Faithful

It’s #TrueFictionFriday again! I hope you enjoy this tale from Hosea, as requested by a reader. Let me know what story or person you’d like to see in future Friday posts! And if you are enjoying these stories, please consider subscribing to my blog and/or sharing the stories with your friends who may enjoy them. Happy Friday!

PS. Will you forgive my lack of photos this time around? I’ve had a demanding week :-/

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In the space of a heartbeat I wake and sense she’s gone.

I’m not sure how I know, but I know. 

It’s as if the very space in our bedroom is swaying, shifting, expanding. When I open my eyes there’s something insubstantial about the bed without her in it. I’ve come to love her contented warmth, her soft giggles of surprise, her presences there beside me, anchoring my world, keeping me grounded. Her familiar scent of herbs from the garden with a hint of the oil of myrrh—a wedding gift from me—is as constant as the salt breeze that drifts through our window. And even now, as I grab her pillow and bury my face in it, bereft, I inhale a sweet note of her and I am undone.

With this woman, all of my senses are both delighted and wounded. Delighted when she is with me, and wounded when she leaves me. 

For that is what has happened. She has left me. Again.

I thrust her pillow away and roll onto my back. The sinking whirlpool of despair presses me to the bed, a monster that threatens to swallow me in its great, black, belly. I fight back with the only other emotion I have and direct it to the One Who made me love this conflicted woman.

It isn’t right, God! It isn’t fair! Why? Why did you need me to demonstrate with my marriage what your marriage to Israel looks like? Did not the people disdain Your words in my mouth already? Was I not ignored, mocked, and rejected as Your prophet because I refused to tickle their ears? This marriage of mine has done nothing to endear me them, have You noticed?

I know that they hold Your love in contempt, whoring with other gods, but was it truly necessary for me to marry a prostitute to prove Your point? And as if that’s not enough, You allow me to love this fickle, unfaithful woman! Desperately, hopelessly love her. And yet, I feel as if I my love is deflected, can never quite reach her. An unrequited rain shower that is not allowed to penetrate the dry, dusty surface of her heart.

This demonstration of Yours would be much easier to live with if I did not care for her as I do. 

Instead, I long to protect her from her wounded, foolish self. I long to soothe those fearful places in her—the ones that yearn for love but have been taught a different, twisted version of it. And, once again, I’m willing to go to any lengths to find her, to humiliate myself in unseemly places for her sake. 

You do realize that traipsing around houses of ill repute does not reflect well on You name, right? Have you thought of that?

My anger, having vented, deflates. Of course Yahweh has ‘thought’ of that. I understand, afresh, His love for His people and feel, once again, the pain of being spurned by the object of His love.

It’s unfathomable. Both His love for Israel, and the love He has placed in my heart for my unfaithful wife.

I sigh and wipe the hot, angry tears from my face. What choice do I have? I must—I must—bring her home. This is the only option before me. Maybe if I hurry, I can catch up to her before she inflicts too much pain on herself. How can I show her, teach her, demonstrate to her that she is not the woman she used to be?

She is my wife. She bears my name. She is loved and wanted and beautiful in my sight. And though she hurts me, spurns me, practically spits in my face in her forgetfulness of who she really is, I won’t let her go. I won’t give up.

And even if I wanted to, God wouldn’t let me. 

With fresh determination, I throw off my covers and dress. I’ve got that buzz in my ears, that thrumming of my heart inside my head that tells me I’m experiencing a special connection to the heart of Yahweh. In these rare, beautiful moments I don’t have to second guess His will or His direction or even His words if He prompts me to speak. It’s like I’m an olive leaf floating on the surface of the water of His will, and what God is saying ripples through me, beneath me, carrying me along. 

Stepping out into the predawn stillness, I’m greeted by the sparkling, starlit sky. A vast reminder of my powerful but intimate Creator. The Morning Star is just now dancing into the horizon. The moon is a crescent smile that gazes on its own reflection in the sea of Galilee. 

I hear the pulsing waves, not unlike the pulsing of God’s breath in my brain. The inky water slices the bluing horizon. And—wait—what is that shape I see near the shore?

Not what. Who. 

Someone is standing motionless, gazing at the sea. The kiss of moonlight on this silhouette makes my heart leap. I recognize that curling head of hair, the slope of those shoulders, the narrow hips, and—even from this distance with her back to me—just how she is crossing her arms, pulling her shawl protectively around her shoulders as if it will shield her from the ugly, judgmental world around her. 

She hasn’t left!

Yet. 

I hear God’s warning whisper as clear as the persistent waves. She hasn’t left yet. Not physically. But her heart—always the first to betray us—is wandering away and her feet will soon follow. 

Even now, as I watch, she leans down and lifts something from the ground beside her. A small mound that I had not noticed until now. She slings this thing, this tied up bit of cloth that surely contains her belongings, over her head and across one shoulder like a baby swaddled against her back. 

No! My mind cries out. But my voice is caught in the grip of horror. She really is leaving me again. 

Suddenly, she turns toward our home. Maybe she wanted to say a silent goodbye, or perhaps she wished to remember how it looked in the moonlight. Whatever the reason, she turns. Her body stiffens and I know she sees me. 

And that quick, startling recognition shakes me out of my paralysis.

“No! Gomer, please. Wait!” My feet are carrying me toward her, slowed by the pebbly sand. “I love you, Gomer. I love you!”

Her hands fly to her face. She drops to her knees. Whether its in relief or surrender, I cannot tell. I am upon her now. kneeling beside her, cradling her, enveloping her slim body in my strong arms. Whispering reassuringly in her ear that I love her.

She’s rocking, bent low, shaking her head as if to silently argue with my love. 

“Yes!” I say. “Yes. I do love you. I will always love you. I would die for you. I won’t stop fighting for you and I will always forgive you. Please, please stop rejecting my love.”

And then, miraculously, she does. She stops fighting—physically anyway. She slumps into me. I can feel her exhaustion. Her deep, deep, down to the marrow of her soul exhaustion. She’s so tired of the battle she wages with herself. With me. With God.

Her fingers slip into mine, entwining themselves. I feel her sweet, final surrender in a ragged sigh that slips out, taking with it that last little bit of resistance as she softens against me even more. 

I ache inside, knowing how close I came to losing her again. Gratefulness spills forth in salty tears. How very good is my God. How kind of Him to wake me. To wake me with enough time to allow my selfish, angry rant against Him and yet still intercept my wife before she walked away.

We slip from our knees, prone in the sand, holding one another. I mumble into her hair reassurances and forgiveness. She is silent.

And I know, even as I hold her—feeling her contentment respond to my unspoken, probing question, ‘do you accept my love?’—I know this won’t be her last time to leave, anymore than this was her first.

Oh God, give me strength! I pray. Give me strength to love her faithfully and unfailingly, as You love Your people. Without it I cannot do this. Without You, we are each chasing after worthless, wounding gods.