On Valentine’s Day today I think, of course, of my wife of nearly 20 years.  I can hardly believe our wedding day was quite so long ago, but thus goes the quick march of time.

I’ve also been thinking of our first parents in the long distant past, and the lessons we can learn from our scriptural record of their lives, and in doing so have written the poem below.  Some of my thoughts are based on the scriptural account, while others are perhaps speculation, but they nonetheless represent how I feel.

Ultimately, I hope to learn from scripture archetypal couple so that my own marriage can extend beyond the boundaries of this life, my Valentine becoming eternal….

Eternal Valentine

In Saviour’s image the couple born

Together arose at creation’s dawn;

Together went forth to till the earth;

Together they chose mankind’s birth.

Together they worked – woman and man –

To live by Father’s eternal plan.

Taking Christ’s hand to guide their way

Through still and storm of life’s long day.

As parents, too, they sought His might

To raise their babes in truth and light;

Teaching of a coming day

When Christ would come, and find a way

To redeem mankind from death and tears;

Posterity saved through aeon’s years;

Falls great cost already paid;

A path from woe beforehand made.

By His blood, with power endowed

They knelt before Him, together bowed;

And in His name and through His grace

As one they strove to see His face.

In celestial splendour now they stand,

Earth’s first parents; hand in hand

They watch their children ‘cross earth’s wide sphere;

Their words, from dust, they’d have us hear.

They’d have us know that joy is found

With man and woman, forever bound

In love, and in Christ’s image formed,

With cov’nants in His name performed.

In my companion I now see

The promise of her destiny.

From Eden’s past together we climb

Through trials sore to heights sublime.

Together in Christ we make our way,

Enduring mortality’s numbered days.

Endowed in mercy with His might,

To rise in glory, pure and bright.

And promised day will soon be seen

When my own Eve will stand as Queen;

Reigning in glory, and light divine –

My love: Eternal Valentine.

 

By Jeffrey Collyer