lot of examples about how He keep affirming her, but that would be another email all together so I just picked my favorite :). Even though the maiden keeps messing up and rejects His leadership at various parts in the story, He still looks at her and sees beauty. This is because Jesus sees the end result, He doesn't just look at the mistakes we made today, He is looking at the big picture. Even though we mess up He sees that our hearts are set on loving Him, and He loves that. He knows that one day we will be mature lovers, so He continues to speak life over us and encourage us along the way.
Don't mistake your immaturity for failure, Jesus knows exactly where you are and He isn't going to expect too much out of you. Everything He does is to mature you into being a wholehearted lover. We just have to remember that it's a process, we need to keep striving and set our eyes on the goal. With a sincere heart for HIm, we have already ravished His heart. To think that He can look at the stars at night, the sunset, the sunrise, the ocean, the mountains, and every season the world goes through, yet none of that fascinates HIm. The one thing that really stirs His heart and the one thing that He sees as beautiful, is you. You are the one that has stolen His heart. He longs to be equally yoked with you, and for you to walk into this role of being a wholehearted lover. Just remember your "dreads" are going to look like a mess for a long time, but in the end they're going to look really good. It's a process.
God Bless
Ashley