Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I look in the mirror and see a 5:00 shadow on my chin, but I’ve noticed that there are certain things that I do and I will catch myself and say, “Wow….I’ve been around Jason too long. He has rubbed off  on me.”  Haha!

Things like certain foods that I eat that way back when, I would have NEVER touched. Or, songs I like now that again I never thought I would. But where I have noticed it the most is in the way I write.  I never liked reading growing up much less writing. But it is a great release for me to get my thoughts down. I’ve noticed that I have begun to use words that I would have never even known that they existed.  So I have acquired my writing style from my husband.

Now I will say that I see a lot of things in Jason now that remind me of myself.  Mainly, though, his comedic timing. I’m pretty proud of that. He can actually come up with some good jokes. but delivery is key. He does a fine  job at it now. But, like anything, it takes practice.

Since as long as I can remember, I had felt a tugging on my heart for the Lord. But I ignored it. He didn’t have anything I needed and I was just fine on my own. I began to feel even stronger urges for Jesus when I was in the 6th grade and that year for Christmas, I asked for a Bible. That was pretty much the biggest thing I had wanted. I got it and then I put it in a drawer. That’s where it stayed– in a dust filled drawer.

Around this time, my Grandmother really started to witness to me. She would invite me to church with her, and I went every once in a while– not wanting to turn her down and hurt her feelings. My cousins went to the same church and they were heavily involved in the youth groups and Cassie would sing specials. Which I thought at the time was pretty cool that she could sing. I guess I thought she was the next American Idol or something. But I would go either with them or with my Grandmother from time to time. I think I went maybe a grand total of 3-4 times to that church.

My Father was extremely opposed to church and really God in general. We went to a Lutheran church sometimes, but I clearly remember my father saying that we went there because they didn’t jump up and down and shout and raise their hands. And they weren’t pushy about “religion”.  If we didn’t go one Sunday, no worries because we knew no one was going to call us to “check-in” with us to see why we “sinners” weren’t there. The problem was that that church was run by one family and they did whatever they wanted, and however they wanted. They didn’t care who it upset or offended because it was their church.  And somewhere deep in my spirit, I knew it wasn’t right, but I allowed my worldly side to overrule that.

 As I entered into high school in the fall of 1995, we had just moved to a little town in Clarke County, VA. It was my freshman year and the only person I knew was a girl who lived two houses down from me. We had met a few weeks after we moved in and she would show me around this town that was smaller than Mayberry.  So I was the new kid. Suddenly I had found myself with new surroundings and new people. The possibilities for me were endless (or so I thought).  I had my first boyfriend that year– actually I had my first 13 boyfriends that year. A deed that earned me the nickname of “slut”. Even though I never slept with any of them– I hardly even kissed any of them. But people will believe what they want to believe and as I have found out, they will say what they want to say.

 I remember trying so hard to please everyone. I was not a people person, as a general rule, partly because I was shy. But my freshman year was my break out year. My shell started to come off. Only, instead of me cautiously pushing a little at a time, I busted through that thing with all my might and now that I look back on it, I don’t think I was quite ready for the “real world”. But I faced it head on–me and all my “adultness” and my 14 years of age behind me.  Yes sir, I thought I had it all figured out.

As I entered in to my sophomore year, I met a guy and fell “madly in love” with him. The relationship lasted for 4 years. Everybody-including me- thought we were going to get married.  Why wouldn’t I? He was the guy I gave my virginity to.  Isn’t that every girls’ dream? Well, it was mine.  He was 2 years older than me and went to college a year ahead of me. My heart completely shattered into a bazillion pieces when after only a month of college, he couldn’t even tell me that he loved me anymore. He was all I had known for 4 years. He had been my world. I thought he would be my husband. I thought he would be the father of my children.

But he, himself, had a new world of opportunity opened up to him, just as I had my freshman year of high school. Suddenly, he was the new kid and everyone (especially the ladies) liked him. And he liked the attention. At that point I went into a deep depression. I barely ate, and when I did eat, it was usually just a small salad. I didn’t want anything. I would cry constantly. So much so that I know my family got annoyed with me, but I truly could not help it. It would come on and no matter how hard I tried to fight back the tears they had a mind of their own and would come on me before I could even think twice about it.

