Greetings My Friend, I’ve just read the book of Hosea. This is one of those books that I tend to forget about until I read it each year. In this book I begin to feel God’s pain as His people have rejected Him yet again. I also see what a marriage relationship should be like. People often talk about the wrath of God in the Old Testament and yes there was a lot of wrath. I also see God’s tenderness and His trying to reach out to His people to guide them. I see my role as a parent not unlike God’s teaching us to be what He created us to be. This little book to me is packed with so many of life’s lessons. God instructed Hosea to marry a prostitute. Hosea married Gomer who was indeed a prostitute. Through this relationship God revealed His discouragement in His people. After a while Gomer went back to her old ways. Each child she bore was named and I hear God’s deep sadness at their names. Gomer finally was fully enmeshed again in her life of prostitution and eventually was sold into slavery….I think she sold herself…..not sure there. Anyway God instructed Hosea to buy her out of slavery. He did and then he instructed Gomer to not have any lovers but him and for her to stay true to him. WOW! That was an act of love to someone who proved so disloyal to him. He did what God told him to but still. So as I look at my life I see that God has always loved me, even when I was a rebellious teenager. When I went to the altar the first time I was a nervous wreck. My stomach was real upset and I was dizzy. I wound up fainting and had to be carried out. It made a great funny story and we all told it for years. As I began my faith journey I started to realize that God was talking to me on that day so many years ago. I did not know how to “hear” God at that point. When Junior married me we went to Ohio and got married at the Justice of the Peace. He said if I fainted….he was leaving me because it was a sign to him the marriage was not a good choice. Thank goodness I didn’t faint….I had a ride home anyway. I was a little leery though when he haggled with the minister for the cost of the wedding price. She was a woman minister and he felt he shouldn’t have to pay the full price. It took me a while to catch on to his humor. When I told him to pay the lady he did. We are very content in this relationship. I feel like we are a team. I feel like no one understands me as well as Junior does. I trust him with my life. As I said I also see my role as a parent and how I have tried to reach my kids and frankly they don’t always respond to the things I try to teach them. Every parent has those moments. For me as I became a parent I found times where I began to see the struggle my parents had with me. In time I’m sure my kids will on some level understand. I also see God reaching down to teach and we go along in our own merry way until life hurts so much we have nowhere to turn but to God. For me I can see moments in my past where I see that God was reaching down to me and I was not paying attention. As a teenager I wanted to be Christian and I wanted to have fun. Fun meant doing things like smoking pot, drinking and becoming sexually active before marriage. The more I go on in life I find that sin is fun for a season and then the consequences tend to weigh heavily on me. Drinking comes to mind. There were a few drunks that were fun beyond belief. The next day the hangover didn’t feel real good. If I had kept on I could have become an alcoholic and ruined my body, my life, my family’s life etc. Drugs…the same could have happened. Sex that is one of those subjects I wish I could talk to young people about. God created sex and it can be fun. It is best to look at how God created us to be in a sexual relationship. Adam and Eve were the first married couple. They were faithful to each other and each other only. They did not play the field. As the Old Testament unfolds I find that men had several wives. When Jacob married Rebecca his father in law gave Jacob Leah her older sister to him. Jacob then worked to get Rebecca as his second wife. That relationship was a constant struggle. The girls competed with each other all the time. Leah wasn’t Jacob’s favorite in fact she felt his dislike of her. As I go along in life I find that free sex comes with a price. For me I was never sure if I was liked for who I was inside or for my looks. I played around with not eating. I got down to 95lbs. I wanted to be bulimic except I hate vomiting. I thought on it long and hard though. I thought about taking laxatives as well. To me the sexually transmitted diseases that abound are another sign that free sex isn’t such a great plan as well. HIV/aids are scary and will totally devastate the body. Herpes and the like are rough as well. So I see that we should be careful as to who we hand our bodies over to. I also believe that a courtship stage is important. In Divorce Recovery I learned that we should not date for two years after you are divorced. Then it is important to begin dating with friends in a group setting. Next it is important to date for a year and then be engaged for a year. Junior and I did not follow all of these guidelines. We realized that we were heating up fast and when we married we made a commitment to go to marriage retreats. We also stayed in counseling for a couple of years. As I close I’d like to ask, are you listening to God? Do you hear His voice? Prayer is important and reading the Bible as well. God will talk to you if you listen. “Be still and know that I am God,” is a huge understatement to me. Me I am fidgety, my mind goes a mile a minute….still I am learning to quiet myself and to listen and when I do…..it is awesome. I begin to hear God and my life moves from pain to wholeness….. Have you ever felt God hug you? It is awesome! May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.