Hello World!

Hello fellow bloggers.

So, I've been meaning to make a blog for a very long time. (Ever since a wonderful friend coined the phrase, "Blog it!"... Kath's an all around wonderful coiner of phrases. Case and point: "Be careful what you fish for." :) I've never seemed to find the time, but now that I'm on spring break, and my weekend is miraculously cleared, (long story) I have no excuse not to write.

Frankly, this is a good thing, because I've had a million moments where I've thought, wow, I'd love to blog that, if only I had a blog.

Part of the reason that I've taken so long to make this thing is that I had to give it a title, which I hate doing. It's so hard to be creative and meaningful and such, with only a few words. Thankfully, I thought of a title which I find perfect. It's from Hosea, which is, at least for now, my favorite book of the Bible. Basically, God asks Hosea to take a prostitute for a wife, and the rest of the book is talking about him loving his wife, Gomer, which is then put into the perspective of God's love for his wife, Israel.

Hosea 2 is all about God's love for his bride, and it's messy and painful and not at all the kind of love in fairy tales. God's bride has an adulterous heart. And he responds with wrath. It's harsh. In Hosea 2:13 God says, "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.” This isn't the God I expect. This isn't an easy gospel, because God's not alright with sin. Something would be wrong with a man who wasn't upset that his wife was going after other lovers.

It's so easy for me to forget that I'm not alright with God. That every morning, I choose to go after other lovers. And it hurts God. He is angry and he is jealous. But he still loves me. And just saying that I'm a Christan isn't enough; he's not okay with me just saying that I'm his wife. He wants my heart. His jealousy is proof that he desires my heart.

And the next line is made even more beautiful, when I remember that I never deserved God's love.  "Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt."

I am so thankful that God likes to turn despair into hope. That God has sent his son, because he so desired the heart of his bride. The words God chooses, "there she will sing as in the days of her youth," make me think of when I was little, and I would spin around in circles in dresses and belt the words of Colors of the Wind. That's how God sees me. That is the joy and innocence that the Bible promises I can have because of what Christ did on the cross.

By the way, when making my template I noticed that one of the fonts was called covered by his grace. I liked the title too much not to use it, but it was too difficult to read to make my post text. I applied it to something random, and now I'm trying to spot it. This was pointless, but I just wanted to share.