But he had told me some silly story of wanting to kiss other girls and it broke my heart, so I went to work one night and was complaining about it and another guy so graciously offered to sleep with me. You know, to “help me out”. And so I did. Thus began my promiscuous years. And it was only my senior year.  Once I finished high school, I went off to college. My boyfriend and I had gotten back together, and I followed him to his college. It was there that I discovered alcohol.

I loved to party. I loved how alcohol made me feel. My boyfriend and I eventually grew apart because of it. I partied all the time. I like to think of it as instead of spending all that money on college itself, I had one HUGE party.   I eventually found myself in the arms of a few different guys. All of whom wanted me only for what I had. Not because of who I was or what I was going to do with myself. But I wound up with a hand full of different “relationships” in college and after my freshman year there, I flunked out.  So I went home a defeated person. How did I get so far off track? What had I done with my life? The problem was I had sunk so far into the quicksand, and I wasn’t able to get out on my own. So I was stuck in the same old ruts.

 Now saying all of that is not to say that the Lord had removed His hand from me that entire time. The first semester I was there, I, again felt a tugging on my heart for God. I began to crave Him. But I didn’t know the first thing about how to begin a relationship with Him. And to be honest, I didn’t even know that I needed a relationship, but I knew I wanted to know more about Him. So I called my R.A. in my room one night. In a hall meeting we’d previously had, she had said something about God, so I thought she would be the one to ask since she seemed religious enough. I mean, she talked about God. I was pretty sure I was on to something there.

 So she came in and sat down and I told her that I really wanted to know more about God, but didn’t really know how to go about such a task. So she told me to start reading my Bible. Problem was, WHERE do I start in the Bible? Have you ever cracked open a Bible? There were so many different books and I had a New King James translation. Which I will admit is far better than the King James as far as the language goes, but still hard to read none the less. I couldn’t read that thing. I wasn’t even sure if I was holding the thing right side up or upside down. I was so confused. So, I did the next logical thing. I joined the BSU.

 The Baptist Student Union. It was a group that met in a church that was across the street from my dorms. They served free lunch. And you had a worship service and then the Campus Pastor would come and deliver a message. It was church in general, but with a more contemporary flair. I liked it. The songs were more up my alley, and not as stuffy as the Hymnals we sang out of at the Lutheran church. (Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with Hymns. They are awesome songs, but at that timeframe, this is what I thought).

 Along about October time the BSU started to form “ministry teams”. I decided I wanted to go with them and do whatever I could. Hey, my friends were going, and it was a way to get away from the campus for a while. So I remember going to a few places. One in particular was in South Boston, VA. We drove from Danville to South Boston on a van. We had a blast! We sang the whole way there and laughed and told jokes. It was great fun!

 We had planned out what we were going to do by the time we arrived to the church. It was this little Pentecostal Holiness church out in the middle of nowhere and I think there total member count was somewhere in the 60′s. It was a small church. It was our job to have worship services over the course of that weekend. We did a total of 3. The first one went great, the second one went even better, but the 3rd will always hold a special place in my heart. This was the service where I believe I felt the Lord’s presence for the very first time. I remember singing the song “I’m coming back to the heart of worship”,  and my heart broke. I had to begun sobbing and I couldn’t control it. It was like the Lord walked right up beside me and put His arm around me and just held on to me. I needed it.

 I knew I wasn’t living completely right. By the world’s standards, I was good, but there is just a certain level of common sense that you are born with and you know right from wrong. I let that feeling overtake me and I found myself  just losing “me” in that instant. I knew things would be different from that moment on.

It didn’t last for long though.  I went through the rest of the year going back to my old ways of drinking and sleeping around. The world has a way of pulling you back in. I knew what I had felt at the church was real, but it was only for a moment and I wasn’t what my Grandmother would have called “saved” or anything. I just felt God. It wasn’t like I needed to be saved anyways. I mean, what would be the point? You get into heaven if you are a good-hearted person and do nice things for others. And since I was a nice person, I was good as gold.

