Oh.Hosea. Oh.Israel.

I would love to share just a few thoughts with my fellow #shereadstruth ladies & #shesharestruth friends.  What unique timing this has been for me.

#SheSharesTruth  go check it out!

     I would like to start by saying how I followed #shereadstruth for over a year just after it got started, but didn't keep up with the studies after they left the YouVersion app.  I just never made it to my computer to read the blog!  I have now finished my first study sitting down to the computer & reading the blog.  The timing was perfect.

   I had just finished reading Francine Rivers Redeeming Love, which is a fictional tale of the Biblical story of Hosea.  I.is.a.beautiful.story.y'all.  I absolutely was challenged by the love of the Father, how he called Hosea to love his unfaithful wife, and what it was like for the prostitute.  How painful it was to be Hosea, but how painful the healing process was for his wife to see God, to seek Him, and then to make Him first above the love of her husband.  Amazing.  ((read it if you haven't))

     Enter the study of Hosea: I knew this was one God was setting aside for me.  I've never read Hosea, and never really gotten any of the deep seated truth out before.  The idea of marrying a prostitute & bringing her back to me was always so gross, so ugly.  To be called the prostitute & the one worthy of all the judgement was hard to read & identify with, because it seems so far from what I know in my own life.

     After reading the book of Hosea, going through the study, hearing the insights & looking for that place of peace in the end, I am so thankful.  I struggle reading about how angry God is over my sin, over my unfaithfulness.  I struggle to hear his call to return in all of the judgement.  But this study really emphasized that call & for me that is the beauty.  Our healing.  Our restoration.  His faithfulness, our reconciliation.

One other fun side note: I appreciated that in Hosea 12, it talks about how Jacob wrestled with an angel & then met God.  Face to face.  I sometimes wonder about the interpretations of old Testament stories, but I think it was the first time I've seen what I thought was an 'interpretation' of a story, laid out very plainly in scripture.  God's Word is so clear sometimes, and I was grateful for that little piece that stuck out to me.

Thank you God for redemption.  Thank you for stories that seem so distant, but in the end, call me to you.