Redemption

I have been reading Hosea today and it is such a beautiful story of redeeming love and God’s faithfulness to repeatedly rescue His bride. This morning something different hit me, Gomer’s story. I get the purpose of Hosea and I understand the message of idolatry and I realize that there is no sin uncommon to man and that history repeats this story over and over. With that said I looked at it today through the eyes of the society I live in. I was pregnant when I graduated from high school and managed to hide it until close to 6 months when finally the pain from doing my job made me think I would miscarry right there on the cement floor in front of crews of construction workers. I had twin boys about two and a half months later and I became a growing statistic of being a teenage single mother. I tell that part of my story because I believe God is my heavenly Father but I have a father and therefor something to compare that to. My sons however, have never had a father so what does it mean to them when they hear your Father in heaven loves you? I am looking at the brokenness of Gomer and her struggle to stay with a man that is trying to rescue her. The story talks about her running back to her lust and back to the silver and gold and the things she believes will provide for her needs but each time she ends up in a worse place. I believe Hosea came after her with a genuine heart to serve the Lord but I don’t read about the women that came to teach her about God’s love for her. The society I live in has made love something not even resembling what God says it is and faithfulness is so rare, I’m considering how many Gomers come and go in my church and I have not stopped and made a point to include them. My story is no different than hers I have not been saved from less sin; I still struggle with running back to the things out of God’s will that leave me in bondage. Today, like every day as I pray for my sons and ask God to show me how to reach them, He reminded me that even Jesus had trouble reaching His own. This might all sound like rambling today but what if Gomer’s mother prayed for her over and over and that is why God put her in the path of Hosea, what if I am to be the person God wants to use to reach someone else’s child? What if I met Gomer and didn’t say “bless her heart” and actually lived out love and faithfulness so she could have a better understanding of who God is? I can’t help but think that Gomer convinced herself that she did not belong there and that if she let her guard down it would be jerked out from under her anyway, I know because I have felt that way. Just like Peter getting out of the boat to walk on the water, I have to stop looking at the storm around me and wondering if I am going to sink or keep my eyes on Jesus “the author and finisher of my faith”. God is a gentle and loving God and I can choose to trust Him, because just like Gomer He has shown me great love and mercy over and over and just maybe He wants to use me to be an answer to some other mother’s prayer. “Judge not least you be judged” that includes me judging me. God does not look on the outward appearance of man but on the enter most parts, I love my sons and I want nothing more than to see them walk with the Lord and have a more abundant life but I also need to stop trying to make them get into the picture frame, that isn’t salvation. I am asking for revival and God is showing me it takes vulnerability, it takes surrender to His picture even when I don’t know what that looks like. Who is my standard, God or the world around me?