If you pay attention to what is happening in the world, you will often see great contrasts. If you listen to music, there are a lot of songs about love. It is one of the big themes that keep returning. If you pay attention to books that are read or movies that attract many people, the love between a man and a woman is often a very important element. You can see the strong desire in people for love. The longing for love in which man and woman find peace with each other will always exist. But when you look at reality, it often seems more like a desire for a fairy-tale world.
When you see how many marriages end up in divorce, how many marriages continue to struggle with difficulties, such longing often seems very unreal. That which for many people starts under the name of love and in which a man and a woman promise each other love and faithfulness, often in our time ends with great sadness and negative feelings toward each other in court.
That is the environment in which we live. Sometimes it comes very close to us. How can we, as children of God, work to ensure that the word love
is not something from another planet but that it actually takes shape in our lives? And that we, as Christians, will radiate this love in this world as well? How can and do we work at it to cause love to grow in our lives and cause our marriages to endure in love?
9 You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.