Image by Melissa Clayton
The sound of my lover! here he comes springing across the mountains, leaping across the hills. My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag. See! He is standing behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattices.
You know when you are waiting for someone, every single sound and every single footstep is anticipated that it is the person you are waiting for. We are imprisoned in the evil thoughts of abandonment, the thoughts of loneliness, the thoughts of being unloved. But, the gazelle and young stag that we read about here is the ray of hope and freedom, think about it a gazelle and young stag has such freedom and joy, no boundaries. Yet, we sit here feel like we are caged in, so freedom is sitting there looking through the window at us imprisoned.
My lover speaks and says to me,“Arise, my friend, my beautiful one, and come! For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning the vines has come, and the song of the turtledove is heard in our land.
So stop. Get up, and run to the Lord. No matter what storms we have been through. He is standing there with open arms. I have mentioned about losing my Grandma, and the grief that entailed with it. Up to Christmas, the tension was so tight that I was unsure how things could ever move on, how I could grow in the Lord with such a heavy weight around my neck. As a Christmas gift, I decided to make a blanket full of my grandmother’s t-shirts. With every snip of the shirt, a little bit of that weight was lifted, with every hum of the sewing machine, a little bit more was lifted, and finally I feel a little bit lighter. Sure I am not fully healed, but it's a start. We are called to prune the vines in our life, so that the flowers in our life can bloom.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance. Arise, my friend, my beautiful one, and come! My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the secret recesses of the cliff, Let me see your face, let me hear your voice, For your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.” Catch us the foxes,* the little foxes that damage the vineyards; for our vineyards are in bloom! My lover belongs to me and I to him; he feeds among the lilies. Until the day grows cool* and the shadows flee, roam, my lover, Like a gazelle or a young stag upon the rugged mountains.
If we chose, we can let things creep back up and attack us and the fruit of our labor in the vineyard of the Lord is lost. The fruit of the trimming to see the beauty is gone. We belong to the Lord; we are the Beloved’s and the Beloved’s ours. When we submit ourselves to the Lord, when we finally trim the vines to see the beauty grow, to see our love with the Lord grow- it is then that we can run like the gazelle and be free. It is then that we are no longer looking through the lattice and windows, but when we are free, and encompassed in the Lord’s love.
