Redeeming Love

The other night the Lord had me read through Hosea 2 and wow did it spoke to me.
...little did I know HE would tie it to other things... So Friday night before I went to
bed I felt drawn to pull out a book called "Redeeming Love" which I've had for
about four years and have not read yet. I started reading it that night and the next
morning I picked it back up again. I was supposed to go to work but called in
and they informed me that I didn’t have to work on game days because the garages
are reserved. Um yah, that's God that I didn't have to go to work that day!
All in His timing! So anyway, I read all morning and afternoon. I read until about 3:30.
I kept asking the Lord if I was supposed to be doing something else because I had
a lot to do but He kept telling me to read on. So I did. He told me to enjoy it and
spend time with Him. 

Funny thing, Redeeming Love is based on the book of Hosea!!! Okay, so the
 last thing I read, I knew that I was supposed to read all the way until this point.
And here's what I really, really wanted to share:

The girl, Sarah, had run away and at the top of the hill Michael Hosea found her.
 She was trying to run away and go back to the town where she was a prostitute.
 He told her she could go uphill for 30 miles to the right and that'd take her back to
the whore house with the Dutchess. Or, she could go to the left, downhill one mile
back home with him. He left her to make up her own mind. Late that night she ended
up coming back and showed up in the front door. He took her and started washing
her feet and hands and speaking gently to her. She realized what she had done to
him yet he still did these things for her and she couldn't understand why, so she
 asked him why and he responded, "Because, for some of us, one mile can
be farther to walk than thirty."

Wow, read that line again. I had to. "Because, for some of us, one mile can
be farther to walk than thirty." It's that way with hurting people. Sometimes
it is easier to go all 30 miles uphill back to what they know than it is for them
to just go one mile to love and to HIM!!!! I was thinking about this with so
many of my relationships with Sometimes it is easier for them to go to what
they know than it is for them to go to God and love because they don’t know
 how to receive love. 

I realize that often times I, as well, have a hard time fully receiving all the
love that the Lord has to offer. When things become to intimate I find myself
feeling a little uncomfortable. However, the Lord knows this and continues
 to pursue and romance us…that is what is so beautiful. 

Something else this book has been teaching me is that only through patience,
patience, patience is this man winning her heart. He loves her so much that he
 waits and waits and waits to even make love to her although they're married.
He knows that it would only hurt her until she is ready. He is sooooo patient
 with her---I cannot even believe it. And the only way it's possible is because
of God. In this book, this man continually cries out to the Lord and asks for
patience and asks what he is supposed to do. He doesn't understand why he
has feelings for a prostitute and why God would tell him to go back for her.
It’s a an amazingly beautiful story retold… read it if you find the time…make
time if you have to...