The winter is past

I was in the prayer room at Campus house of prayer, yesterday I think. I was with someone who read Joel 2:18 - 3:?, that passage about restoration, the years that the locust has stolen. There was a song from Misty Edwards that really spoke to me about how God feels about me. I decided to read Song of Solomon with the mindset to really put myself in the role of the Shulamite and God in the Beloved's. I immediately began to feel... drunk with the passion of His love, overwhelmed by an amazing sensuality. Over the past year, I have felt moments of being purely loved by God, and was very content in that, but this was magnified, more than I can even begin to explain. Pretty consistently in the last month or so, God has told me how much He enjoys, values, desires, looks forward to our intimacy. I knew it in my head, but the fact that He has specifically said it changes everything somewhat. It's not only just something I do because I desperately need to feel God. I go now because I feel and expectation, not just from me, but also from Him. I feel wrapped up in His love, I feel a deeper intimacy, a deeper and more steadfast contentment. How do I put words to it? I can't I just can't. All I can say is that I'm loved and desired and He wants me, He really wants me.

Anyway, reading Song of Solomon, and this passage popped right out at me - S.S. 2:10-13:

My Beloved spoke, and said to me:
"Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away.
For lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of singing has come,
And the voice of the turtledove
Is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth her green figs,
And the vines with the tender grapes
Give a good smell.
Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away!"

The winter has past. I could relate to the Chronicles of Narnia when Tumnus says, "Always winter and never Christmas-" This year, I feel like I came out of a long winter, and God totally took me hand, lead me out of the valley of the shadow of death and reassured me - the winter is past and the rain is gone...