Song of Solomon 2:1-2: The Key to Every Woman's Heart

[She]

[1] I am a rose of Sharon,
a lily of the valleys.
[He]
[2] As a lily among brambles,
so is my love among the young women.


(Song of Solomon 2:1-2 ESV)

These two verses pack a lot of wisdom into a few words.  There's a great deal to learn here about a woman's heart, and about how a man needs to treat her heart so that she can rest and enjoy their love.  This will likely feel very counter-cultural, because this is a definition of beauty that our culture knows nothing about.  Yet this is intensely Biblical, and it truly is the key to every woman's heart.


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She starts out by saying, "I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys."  To understand this, we need to see what she means by saying "rose of Sharon," a "lily of the valleys."  If you just take this at face value with an American mindset, it sounds like she's just comparing herself to a pretty flower, which could make it appear that she likes how she looks.  Yet this is the opposite of what's going on.  

Sharon is a wide coastal plain; flowers such as this are abundant, common.  Likewise, a lily in the valleys is beautiful, but common.  One among millions.  Just like everything else.  Not a stand-out.

The woman is being self-deprecating in her beauty.  She is not elevating herself; she sees herself as common, ordinary, like everyone else, not a stand-out, certainly not like the paragons of beauty who get trumpeted around everywhere.

But Solomon responds by saying, "As a lily among brambles, so is my love among the young women."  She is not one flower in a field of a million flowers; she is the only flower in a field of thorns.  Compared to her beauty, he says, everyone else is a thorn or a thistle: undesirable, ugly, a weed.  

Most women are insecure about their appearance.  They are acutely aware of their flaws, and secretly doubt that anyone will find them to be beautiful with all of their failures to look like the women in beauty magazines.  Women are encouraged to be the aggressors in nearly every beauty magazine, often because doing so makes them feel worthy of being pursued.  Women are often aggressive to prove to themselves that they are desirable.  In a world that tells them they constantly fail to measure up to these magazines, this is a defense mechanism to avoid the pain of loneliness, as well as the pain of being labelled too plain to be worthy anyone's time.

But this is only a problem if men use those magazines as their standards of beauty.  If a man is truly biblical, he will make his wife his standard of beauty.  His wife is the paragon of beauty, to him.  No one else can compare, because no one else is like her.  

This seems strange, at first blush.  Yet it is more than possible.  I have experienced it myself.  

Everything in culture says you have to follow your heart, but the truth is that we must lead our hearts.  Every happily married couple knows this.  After the wedding, after the honeymoon glow fades, couples have to work to keep romance alive.  You must lead your heart to your spouse, especially when so many aspects of our culture are tempting your heart to turn aside to other pleasures.  There are times when married couples don't feel loving; they might be arguing, or bitter, or hurt, or stressed.  But you can lead your heart back to love, even if your emotions don't want to go there.  Your emotions will follow your heart; if you lead your heart back to your spouse, your emotions will follow, and romance will again blossom.

In much the same way, a man can make his standard of beauty his wife.  Movies, TV shows, magazines, and video games will try to tell a man what he should find attractive. Yet if a man chooses to lead his heart to his wife, with God's help and guidance he will find himself more and more attracted to her and less and less attracted to the photoshopped Hollywood women.  If a man leads his heart to his wife, his emotions will follow, and he'll feel more passion and emotional flair for his wife's beauty than for any woman he'll see on the internet.  Your emotions will follow the choices you make with your heart.  

In other words: Men, if you don't think your wife is the most beautiful woman on earth, it's only because you haven't prayerfully lead your heart to her, and away from every other woman.  You can see her as the most beautiful woman ever, and your emotions will feel that way.  But to get there, you have to lead your heart.

Solomon has lead his heart this way.  His bride is not the cultural standard of beauty.  Yet to Solomon, she is perfect.  And he tells her this, frequently.  She is his standard of beauty; compared to her, no one else is even close.  She is a lily among thorns, a diamond in the rough.

Men: find the things a woman doubts about herself, what she considers her weaknesses, what she thinks makes her just like all the rest.

Then make these her strengths. Compliment her on them, show her how she's a stand-out, how everyone else is a thorn and a thistle compared to her.  We'll see this elsewhere in Song of Solomon, how Solomon loves the unique things about his bride that she thinks are her flaws.  She has dark skin from working outside all the time, which was undesirable at that time, yet Solomon loves it.  She has a huge neck, but Solomon loves it because of all the jewelry she can hang off of it.  She was insecure about these things, but they are two of the very things that attract her husband to her.  Men, your woman won't know how much you adore these things about her unless you tell her, and tell her frequently!

