"Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires." - Song of Solomon
This refrain appears throughout the love poem of Songs in Scripture, a poem that is sometimes erotic and always full of passion. I have never quite understood what it meant...but now I am raising teenage daughters.
In our culture, girls begin to grow into womanhood, and we tell them to wait for love until they are done with school, until they have started a career, until they have explored and had adventures. People would be appalled at a girl who married at the age of fifteen.
Yet at the same time, we awaken desire in her. We dress her in suggestive clothing, surround her with suggestive images, and fill her soul with music that awakens desire. The church is not immune from the culture we live in.
I don't know the answer, but I am engaged in the struggle. I have watched many young adult women derailed by passions not expressed in the safety of marriage, and all I know to do is ask my Father to throw His protective cloak over my girls. Now this verse makes sense to me, and I chorus with the women of Song of Solomon, do not awaken love until it so desires, in the lives of my precious daughters.
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