Hosea is a funny (peculiar) book. It could be subtitled Since You Put it That Way. Our tendency to wander, to elevate our idols, to trade the grand prize for trinkets is compared to harlotry. Ouch. Hosea himself has an adulterous wife, whom he forgives again and again, counter to his culture. My little Bible study group has been bouncing e-mails back and forth all week about Hosea.
My friend Laura S., divorced and doing the single mom thing with incredible grace, realizes healing doesn’t come through hiding. (With her kind permission,) Laura’s thoughts about Hosea were begging to be shared…
I start with the verse that most made me think of Laura B., for no other reason than its poetic value: “They are all adulterers, burning like an oven whose fire the baker need not stir from the kneading of the dough till it rises.” (Hosea 7:4) It seems like something I would read on her blog.
(note from Laura B.: I’m glad it was only the ‘poetic value,’ not the content, of this verse that brought yours truly to mind.)
There are many other verses that prompt me to take note as well.
”When they go, I will throw my net over them; I will pull them down like birds of the air.” (Hosea 7:12) We simply cannot escape His sovereignty. Who dare try, but someone who knows not His Word?
”Israel is swallowed up; now she is among the nations like a worthless thing.” (Hosea 7:8) This verse makes me think of gossip, and how it leads to improper assessment, invalid judgments and a false permission to exclude and belittle, alienate and isolate—how it swallows up reality and renders worthless the soundness of the perpetrator(s).
“For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them. Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.” (Hosea 5:14-15) When I read this verse, I think of the Lord pulling His people back to Him from their harlotry, sometimes through catastrophic circumstances. And when I hear of such disasters, I think of the Lord’s judgment—and love.
This book, Hosea, also mirrors my life over the past several years, particularly, the last few months. It is so personal to me.
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“The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving, ‘mythical’ in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe…There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true…” – J.R.R. Tolkien , ‘On Fairy Stories’
I was huffing and puffing my way through a whirlwind cleaning of the twins’ bedroom, not particularly pleased with the books and dirty socks and ballet bags on the floor—or their owners. Just when I was sure the purpose of my thirteen-year-old daughters’ existence was to make messes expressly for me, I stumbled across a spiral notebook, sitting open on Maggie’s nightstand. I dropped my armful of stuff and sat and read her words, apparently written late one night after we watched Pirates of the Caribbean. What a sweet way for God to pierce through my martyr-of-the-moment syndrome…
Dear Jesus,
I’ve figured it out! Thank the makers of Pirates of the Caribbean.
This life is a real action story about princesses and a Prince, sons and a Father—and the best part is, it’s absolutely, 100 percent true. I’m living in a fairy tale, devoted to my True Love.
My name is Princess Margaret. My goal is to bring honor and fame to the One who rescued me. The King came to this faraway land with a purpose, which was to save the ones He loved, even if that meant He would be killed. The Rescuer would have still let those (whom He made) abandon Him on the island (which He created) if it could save their souls. He still would have done it if it were only me. That bring tears to my eyes at this very moment, knowing someone out there loves me that much. He is so humble and gracious.
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This morning offered a welcome pause in the middle of days bursting with too much To Do. After a breakfast with friends old and new, I was ruined for bills and phone calls and my inbox for the rest of the afternoon. Instead, I’ve been reading and writing and listening to acorns falling crack! on the roof. When he’s not barking at the falling nuts, the dog keeps tilting his head at me, wondering why I’m sitting still.
The Ladies of our Literary Society (we aspire to say “literary society,” but we always end up saying “book club”) play pretend like little girls not grown-up. Depending on what we’ve been reading, we’re characters in Alice’s Wonderland or dressed in the style of P.J. Woodhouse’s 20s. Sometimes we simply spin a web of other-ness through our talk.
One third Thursday of the month, the six of us sat at luncheon and discussed one of our favorite subjects: days gone by. A spell was cast while we talked of our grandmothers’ first dates or proposals, how dress sizes have shrunk to make modern folk feel less fat and what teenagers must have done for fun a hundred years ago.
As enchanting as that was, there was something missing: old people, in the flesh.
Now, I don’t like to call any lady old, so I won’t. But a couple real live representatives of yesteryear, of the generation who fought for and saved civilization, sat at my dining room table this morning and wove a spell of their own.
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I’ve never been good at hesitating, except when it comes to driving.
“What are you waiting for—traffic?” my dad would say to 16-year-old me waiting endlessly to pull out of the drive.
Yesterday a car beeping behind me brought back the old familiar, Oh! I could have gone. I sped off and wondered why I drive like a ninny sometimes. It came, that one word lately being revealed to me as the answer to lots of questions, frustrations, stumbling blocks: fear.
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