She should feel safe with you, knowing that you see her as a beautiful treasure far above all the rest.  If she knows that she is your standard, then she won't be as afraid of you running off with another woman.  How could you choose any other woman, since they would all be less beautiful than your standard of beauty?

When she knows that she is your standard, when she has this safety, then she will see you as an apple tree amongst all the other trees: refreshing, protective, enjoying her time in your shade. She will treasure you, if she knows you treasure her.

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Another way to say this is for men to recognize that their woman is the Queen of Fashion.  Whatever she's rocking, that's what's in style.  Everyone else who isn't her, who isn't rocking what she's rocking, is by definition not as beautiful as her.  This gives women the freedom to be who they want to be, without feeling like they have to conform to some pre-existing standard.  If a woman wants to change her hair color, or completely change her kind of outfit, or hang around the house for a day in her sweats, she can!  It won't make her any more or less beautiful in her man's eyes; rather, he should see that she's exactly as beautiful as before (which is to say, she's still the paragon of beauty).  She's just playing around with her options.  Nothing that she does should make her feel like he might reject her, because he will always accept her, by virtue of her simply being herself!  

This is true even if she struggles with things culture says are less desirable, like moles on her face, or skin that won't tan, or weight that won't go away.  To her husband, she's still the Queen of Fashion.  That means that moles on the face are now in style, and every woman without one just can't measure up.  If she has pale skin that burns instead of tans, that means that tanning is suddenly out of style.  And if she has a little extra weight, then all those skinny girls dancing around like twigs are entirely too thin to be attractive to this woman's husband.  

So women, this should give you an immense amount of freedom.  No longer are you judged by how well you measure up to culture's standards.  Rather, your husband will measure you based on how well you measure up to being you, which you will always ace.  If your husband views you as Solomon views his bride, then you should never again feel like you might be rejected for how you look.  You should always feel beautiful, loved, and cherished.

And men, culture tells you to let your eyes wander, and lust after whatever you like.  The Bible is telling you to keep your eyes focused on your bride, and let her define what's beautiful.  Culture's way seems to be more "fun" initially, but it will lead you to nothing but disaster and loneliness, because you will never be able to love a woman rightly with that kind of heart.  Trust Scripture, here.  If you focus your heart on one woman for life, you will know a level of fun, pleasure, intimacy, peace, and passion that our culture can never replicate.

So how does this all work out for single people?  Single people can't exactly make their spouse their standard of beauty, because they don't have a spouse yet.  So what are they to do?

For starters, single people need to recognize that they don't have a standard of beauty yet.  Instead of judging people you meet by some other standard of beauty, recognize that everyone has been made in the image of God, which means that everyone is beautiful, in their own way.  So instead of judging them for failing to be someone else, look for the beauty in them that God has already placed there.  You might be surprised by how beautiful the people around you are, whom you never noticed because your eyes were focused on a different standard.

Also, when single people begin dating, a form of this teaching can be applied.  Instead of comparing the person you're dating to everyone around you, focus on them.  Don't think like the culture, which tells you to always be on the lookout for a hotter model, so you can trade in your current one for an upgrade.  That's nonsense; it only makes sense if there is some objective standard of beauty, which there simply isn't.  

Instead, focus on your boyfriend or girlfriend.  Find out how God has made them beautiful.  Explore this person; don't worry about anyone else.  You will either find out that you're compatible, or that you're not.  God will either call you to stay together, or to separate.  Either way, you should find this out by focusing on each other, not by comparing each other to other people.

Doing things this way will help prepare your heart for marriage.  In marriage, your heart is committed to one person above all others, and should never change.  In dating, therefore, your heart should not be constantly evaluating different people and being tugged in multiple directions.  Rather, in dating you should still focus on one person, on seeing their beauty, until it becomes obvious that you should either stay together forever or separate for good.  It might take a few months to see that, or it might take a few years.  Either way, you discover this by focusing on each other.

If you both commit to this in dating, you'll never have to worry about cheating, or feel insecure when your boyfriend/girlfriend is talking to someone of the opposite gender.  This kind of dating commitment, of focusing on each other until the future becomes clear, will create a beautiful safety net where your hearts can be free to get to know each other, without having to put up walls defensively.

  

There's more to say about all of this, but I'll cut it off here.  What we've talked about already is so counter-cultural that it might take some time to process.