 I finished out my spring semester with hopes of coming back in the fall and turning things around. Things would not work out as I had planned. I got a letter from the school administration saying that the only way I could come back in the fall was to attend in the summer and pull my grades up. Ha! Easier said than done. The school didn’t offer room and board the same way they did during the fall and spring semesters. You had to pay more or find your own housing. Well, in a nutshell, nothing worked out and I was quite disappointed. So, I worked through the summer and saved money and started at the local community college that following fall.

I fell back in with friends from high school and we hung around each other a lot. One friend in particular got me into Wicca. You know, the “good magic”. I began to read every book on the subject. Nothing else was getting me where I wanted in life so, why not chant a few spells and make people do what I want.  Did it work? Yes- it worked so good in fact, that it was scary. But again I had a familiar feeling all the while. Something kept making my mind go back to what would Jesus think about this? Every time I would quickly dismiss this thought, but it would inevitably make its way back into my mind.

During the summer of 2000, I met and began to date a guy that was really not suited for me. But he showed me attention, and I liked it. My parents just didn’t like him one bit which only pushed me closer to him. When fall came around and I started classes again, I was back to my old tricks again. I started out strong, and I was going and doing everything right, but slowly and surely, I backed off and eventually I stopped going all together. One morning, my father came into my room and gave me an ultimatum. I was to either dump the guy I was dating or move out. So, being the stubborned headed thing that I am, I moved out. Boy was my dad surprised.

 I called a friend and asked her if I could move in with her and her husband, and she said it was fine. So my boyfriend and I invaded their lives for around 6 months. I had quit the grocery store I was working at and began to work at Sheetz. And since I didn’t drive, I had to fully rely on my boyfriend to get me to work and back.  I was completely dependent on him and he liked it that way. I had no one else to turn to. And our relationship had grown into something that dark, unhealthy and dangerous. It wasn’t good for him but it wasn’t good for me either, and I needed to get out of it, but I didn’t know how.  I mean I was kicked out of my parents’ house for goodness sake. I was almost 100% sure I couldn’t go back there. It’d be too much groveling and I do not grovel.

Somewhere around February of 2001, my boyfriend and I decided to get a place of our own and we officially moved in together. We had been there a total of 1 day when disaster struck our already horrible relationship. You see, he worked a 3rd shift job and I was home alone. A guy that I knew in high school lived just down the road and decided to stop by for a “midnight jaunt”. Which I knew was wrong, but I was all for at the same time because I was so lonely and miserable. Unfortunately, my boyfriend came home in the middle of it and literally, all hell broke loose. The next day I called my dad and he came to get me and I went back home.  I had never in my life been so embarrassed about anything I had done. I did a literal walk of shame.

I had no clue where I was going to go from here. If I had made a mess out of my life before, it was NOTHING compared to what I had just done. And when you live in as small of a town as Berryville is, news travels at lightning speed. I went back to work at the grocery store as third shift cashier and tried to find myself in my life again.

I had been working for about 2 or 3 weeks at that job and it seemed that my boyfriend and I were trying to work things out. It appeared that he was starting to forgive me and we could finally move past the “incident”. But he made me work for it too. It was not an easy task.  Now I knew that the relationship was not a good one in the first place, but at the same time, I didn’t think that anyone else would love or care for me. I had done a horrible thing and I thought I deserved everything I got. I had it coming to me.

April 3rd, 2001. It was the day my life changed forever. I was still “on again, off again” with my boyfriend, but I was actually starting to be my old self again. I went to the time clock that morning at 7:00 to clock out and there was another guy standing there clocking in. His name was Jason. I had seen him in passing, but hadn’t spoken to him yet. From what I had heard around the store, he was a “Jesus Freak”.  Whatever that was.

A few days later, I had been put back on day shift and it was extremely busy that day.  We had multiple cashiers on the front end, so they pulled me to go clean in the deli because we had a district manager coming to make a visit and the managers wanted everything in pristine condition. So, naturally I welcomed the opportunity to leave running a register and moving along in the other direction.

