I looked up some of the names for the wife given to man…names other than “Eve”, which just about everybody knows:
l Ishsha – means taken out of man, the exact same thing, no more, no less; I think I like that. Ishsha expresses herself in details and ways the brittle male, in general comparison, does not. Ishsha comes from a root meaning “soft”. Like the bone marrow; growth starts here.
l Beulah – this means “married”; thus completed in the husband, protected and provided for—yet also complements as nothing else can. Like oxygen, unnoticed maybe, but a moment-by-moment absolute necessity.
l Hepzibah - designed to yield “delight” if the weaker vessel is well-tended. Altho’ the passing of time dictates decay, with his wife at his side, the husband should feel richer, not just older. Hm. Like wine that actually values with age.
The unmarried woman should not exempt herself from any of the above and needs to be doing all she can to be the special treasure God intended woman to be. When God created the male, He saw how it was necessary to have a soft, sensitive, joyful human to balance him. At the same time, if she sought satisfaction in anything but the Lord Himself, she would be sorely disappointed. It is only when she delights herself in Him and asks God to keep Him the desire of her heart that she will find fulfilment anywhere.
One early morning, after writing through the night, I happened to look in the mirror across the room and scared myself. I saw one of the “Living Dead” with sunken temples, hollow cheeks, black craters behind spectacles, and frizzy gray hay-like things wildly flying about the head. Oh; that was me. Uelch!
Some Ishshas, Beulahs, and Hepzibahs (those of us He calls Sweethearts!), despite outward appearances, are also called King’s Daughters, all glorious within. Because unlike the whimsical tale of the warty toad prince, their identity is declared by a real, mighty, loving God.
