Oh, Hosea

Some interesting thoughts have been occurring to me as I have done my quiet time this week. Aside from the study of the Disciple John, I am doing our daily devotions for our Sunday School material. This week we started on a series based on James McDonald's Downpour. A few things that I have realized so far are these:

1. I am finding far more identity than I care to in my miscarriages. I want my identity to be who I am as a child of God, and the miscarriages are processes to make me more like Him. Yet I find that my feelings, my answers to the studies' questions, my view of where I am right now in life, is all through the jaded eyes of one who has lost and is hurting.
2. I know that God's purposes in life involve pain. He does not cause it, but He does allow it to put us through the fire of refinement.
3. There is a difference in me right now between believing God with my head and believing Him with my heart. I feel like I know in my head all of the truth of who God is, but when it is given feet to walk through these things, my belief wavers far more than I want it to.
4. I feel in a small way like I have wandered these last few months. Oh, I don't think my journey has taken me far, and I still do stand on my foundation, but I think my heart has just grown tired, and it affects how I relate to God my Father.
5. I need to return to God....in my trust, my healing, my belief.

So, when I read the following verses from Hosea, I felt that it meant me. I can see in many ways how it pertains to others, too....it was written to a wayward Israel, God's holy people. It is for those who have wandered far from God in their lifestyle. But there are so many ways that God wants us to return to Him.

Hosea 6:1-3
Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days ; He will raise us up on the third day, That we may live before Him. So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD. His going forth is as certain as the dawn ; And He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth.

First, I am aware of the action that is all God's. He has torn us so that He can heal us. He has wounded but He will bandage us. God's purpose stands in my life, and it is greater than I can see. Let me know, let me press on to know the Lord. Only through knowing Him more will I believe Him more. The more deeply I trust His heart, the more I will trust His hands. Even when those hands wound before they heal.

The devotion in my Sunday School material had some poignant words. Sometimes I read things that make me do that little "mm-hmm" of understanding. It said:

"Why does God approve pain's intrusion into our personal experience? God is trying to bring about another crisis. Whatever the particular point of pain is, the circumstance you would most change, the unwanted source of shock and sadness that you beg God to reverse or resolve...God has a purpose for that pain. And it will not go away until the reason for its arrival has been completed in you. Worse, when God has finished His work in that part of your life, He will move on to another area He wants to change in you. God is relentless in His pursuit of us. His love is not a pampering love; it's a perfecting love."

Mm-hmm. I have not often felt "pampered" through the experiences the last few months, but I sure hope I am being perfected. I've said that over and over again....I don't know why these things have happened to us, or why so many I love face even greater pains than this. But I know that we are supposed to look like Jesus. I'm as sure of it as anything.

I don't want my identity to be as "one who has miscarried." I don't want to find who I am in the sadness of that experience. Yes, I know it is now a part of me...who I am, and who I am becoming. But it isn't what defines me. I do desperately want to return to the Lord, though...any part of my heart that was broken and has wandered, or just grown so weary. Sometimes I feel I am too tired for the rest I need. I can hold fast to this passage in Hosea, though. "He will come to us like rain, like the spring rain watering the earth." Please do, Lord.