I can remember, while I was still hiding my prolonged affair, asking my husband if he ever got angry, thinking back to the affair he KNEW about. He would tell me that sometimes he thought about it, but most of the time, it didn't even come to his mind. He would also tell me, as I would be weeping thinking he MUST be only seeing "the affair" when he looked at me, that I was wrong. He didn't look at me and see the affair and feel the hurt I had caused him. He would reassure me and tell me that he loved me and that was that.
I wonder if that is just the way men are wired, or if my husband was just given an extra measure of grace, a deeper insight of what it means to be my Hosea. That's how I see him, by the way. As my Hosea.
In the Bible, God called this man named Hosea to do something that most people believe is absurd. Hosea is one of those books that some people "throw out", like Jonah, because it's just too hard to "swallow". My view of the Bible is that, aside from the parables Jesus told, if the Bible says something happened, it happened. Yes, I really believe Jonah was swallowed by a large fish and spent days inside of the animal's acidic stomach, before he finally obeyed and went to Nineveh.
So, I believe that there really was a man named Hosea, whom God called to do something that the majority of people would shy away from. "When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, 'Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.'" Hosea 1:2
And I just wonder what Hosea thought. Was he like "Sure God! That sounds like a great idea! Why didn't I think of that?"
Or was he horrified, thinking "What?!? You want me to do what?"
We don't have any insight into what Hosea really thought. We just know that the following happened:
"So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son."
Wait, what? He just did it? He just went out into the streets, found a woman that he knew would be unfaithful, and then he "put a ring on it"? Was he crazy?
No.
He was obedient to God.
I think he had to have had a HUGE faith in God. How else could he have done this crazy thing God had asked him to do?
Because Hosea didn't just marry a woman who might be unfaithful. He married a woman that wouldbe unfaithful, and as you read Hosea, you find that it was not a one time event either.
Don't even get me started on these poor children and the names God gave them, because of their mother's sin, and ultimately Israel's sin. Because that was the point God was trying to make.
It doesn't matter how many times you screw up. It doesn't matter how many times you stray and you are unfaithful to me. I will NOT be unfaithful to you. I love you and nothing you do can ever change that.
I find Hosea 2 both confusing and redemptive. One of the cool things about God is that ALWAYS, in the end, there is restoration. No matter what we go through, no matter how we hurt him, there will always be a chance to be restored. To be redeemed. And if God is willing to do that for us, then shouldn't we also, in an effort to be more like God, respond the same way to our spouses who have been unfaithful? And I'm talking unfaithful on many levels, through addiction, emotional adultery, physical adultery, etc...
Listen to how God talked to His people through Hosea 2:
Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’
2 “Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the adulterous look from her face
and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise I will strip her naked
and make her as bare as on the day she was born;
I will make her like a desert,
turn her into a parched land,
and slay her with thirst.
4 I will not show my love to her children,
because they are the children of adultery.
5 Their mother has been unfaithful
and has conceived them in disgrace.
She said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
who give me my food and my water,
my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’
6 Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
‘I will go back to my husband as at first,
for then I was better off than now.’
8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one
who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold—
which they used for Baal.
9 “Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,
and my new wine when it is ready.
I will take back my wool and my linen,
intended to cover her naked body.
10 So now I will expose her lewdness
before the eyes of her lovers;
no one will take her out of my hands.
11 I will stop all her celebrations:
her yearly festivals, her New Moons,
her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals.
12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,
which she said were her pay from her lovers;
I will make them a thicket,
and wild animals will devour them.
13 I will punish her for the days
she burned incense to the Baals;
she decked herself with rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but me she forgot,”
declares the Lord.
14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will respond as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
16 “In that day,” declares the Lord,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.’
17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
no longer will their names be invoked.
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
I will abolish from the land,
so that all may lie down in safety.
19 I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion.
20 I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the Lord.
21 “In that day I will respond,”
declares the Lord—
“I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine and the olive oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.
23 I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’
2 “Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the adulterous look from her face
and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise I will strip her naked
and make her as bare as on the day she was born;
I will make her like a desert,
turn her into a parched land,
and slay her with thirst.
4 I will not show my love to her children,
because they are the children of adultery.
5 Their mother has been unfaithful
and has conceived them in disgrace.
She said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
who give me my food and my water,
my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’
6 Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
‘I will go back to my husband as at first,
for then I was better off than now.’
8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one
who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold—
which they used for Baal.
9 “Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,
and my new wine when it is ready.
I will take back my wool and my linen,
intended to cover her naked body.
10 So now I will expose her lewdness
before the eyes of her lovers;
no one will take her out of my hands.
11 I will stop all her celebrations:
her yearly festivals, her New Moons,
her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals.
12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,
which she said were her pay from her lovers;
I will make them a thicket,
and wild animals will devour them.
13 I will punish her for the days
she burned incense to the Baals;
she decked herself with rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but me she forgot,”
declares the Lord.
