Esteem her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you (Proverbs 4:8).

When Marci and I were first married, we had a magnificent white couch in our living room.  The seating area was broad and deep, firm but comfortable, and the back of the couch was made up of gigantic overstuffed pillows staggered on top of one another like fluffy white prairie clouds.  Marci and I still agree that it was the most comfortable piece of furniture we've ever known -- and we've known a lot, since we used to make a habit of spending our low-budget college-era dates doing "furniture shopping" in large department stores (just to have a free place to sit close to each other and talk).  To this day, we rue the fact that we sold the big white couch to our friend Laura when we moved from the United States to the Netherlands, foolishly assuming that it would be cheaper and easier to replace the sofa than to have such a large item packed and shipped for us.  Eight years later and we're still talking about that couch!  That's how magnificent the old white couch was...

But you know what was even more magnificent than the couch itself?  It was all the cuddling that the couch made possible.  On weekday mornings, Marci and I would rise early and prepare for the day -- hurrying to get everything ready so that we could spend ten minutes just snuggling on the big white couch, before Marci had to leave for work.  We didn't talk; we just lay on the couch together, arms and legs entertwined, half-dozing until the dreadful moment that we must pry ourselves from the couch and get on with our day.  On Sunday afternoons, we would spend hours in a relaxing warm embrace on the big white couch -- sometimes napping, sometimes watching television, sometimes doing other things... But mostly just enjoying our time together:  just the two of us and a big white couch to pass the time away.  It never felt boring.  It never felt tiresome.  It just felt like the only thing that either of us wanted to do.

Looking back to those hours on the big white couch, I have this silly feeling that those times together actually came to be one of the cornerstones of our marriage and our family.  That's a pretty significant statement, I realize, but I really feel like it's true.  Because what we were learning in all those hours on the big white couch was how to really esteem each other -- realizing how special it was when we had each other.  We didn't need to have each other and some great program on television.  We didn't need to have each other and some fascinating house guests.  We didn't need to have each other and some special sort of surroudings.  We just needed to have each other.  Esteem each other.  Embrace each other.  It sounds cheesy and contrived to say it this way -- and even so, I don't feel like I'm able to effectively capture the power of those moments from early in our marriage -- but I just feel like those hours on the big white couch turned out to be the way that our home was truly and firmly established.  And because we have that experience of esteeming and embracing as a point of reference for our home life, we've been able to build a family and a life together that really honors and exalts us as individuals, as a family unit, and as a reflection of God's glory.

And when I think about these experiences of learning to esteem and embrace my wife, and I then read similar imagery from Proverbs chapter four, I am afforded a special insight into the foundational power of esteeming and embracing God's wisdom.  Obviously, this kind of esteem and embrace is available to anyone (unlike my wife, whose snuggling skills are not for hire!).  They're available to young and old, singles and couples.  And amazingly enough, you don't even need a big white couch to make it happen.  But then again... if you could ever find something like that big white couch, I'm sure it could be a lovely place to sit and pray and absorb the wisdom of the Proverbs.