Unrequited love's answer

At the camp conference I just came back from they invited everyone to write down a question for a Q&A session. I thought about one I've always wanted answered by a panel of preachers but in the end I thought, "Oh, there's more weighty matters for them to spend their precious minutes on for this hour-long session."

The next afternoon, after lunch and before the evening meetings, the ball was tossed to me when we were sitting at a table with a very seasoned preacher (one who regularly travels abroad for evangelism opportunities, including Singapore, India and the Philippines) and a woman attending the conference said, "You got a question for him?"

I said, "Well, yeah, how do you deal with unrequited love when it involves a fellow Grace Believer?"

Among very good thoughts he gave me, he said, "You learn to give the gospel (and dispensational message) to others to fill that gap."

What's amazing is I had already come to that conclusion only a week or so before in coping with the heartache after a sister in Christ suddenly dropped me as a friend with no explanation or apparent reason that I can easily identify.

I have a lot I want to share from the weekend but again I am so tired and now have a bad headache, I guess from the rain and cold air that has come in. I will put my thoughts together tomorrow for certain.

*****

Song of Solomon 2:16: "My Beloved is mine, and I am His."

In a commentary on this verse, Bible expositor Cora MacIlravey (circa 1916) wrote:

"She is assured of her union with Him, which is eternal and indissoluble. Her heart is filled with rest because He is hers; she is apprehending that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate her from the One who died for her, and from His love.

"In deep settled peace, she rests in the assurance that, though she is unworthy and many times unfaithful, He abideth faithful for He cannot deny Himself. As she recalls all He has done for her, she comforts and strengthens herself in Him and His undying love. She rejoices that, whether together or separated, whether seen or unseen, her Beloved is hers and she is His. Literally: 'My Beloved is for me and I am for Him.'

"There is such joy and sense of holy possession in the thought that our Beloved is ours . . . His beauty and attributes are for us that we may put them on. . .  He is all we need for He is our precious Storehouse, and in Him are hidden all God's riches in glory. He is our refuge and strong tower.

"She rejoices not only that her Beloved is hers, but that she is His. She is His because He created her, because He has redeemed her, because He has loved her with an everlasting love . . . She is His to protect and defend . . . She is His that He may fight her battles; she is His to correct and chasten, to mold and shape; she is His that He may perfect that which concerneth her and make her more than a conqueror. She is His to feed and nourish; and He alone can bring her home to Glory, and seat her upon His throne as His spotless spouse. She is for Him alone.

"Let us lay our wills down at His feet, that His will may closely encompass us. Let us yield that he may purify and fashion us into His own glorious image. Only as we abandon ourselves to Him without reserve, can we enter into the relation that is here described; and go on to all that is set forth in the rest of this revelation. Every power and every faculty--all, all must be His and for Him alone; for Him to use as He pleases.

"The half-hearted Christian never knows the joy of the abandonment that is ours when we say: 'I am for my Beloved.' Our only sorrow is that there is so little to pour out at His feet. Our only regret is that all we can bring is so contemptible compared to that which He is to us, and which is expressed in the clause, 'My Beloved is mine.'

"Beloved reader, have we realized truly that we are 'for Him'? . . . To our amazement and joy, He has bespoken us for Himself; and we have given ourselves to be His through time and Eternity, to be His and His alone.

"Time is rapidly fading away, the things of the earth and of the natural are sinking out of sight and becoming as shadows. There is a glory falling upon our union with our Lord, which is shining more brightly as the days go by. It seems that there are only a few more mileposts to pass, only a little more of the earthy to be taken off, only a little more time in which to perfect our relation to Him and our separation from all else, and then we shall rise to meet Him in the clouds; and thus be forever with the Lord."