14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will respond as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
16 “In that day,” declares the Lord,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.’
17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
no longer will their names be invoked.
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
I will abolish from the land,
so that all may lie down in safety.
19 I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion.
20 I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the Lord.
21 “In that day I will respond,”
declares the Lord—
“I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine and the olive oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.
23 I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’
But it boils down to this. And THIS is the truth, so it bears repeating.
It doesn't matter how many times you screw up. It doesn't matter how many times you stray and you are unfaithful to me. I will NOT be unfaithful to you. I love you and nothing you do can ever change that.
I could really relate to verses 5-7. Well, except that all of my children were conceived by my husband (thank God!). But the part about how Gomer was dissatisfied and wanted to go after the men who had given her gifts and "treasures". Men who made her feel better about herself and her life of sin.
Sinful men will not encourage sinful women to be holy. Just as sinful women will not encourage sinful men to be holy.
"Christians" become entangled in affairs ALL THE TIME, and because we (as sinners) like the darkness, we do not encourage those who are in darkness with us to seek the light. We don't want their deeds exposed, because we don't want our deeds exposed.
And if there is anything I have learned from my mistakes and my own infidelity, it is that there was no way I was going to encourage my co-conspirator to change his ways, to seek God, and go home to his wife. I was perfectly content for us both to stay in the dark. If he stayed in the dark, then I could continue to be in the dark. And I wanted to stay in the dark!
Because the enemy had whispered lies in my head, convincing me that staying in the dark was EASIER and SAFER than coming into the light.
And I also find it interesting that Gomer reasoned out that when God blocked her way to her lovers, she chose to go home to her husband because she felt that she would be better off with Hosea, than she was currently. Her path barred, she went back to a man that she knew would take her back.
God indeed blocked my way back to my lover. Not seven years ago. Seven years ago, he allowed me the free will to CHOOSE to go back to this man. And He continued to tolerate it for a long time. When He had finally had enough, he DID block my way.
By way of exposing the darkness.
By way of showing Kris the truth about how I had been living.
I feel like God was tired of me going back to that adulterous life time and time again, and He simply put His foot down and said "I will block her path."
Not because He controls me.
Not because He wanted to take my free will away.
But because He LOVED me.
He was tired of seeing me hurt.
He was tired of watching me choose a life that did nothing but bring pain and anguish to everyone involved. I was not only harming myself. I was also harming the man I was choosing to hide in the dark with, his wife, and my own husband. AND the children!
Do you think my children didn't suffer because I wasn't fully THERE? I was not the mother I could have been during those seven years. I spent more time trying to get out of the house to be with this man than I spent trying to care for my children, let alone teach them what a Godly home and marriage look like.
And I have to admit something else here. When I left home back in February, I was not going to choose to go home simply because I knew Kris loved me and would forgive me and life would be better than it was alone. I very specifically wanted to be sure that my decision to go home was based on a DESIRE to go home and fight for my marriage, not simply to go home because it was a better life than the life in the darkness provided, or an empty life without the darkness.
This was a very strong point for me. I would not choose to go home because it would be easier than being alone. I would not choose to go home because I thought it would be better than wandering around aimlessly trying to find purpose and meaning in my life.
If I was going to go home, it was going to be because I WANTED to go home.
To my husband.
To my children.
To fight for my marriage and to rebuild what Kris' pornography addiction and my life of adultery had torn down.
I went home to my husband in February, and to my Savior in April. Those are the two best decisions I have ever made in my life.
And now, I CAN teach my children what a Godly home and marriage look like. I think often about how Kris and I interact now. And sure, maybe the kids gasp and say "Eww..." when we kiss in front of them (except the youngest two because they're romantics and love a good kissing scene).
But I don't care.
THIS is what a healthy marriage looks like.
We love each other.
We are affectionate to one another. Quite often!
And I know that while the older ones roll their eyes and want to say "Get a room!", we are teaching them something vital. Something that they will take with them into their adulthood and their own marriages.
We are teaching them that we were very broken (we have told them as much), and that God brought us back together and we chose to fight for marriage.
Because it's worth it.
Because THEY, as our children, deserve to see what a marriage is supposed to look like. Not what it was. But what it is now. We are showing them that in the worst of circumstances, we chose each other. And we chose God. And this transformation in our lives and our marriage will stay with them through their entire lives.
Sometimes I think about why God waited so long to expose my sin. It's all about timing. I love that song "Timing Is Everything."
If our children had been toddlers still when this transformation took place in our marriage, they would have missed something important that I think God wanted them to learn. They are 12, 11, 10 and 7 now. They are learning and growing and understand many things.
And I think that sometimes God chose this timing to bring the darkness to light so that for generations to come, this family will choose to stay and fight. This family will understand that it might be hard and it might be painful, but in the end...
...it is ALL WORTH IT!
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