The day after vacation

We traveled home from vacation yesterday, so today was that first day home...you know...the day where you need to do 4 loads of laundry, put away bags, review schedules for the week, inventory the fridge and cupboards, etc. So today also being fasting day, I am a little torn between taking time to really be in prayer and completing all of these chores. But there is something so pressing on my heart today that I know it is ok if some things around the house wait until tomorrow- marriage. There is a couple we know of (and many others I'm sure we do not know of) that are struggling in their marriage, to the point of being ready to end it. I don't think it is for me to weigh in on whether it is right or wrong to end the marriage, based on the circumstances, instead praying for God to show us His will. We know that God loves unity, and is the One who brings unity to a marriage even if the couples are not believers in Him, but I read Hosea today and was struck by how God might also use the brokenness of marriages to His Glory too.


Hosea 1

 2 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.” 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
 4 Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. 5 In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”

 6 Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them.

 8 After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. 9 Then the LORD said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.[b]

 10 “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’

I love that last verse. God reminds the people of Isreal, through Hosea and Gomer, that even in their unfaithfulness, and His anger, that He will redeem them and bring them into His family forever. So maybe when we see things on earth that are not as God intended them to be, like divorce, it can remind us of our need for a new heaven and earth, where things ARE as God intended them to be.

Prayer: For all marriages to be strengthened, but especially for a certain one in turmoil right now. Can anything be done God? Do you want to use to do anything in the situation God?