I walked in and immediately went to work cleaning the stainless freezer doors. When I finally noticed Jason standing to my right side bagging up bread, I began to make conversation with him and I flirted a little too. He was very shy I had noticed, but I figured I could open him up. I had come to the realization that I would have to live with what I had done in the past and even in the recent past, but I refused any longer to be with someone who treated me the way I was being treated. True enough, I had done wrong, but 2 wrongs don’t make a right and I deserved better than that. There comes a point where you either forgive or you don’t. He wasn’t making either of those choices and I was being strung along. So it was time to end it, but I wasn’t sure how to make that clean break. He suddenly began to act like he cared even though he really didn’t.  I realize now that we didn’t even really like each other. Jason I liked though. He was a good-looking fellow, but I liked him for more than his looks. But I had made a promise to myself that I, for the first time in my life, was going to be “just Misty”. I didn’t want a man. And more importantly, I didn’t need a man. I just wanted to know what it felt like to be comfortable in my own skin.

So Jason and I hung out a lot, and we talked a lot. But we were just friends. Friends, until the first week of May, that is. Jason had asked me on a date and I had accepted. We went to Olive Garden and Build-A-Bear Workshop. We had so much fun and I knew what a healthy relationship could feel like. Over the next few weeks, we were inseparable. We spent all the time together that we could. We did everything from Apple Blossom parades to church services together.

Yes, I said church. Jason was a great influence over me. Just listening to him talk about God made me want to know more. We visited that old Lutheran church and we realized quickly that that would not be where we would attend, after the Pastor told Jason he couldn’t take communion without going through the proper channels first. So we went to my Grandmother’s church. (Yep, the same one she had been inviting me to for years- everything had come full circle). On May the 20th, 2001, Pastor Waller preached a sermon that I am sad to say I can’t even remember what the bulk of the message was about, but I do know that something much more important happened that morning. Pastor Waller gave the salvation message of how Jesus came to the earth and gave His life on the cross for you and for me. And it hit me. I accepted it. This was what I had needed my whole life and my ears finally heard it. My heart was finally open to it. I was ready to take the plunge. I prayed a prayer that changed my life forever and my (now) husband, Jason, led me in that prayer. It went something similar to this:

“Father, I now know that I am a sinner. I have done wrong things. I ask that you forgive me of my sins. Jesus, I believe that You died on the cross for me. Please cleanse me with Your  blood that You shed. With Your help, I will live for You all the rest of my days. Come into my heart and live there forever. Amen.”

With that simple prayer, I became a child of the Living God. I didn’t know much about Him. But I didn’t have to in order to have Him dwell within me.  I died that day. The old self that is.  But I was born again too. I breathed in new life that morning and my life has been so blessed ever since. That following December, Jason and I got married. We, just this past year, celebrated 8 years of marriage together. In those 8 years, we have had 4 beautiful babies.

Have there been hard times- ABSOLUTELY! There are going to be! I can’t stand it when people say “It’s so easy to serve the Lord”, because, it isn’t. It is definitely easy to LOVE the Lord, but not easy to serve Him. Once you become a child of God, Satan becomes your enemy. And he will do anything he can to discourage you from your walk. But with a good prayer life, and solid Bible studying, and attending worship services, you CAN make it through the tough times. I stand a living testament to that.

There is a story in the Bible about a Samaritan woman at the well. She walks up to the well to fill up her water pot and Jesus is sitting there. Now, she has no clue who Jesus is, but she and He just begin to have a conversation and His ultimate goal is to get her to believe that He is who He says He is. That He is the Messiah- the Son of God. When she is just on the verge of taking that plunge but still undecided, He seals the deal by asking her about her husband. She says that she doesn’t have a husband. And His reply is, ” “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”  (John 4) You see, this woman led a very promiscuous life. She went from relationship to relationship and never found any satisfaction in them. She was as empty as the water pot she brought to the well every day.  But He comes to her. He sought her out. And in the end of the story, she accepted Him and believed in Him. And what’s even better– more people came to know the Lord because of her.

I am a Samaritan woman. I came with my water pot empty, but praise the Lord, it is full! And it never runs dry. It is never empty anymore. It replenishes constantly. He came to me! He sought me out! My God is my redeemer. He lives in me. And I live everyday for Him. He is the love of my life. He created me to do the work He has laid before me. I hope I have pleased Him in this writing. I hope that this has reached you. And if not you, I pray it will reach someone you know. I am fulfilling my commission. “I am going forth and making disciples of men.”

