Happily Ever After: Devotions From Time of GraceSample

When You’re Dating: Enjoy the Magnetism Mother Ann Lee, the founder of the peculiar American religious sect called the Shakers, was terribly afraid of the corrupting power of sexuality. She kept the men and women in her communities largely separate. Dating and marriage were forbidden. That fear of sex’s power to destabilize the brain may have been part of the church’s motivation for many centuries to hold forth life in a monastery as superior to and holier than marriage and family life. In God’s view, there is nothing inherently dirty about human sexuality. He made it for us to enjoy. The Song of Songs in the Bible is essentially the libretto to a romantic musical (alas, the original music was not able to be preserved) that describes the longing and ecstasy of human emotional and physical love. The “Lover” and the “Beloved” express their rapture and delight in their love: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth--for your love is more delightful than wine” (Song of Songs 1:2). The romantic and physical magnetism that you feel toward the opposite sex is God’s gift. Enjoy it.