Love Sonnets from God: Romance Draws Out Beauty.

Day 15 of the 21 Days of Romance Challenge.

Love has a transforming power. Love transforms cold, sin-hardened hearts into scarlet red hearts, warm and alive. Love transforms bitterness into forgiveness. Love transforms shame into assurance, anger into gentleness.

“Biblical love is efficacious. They [men] are to love their wives, knowing that this is going to have an effect in the realm of the spirit. As a wife cultivates a gentle and quiet spirit, she becomes increasingly beautiful. He treats her in the way of Christ in all things, both great and little. She grows in beauty, and this beauty is alluring to her husband.” –Douglas Wilson

I wonder that Christ can love me as His bride with such a beautifying love.

He says it is so:

“and you shall be called by a new name
   that the mouth of the LORD will give.
³You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD,
   and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
⁴ You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
   and your land shall no more be termed Desolate,
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
   and your land Married;
for the LORD delights in you,
   and your land shall be married.
⁵For as a young man marries a young woman,
   so shall your sons marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
   so shall your God rejoice over you.” –Isaiah 62:2-5

There is no question that God’s love transforms beauty from my sin-caved heart. God’s love makes all things beautiful. His love transforms leprous hands into clean ones, restores the fevered body to health, turns the tempest into stillness, the fearful into peaceful. Jesus’ love transforms paralytic legs to dance, converts cheaters into companions. He makes beautiful the woman who bled, who is restored, changes death into mere resting, brings seeing beauty to once blind eyes. He gives words to the mute, stretches out the withered hands, fills empty stomachs with bread and fish, changes death sentences to eternal hope. Jesus’ love does nothing but make us more beautiful if we partake of Him.

“What more, you may ask, do we want? … We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” —C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

How do we pass into this realm of beauty? Through His enveloping love. But His love doesn’t end there, for when we believe in Him, abide in Him, then we live in His love and begin to love others deeply. And being loved deeply radiates. Someone once said, "You don't love a woman because she's beautiful; she is beautiful because you love her." Romance draws out beauty, because right love always makes us lovelier.

Beauty is defined in the dictionary as the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind. Here, beauty doesn’t radiate from the heart. True beauty is in the mind, in the perception, and comes from the true knowledge that we are deeply and passionately loved—first and greatest by God. David Taylor speaks of beauty this way, “But always, the effect of beauty upon us will be the same—to evoke longing for the Source of all beauties.” When we reflect even a glimmer of His beauty into others, this beauty serves no other purpose but the glorify Him and draw others closer to His love. This is beautiful.

Macduff Everton said, “There is a difference between pretty and beautiful. Beauty can astonish us. Inspire us. Make us dance. Make us weep. Beauty can be magical. Beauty can transform us. Beauty lets our soul sing. Beauty can have such depth that you don’t even notice at first, or ever.”

This beauty, coming from the One who is worshiped, coming from the One who is the most beautiful of all, coming from the One who created it, cannot be denied. Beauty is His essence. And if I am called to be ever drawing near, striving to be an imitator of Him, how can I undervalue this beauty rubbing off on me? Why do I seek to cover it with thick garments of “character”? Beauty is a garment of its own, and true beauty holds no need for covering. Jesus words say it best, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me.” And when I reflect beauty back to the Beautiful, my life is a fragrant offering, a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to Him. I am humbled that He can find any beauty in me it all. But He sees beauty, He sees the “imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,” which He says is very precious in His sight.

God’s love not only beautifies, but it asks me to love and be loved, to share His essence with others. It allows me to reflect it back to Him. In Exodus we see seven chapters filled with our God’s design plan for His tabernacle. He calls people by name, specifically imparts abilities in them to create beauty for Him. And He has given us all our own abilities too, abilities which when done for Him, are our own offerings of beauty for His glory. He gives us all the ability to love, because He has commanded it of us all. And in loving, beauty is grown.

Solomon, one of the greatest lovers of all, captures this beautifying love:

^“8Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
she will honor you if you embrace her.
⁹She will place on your head a graceful garland;
she will bestow on you a beautiful crown."- Proverbs 4:8-10

In romance, the more we are loved, the more we bestow loveliness. The more we love, the more we are made beautiful through our actions, the more we bring beauty to others. True romance brings beauty. For true love is but a pale picture of the love between Christ and His bride.

Ephesians 5:25-29

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷sothat he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. ²⁸In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church…”

Lord, help me to love deeply. Help me to believe wholly, believe in Your love. Help me to live beautiful; for though I am ashes, You turn them into beauty. I praise You, Lord for You are the Beautiful One. May Your beauty be all I seek. Lord, there is no other name that I want, than to be called, “My Delight Is in Her.”