Thank You, Father, for seeking me out. Thank You for loving me so very much that when I hurt, You hurt. Thank You, Jesus, for the work You did on the cross. Thank You for the blood that You shed. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for dwelling in me. Thank You that I am a life that is changed because of You. Thank You, Father. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Holy Spirit.

 You see, becoming a born again believer of Jesus Christ is a personal decision. It is of course a far more important decision than where you are going to eat for dinner, or even which stocks to invest in, but a personal one none the less. You are the one who has to make it. No one else can make it for you.

 True enough the Holy Spirit uses the power of conviction to nudge you in that direction, but ultimately, the choice is yours.  For me, the choice wasn’t particularly an easy one. It took me 20 years before I made my decision, and I chose to welcome Jesus into my life.

 But we are not the only ones who make choices.  The Father made the choice to send His Son to the earth. The Son chose to be crucified (I say that He chose this, because at any point He could have called down the angels and they would have stop the whole process-but He didn’t, thus our salvation). He chooses even now to be an intercessor for us to the Father. But His choice is also one that says “You accept Me and I accept you”.  So when we welcome Him into our lives, He of course, welcomes us into the Kingdom.  Without you making the choice to ask Him into your life and to serve Him, He can’t truly work in your life. Matthew 10:33 says- “But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father in heaven”.

 So for me, it isn’t a matter of Jesus “getting a hold of me”, but rather me taking hold of Jesus and He welcoming it.  I choose to say “Once I got a hold of Jesus, my life changed and it hasn’t been the same since!” Now the choice is YOURS.

 There is no gray area. You either choose to accept Jesus and the work He did for you on the cross, or choose to accept Satan. You can’t have it both ways, and there is no in-between. No fence sitters allowed. There is only 1 God. 1 Lord. 1 Jesus. The options are clear- Jesus, or Satan. “Only be careful to observe the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord you God and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul”. (<-Joshua 22:5) (Mark 9:40->) “For he who is not against us is for us.”

I am with the Lord- 100%. Where do you stand? Are you for Him? I choose to be.

Here is today’s scripture: 

Song of Solomon 4 (New American Standard Bible)

Song of Solomon 4

Solomon’s Love Expressed

    ¹“^[a]How beautiful ^(A)you are, my darling,
         How beautiful you are!
         Your ^(B)eyes are like doves ^(C)behind your veil;
         Your ^(D)hair is like a flock of goats
         That have descended from Mount ^(E)Gilead.
    ²“Your ^(F)teeth are like a flock of newly shorn ewes
         Which have come up from their washing,
         All of which bear twins,
         And not one among them has lost her young.
    ³“Your lips are like a ^(G)scarlet thread,
         And your ^(H)mouth is lovely
         Your ^(I)temples are like a slice of a pomegranate
         Behind your veil.
    ⁴“Your ^(J)neck is like the tower of David,
         Built with rows of stones
         On which are ^(K)hung a thousand shields,
         All the round ^(L)shields of the mighty men.
    ⁵“Your ^(M)two breasts are like two fawns,
         Twins of a gazelle
         Which ^(N)feed among the lilies.
    ⁶“^(O)Until the cool of the day
         When the shadows flee away,
         I will go my way to the mountain of ^(P)myrrh
         And to the hill of ^(Q)frankincense.
    ⁷“^(R)You are altogether beautiful, my darling,
         And there is no blemish in you.
    ⁸“Come with me from ^(S)Lebanon, my ^(T)bride,
         May you come with me from Lebanon
         Journey down from the summit of ^(U)Amana,
         From the summit of ^(V)Senir and Hermon,
         From the dens of lions,
         From the mountains of leopards.
    ⁹“You have made my heart beat faster, ^(W)my sister, my bride;
         You have made my heart beat faster with a single glance of your eyes,
         With a single strand of your ^(X)necklace.
    ¹⁰“^(Y)How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!
         How much ^(Z)better is your love than wine,
         And the ^(AA)fragrance of your oils
         Than all kinds of spices!
    ¹¹“Your lips, my bride, ^(AB)drip ^(AC)honey;
         Honey and milk are under your tongue,
         And the fragrance of your garments is like the ^(AD)fragrance of Lebanon.
    ¹²“A garden locked is my sister, my bride,
         A rock garden locked, a ^(AE)spring ^(AF)sealed up.
    ¹³“Your shoots are an ^(AG)orchard of ^(AH)pomegranates
         With ^(AI)choice fruits, ^(AJ)henna with nard plants,
    ^14(AK)Nard and saffron, calamus and ^(AL)cinnamon,
         With all the trees of ^(AM)frankincense,
         ^(AN)Myrrh and aloes, along with all the finest spices.
    ¹⁵“You are a garden spring,
         A well of ^(AO)fresh water,
         And streams flowing from Lebanon.”
    ¹⁶“^[b]Awake, O north wind,
         And come, wind of the south;
         Make my ^(AP)garden breathe out fragrance,
         Let its spices be wafted abroad
         May ^(AQ)my beloved come into his garden
         And eat its ^(AR)choice fruits!”

