Confession: I am an Adulterous Woman…

Saturday morning, we gathered together in a home in Milford, Ohio, and worshiped God together at our first ever Daughters of Sarah® Boot Camp. My sweet friend, Katy, led us in song as Debbie played the piano in her formal dining room. One of the songs we did was an old hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”

There’s always that one verse that half lays me on the ground:

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

So I wasn’t surprised that the verses He gave me one morning of the retreat were from Hosea:

You might see already where I’m going with this, if you are familiar with Hosea’s story.  The poor guy married a woman who kept wandering off with other men. And he kept taking her back. It’s an analogy of God’s great love for Israel and His great love for us.

As we talked about the many types of women we would minister to, the different ways they were struggling, the plethora of issues we would run into, He reminded us that not only are WE are just like them, and yet ALL of us are precious to Him – we are His bride – He offers Himself through Jesus Christ to us.  The truth of how we are adulterous women, prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love, prone to worship other things instead of Him, both encouraged and motivated us.

The God of the universe, like Hosea, continues to pursue us, regardless.

He knows we are sinners and always will be, but He loves us and will continue to pursue relationship with us.

As for me, I choose to be open, like the girl in Dare 24, to the Word itself being alive. I saw God reveal Himself and His Truth and His dreams for our participants this weekend – and one by one, we just stepped out in faith, willing to do the next thing.

At one point, the doorbell rang.  The husband of one of our team, Katy, had sent her a beautiful bouquet of flowers. He also sent a bouquet of carnations without a card.  The gal that answered the door handed them to me and I knew immediately that they were for all of us. Katy then said, “Not all of us have what I have in my husband, and he wanted to remind you that if you don’t, that God loves you and is your husband.”

THIS was Biblically sound.

And a beautiful Truth for us all.

We encouraged each woman to take a flower with her as she left the retreat – most of them did.

Here’s mine, amidst a few hydrangeas from my garden:

I don’t believe for one second that all of those were left because women were refusing God’s love – we had people leaving at different times and we were all more focused on the hugs and saying “goodbye” to each other as we worked our way through the end of the retreat.  Interestingly enough, some women immediately got their flower on the break right after they arrived, others waited til they left, some needed our help remembering, and some forgot completely about it and we didn’t notice.

I wondered how much this applies to us all on any given day?

When you hear, “God loves you,” as a child, it is a significant, smile-inducing Truth. As the cynicism of the tween, teen, and young adult years creep into some of us, we will often roll our eyes at that Truth. Sometimes we are paying attention to His attempts to reconnect us to His great love – but often we are not. I know I miss many of His overtures for me during an average day.

This morning, however, I didn’t miss one. Part of my morning devotional included this verse from Matthew:

In doing that, I begin to see the wonder of Him, experience the wonder of His extravagant love for us – in the midst of the moments of the everyday.

What about you?  Do you know the difference when His yoke is heavy and when it is light? What “coincidences” have you had that could be His overtures of affection and blessing for you?  Dare you to share today…