becoming his beauty

¹How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. ²Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies. ³Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. ⁴Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim: thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus. ⁵Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple; the king is held in the galleries. ⁶How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! ⁷This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. ⁸I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples; ⁹And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak. ¹⁰I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.

~Song of Solomon 7:1-10

Graphic by © 2005 ChristArt, Inc.

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Becoming His Beauty
By Lysa TerKeurst

How do you become the beauty your husband wants to capture and never let go? How do you get him to be the man . . . the romantic man of your dreams? How do you get him to fix that leaking toilet and take out the trash without being asked?

You seduce him.

Ohmygoodness! (that's a southern expression I picked up from a dear friend of mine named Dolly and the only one appropriate after a sentence like that!)

I said it. Yes, Christian sisters of mine, you seduce him!

John Eldridge in his book, Wild at Heart, says, "I'm telling you that the church has really crippled women when it tells them that their beauty is vain and they are at their feminine best when they are 'serving others.' A woman is at her best when she is being a woman." He goes on to say that if a woman wants her man to do something she has several options. "She can badger him: All you ever do is work, work, work. Why don't you stand up and be a man? She can whine about it and in essence emasculate him: I thought you were a real man; I guess I was wrong. Or she can use all she is as a woman to get him to use all he's got as a man. She can arouse, inspire, energize . . . seduce him. Ask your man which he'd prefer."

I love that line, "use all she is as a woman to get him to use all he's got as a man." That's what it means to become his beauty. This seduction is more than a sexual thing. It is about becoming the beauty that draws the heart of your man into the oneness God intended for the two of you to have. A man's heart is drawn out by a woman's beauty. The deep parts of him suddenly expose themselves when he's made to feel desired and attracted.

A woman's inner spirit also needs to be attractive to her husband. 1 Peter 3:3-6 explains that for a woman to be truly beautiful she must have the "unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit." This does not mean she is to be quiet all the time but rather exude a spirit of loveliness that her husband wants to be around. It is God's design that a woman -- someone so completely feminine and intoxicating to him -- helps him let his guard down and makes him feel free to let masculinity surge through him. She's fully feminine and he's fully masculine, and the two make a beautiful one.

The beauty needs her man. The man needs his beauty. God designed for this oneness to delight us, energize us, and fulfill our longings to be desired. First Corinthians 7:3-5 says, "The man should give his wife all that is her right as a married woman, and the wife should do the same for her husband; for a girl who marries no longer has full right to her own body, for her husband then has his rights to it too; and in the same way the husband no longer has full right to his own body for it belongs also to his wife. So do not refuse these rights to each other. The only exception to this rule would be the agreement of both husband and wife to refrain from the rights of marriage for a limited time, so that they can give themselves more completely to prayer. Afterwards, they should come together again so that Satan won't be able to tempt them because of their lack of self-control"

Author Chuck Snyder in his book, Men: Some Assembly Required says, "It's interesting to look up the Greek meaning of 'come together again' in the above passage. The Greek word is hupotasso-whoopee! meaning three or more times a week. Now, don't blame me ladies. Look up the Greek for yourself."

Maybe that's where we got the expression, "Let's make whoopee!" Do you want to become the beauty in the romance God is writing between you and your husband? I know I do. So let's make it a practice to become the beauty, inside and out, who isn't afraid to seduce and make some hupotasso-whoopee!

Lysa TerKeurst and her prince charming, Art, are founders of The Proverbs 31 Ministry. Lysa is the author of Capture His Heart and Capture Her Heart.

From Capture His Heart, by Lysa TerKeurst. Copyright © 2002, Moody Press. Used with permission of the publisher.

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