Song of Solomon 2 (New American Standard Bible) Song of Solomon 2 The Bride’s Admiration 1″[a]I am the (A)rose of (B)Sharon, The (C)lily of the valleys.” 2″[b]Like a lily among the thorns, So is (D)my darling among the maidens.” 3″[c]Like an (E)apple tree among the trees of the forest, So is my beloved among the young men In his shade I took great delight and sat down, And his (F)fruit was sweet to my taste. 4″He has (G)brought me to his banquet hall, And his (H)banner over me is love. 5″Sustain me with (I)raisin cakes, Refresh me with (J)apples, Because (K)I am lovesick. 6″Let (L)his left hand be under my head And (M)his right hand (N)embrace me.” 7″[d]I (O)adjure you, O (P)daughters of Jerusalem, By the (Q)gazelles or by the (R)hinds of the field, (S)That you do not arouse or awaken my love Until she pleases.” 8″[e]Listen! My beloved! Behold, he is coming, Climbing (T)on the mountains, Leaping on the hills! 9″My beloved is like a (U)gazelle or a (V)young stag Behold, he is standing behind our wall, He is looking through the windows, He is peering (W)through the lattice. 10″My beloved responded and said to me, ‘(X)Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, And come along. 11′For behold, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone. 12′The flowers have already appeared in the land; The time has arrived for pruning the vines, And the voice of the (Y)turtledove has been heard in our land. 13′The (Z)fig tree has ripened its figs, And the (AA)vines in blossom have given forth their fragrance. Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, And come along!’” 14″O (AB)my dove, (AC)in the clefts of the rock, In the secret place of the steep pathway, Let me see your form, (AD)Let me hear your voice; For your voice is sweet, And your form is (AE)lovely.” 15″(AF)Catch the foxes for us, The little foxes that are ruining the vineyards, While our (AG)vineyards are in blossom.” 16″(AH)My beloved is mine, and I am his; He (AI)pastures his flock among the lilies. 17″(AJ)Until the cool of the day when the shadows flee away, Turn, my beloved, and be like a (AK)gazelle Or a young stag (AL)on the mountains of Bether.”

Here is today’s scripture: 

Song of Solomon 1 (New American Standard Bible)

Song of Solomon 1

The Young Shulammite Bride and Jerusalem’s Daughters

 ¹The ^[a]Song of ^(A)Songs, which is Solomon’s.
    ²“^[b]May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
         For your ^(B)love is better than wine.
    ³“Your ^(C)oils have a pleasing fragrance,
         Your ^(D)name is like purified oil;
         Therefore the ^(E)maidens love you.
    ⁴“Draw me after you and let us run together!
         The ^(F)king has brought me into his chambers “
          “^[c]We will rejoice in you and be glad;
         We will extol your ^(G)love more than wine.
         Rightly do they love you.”
    ⁵“^[d]I am black but ^(H)lovely,
         O ^(I)daughters of Jerusalem,
         Like the ^(J)tents of ^(K)Kedar,
         Like the curtains of Solomon.
    ⁶“Do not stare at me because I am swarthy,
         For the sun has burned me.
         My ^(L)mother’s sons were angry with me;
         They made me ^(M)caretaker of the vineyards,
         But I have not taken care of my own vineyard.
    ⁷“Tell me, O you ^(N)whom my soul loves,
         Where do you ^(O)pasture your flock,
         Where do you make it ^(P)lie down at noon?
         For why should I be like one who veils herself
         Beside the flocks of your ^(Q)companions?”

