Your birthday is coming up :) Just three more days until you celebrate 19 years of life!! Happy birthday, Loo!!! You still have nothing to do with us, but our faithful God continues to make sure we have plenty to do for you. Although life has moved forward and our hearts have pretty much healed, although we have respected your desire to stay out of your life and can be thankful for the peace, prayers for you to come back to Him have never stopped. How apropos that Hosea 1 & 2 were on the docket for me to study this week. It as though the Lord has served up new prayers for you--praise Him for never giving up on either of us <3
Like Israel, you have gone after others in search of something you think will be better. And like Israel, you'll discover that there is never anything better than a life within God's will. You are chasing after lovers and dreams but probably not catching them...for long anyway. How awesome it would be if, like Israel, you decided to come back home, if you saw our hearts that have only wanted the best for you!!! But I fear, also like Israel, you would still be distracted by us...thinking we were the ones who gave you a second chance, who gave you a family, a home, food, and clothes.
"She has not acknowledged that I was the One Who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, Who lavished on her the silver and gold--which [she] used for Baal." -Hosea 2:8
As much as I'd love to see you again, and to have a daughter by my side, we are still not your final answer. God has always been The One, Sweet Girl. He is the One pursuing you. He is the One that gives and Who takes away. And while I pray against the dreams and love you chase right now, it's so the depths of your heart will be exposed to you so you will finally see that He is the One to fill all of those empty places inside of you. You have turned away, but God never will. Even when it feels like every door slams shut in your face, every plan for your future flops, or everything you ever wanted keeps getting stripped away, God has still got you <3
"...no one will take her out of My hands." -Hosea 2:10c
It's your birthday, but He has given me the greatest gift of renewed hope that you're not too far out of His reach. This will be my ongoing prayer for you:
"'Therefore I [God] am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness 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 respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. In that day,' declares the LORD, 'you will call me "my husband"; you will no longer call me "my master." I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked. ...I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the LORD. ...I will show my love to the one I called "Not my loved one"...and they will say, "You are my God."'" -Hosea 2:14-23
May Jesus finally take His rightful throne on your heart.
Love Always,
Mom
