I watched in horrified fascination this morning as statistics were released about the love habits of couples - and they stopped at age fifty. People over fifty aren't lovers? Then why do Paul and I hold hands everywhere we go? Does one have to have a perfect body, fit for the movie screen, to be a lover? I guess that kind of approach would cut out over half the couples in the world.
I'm writing this reflection for tomorrow today because my husband and I are about to run away together from Tuesday till Friday, all the way from one Buffalo suburb to another. We'll catch a couple of movies, do some shopping, read, I'll use the I-Pad to blog, and we'll simply enjoy each others' company, either in silence or in conversation. Another miracle: forty-eight years of marriage, and we still don't bore each other.
One of my favorite love poems is the Biblical Song of Solomon. Here are some of its words about true love: " Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for stern as death is love, relentless as the netherworld is devotion; its flames are a blazing fire. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away." Beautiful and challenging words, they call couples to love each other in sickness and in health, in poverty and riches, in misunderstandings and arguments, till death.
Not every couple is blessed with love this deep and rich. But if you and your beloved have even the beginnings of love and the desire that it last, ask God to help you. He gave you this gift of love, and He will strengthen it in you. After all, He is our first and greatest passionate Lover!