Solomon, the Lover, Speaks

    ⁸“^[e]If you yourself do not know,
         ^(R)Most beautiful among women,
         Go forth on the trail of the flock
         And pasture your young goats
         By the tents of the shepherds.
    ⁹“To me, ^(S)my darling, you are like
         My ^(T)mare among the chariots of Pharaoh.
    ¹⁰“Your ^(U)cheeks are lovely with ornaments,
         Your neck with strings of ^(V)beads.”
    ¹¹“^[f]We will make for you ornaments of gold
         With beads of silver.”
    ¹²“^[g]While the king was at his table,
         My ^(W)perfume gave forth its fragrance.
    ¹³“My beloved is to me a pouch of ^(X)myrrh
         Which lies all night between my breasts.
    ¹⁴“My beloved is to me a cluster of ^(Y)henna blossoms
         In the vineyards of ^(Z)Engedi.”
    ¹⁵“^[h](AA)How beautiful you are, my darling,
         How beautiful you are!
         Your ^(AB)eyes are like doves.”
    ¹⁶“^[i]How handsome you are, ^(AC)my beloved,
         And so pleasant!
         Indeed, our couch is luxuriant!
    ¹⁷“The beams of our houses are ^(AD)cedars,
         Our rafters, ^(AE)cypresses.

Here is today’s reading: 

Philemon 1 (New American Standard Bible)

Philemon 1

Salutation

 ^1(A)Paul, ^(B)a prisoner of ^(C)Christ Jesus, and ^(D)Timothy our brother, To Philemon our beloved brother and ^(E)fellow worker, ²and to Apphia ^(F)our sister, and to ^(G)Archippus our ^(H)fellow soldier, and to ^(I)the church in your house: ^3(J)Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Philemon’s Love and Faith

 ^4(K)I thank my God always, making mention of you in my prayers, ⁵because I ^(L)hear of your love and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints; ⁶and I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective ^[a]through the ^(M)knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ’s sake. ⁷For I have come to have much ^(N)joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been ^(O)refreshed through you, brother. ⁸Therefore, ^(P)though I have enough confidence in Christ to order you to do what is ^(Q)proper, ⁹yet for love’s sake I rather ^(R)appeal to you–since I am such a person as Paul, the ^(S)aged, and now also ^(T)a prisoner of ^(U)Christ Jesus–

Plea for Onesimus, a Free Man

 ¹⁰I ^(V)appeal to you for my ^(W)child ^[b](X)Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment, ¹¹who formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me. ¹²I have sent him back to you in person, that is, sending my very heart, ¹³whom I wished to keep with me, so that on your behalf he might minister to me in my ^(Y)imprisonment for the gospel; ¹⁴but without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would ^(Z)not be, in effect, by compulsion but of your own free will. ¹⁵For perhaps ^(AA)he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever, ^16(AB)no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, ^(AC)a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both ^(AD)in the flesh and in the Lord. ¹⁷If then you regard me a ^(AE)partner, accept him as you would me. ¹⁸But if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account; ^19(AF)I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand, I will repay it (^(AG)not to mention to you that you owe to me even your own self as well). ²⁰Yes, brother, let me benefit from you in the Lord; ^(AH)refresh my heart in Christ. ^21(AI)Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, since I know that you will do even more than what I say. ²²At the same time also prepare me a ^(AJ)lodging, for ^(AK)I hope that through ^(AL)your prayers ^(AM)I will be given to you. ^23(AN)Epaphras, my ^(AO)fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, ²⁴as do ^(AP)Mark, ^(AQ)Aristarchus, ^(AR)Demas, ^(AS)Luke, my ^(AT)fellow workers. ^25(AU)The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be ^(AV)with your spirit.^[c]  

What is your take on today’s reading?

(some of the audio doesn’t match up with the video, but it’s her words to pay attention to anyways:)