minor prophets: hosea

by-line: and his visit.

yesterday (has it only been one night?) i spoke on hosea.. the prophet who married an unfaithful woman and mourned over her as a symbol of how God mourned for Israel to come back to Him. interested?....comment.

i was feeling relieved to have the sermon behind me. some of you were part of helping me decide to go ahead and preach as planed, despite the similar drama playing out in my very small church. i also talked to our "hosea" who agreed that it should still be the topic, and even read and discussed the book with me prior. and the sermon went well. a few people cryed, but not the ones involved. it's a moving story though, and if you don't know it i would encourage you to read it.

around 12:30am the doorbell rang. "hosea" was slumped up against the door, sobbing and too weak to walk on his own. he had finally found and talked to his wife, who had been avoiding him. he stayed until the sun went up, moerssl left for work, and the construction crew got here to work on our leaky upstairs windows. i am exhausted. "hosea" is clinically depressed and had started cutting himself again since this affair, and was thinking about suicide a lot. i had told him two nights before that if he cannot be trusted alone with himself, that he should let me know and either come here or tell me so that we can go stay at his place (we being me and any uninvolved man, so as to not be alone in the house). it wasn't a bad night.. just long. the counseling part was maybe the first two hours at most, stretched by him crying and me just letting him. the rest was mostly just talking about anything not directly related to his wife, interspersed by brief counseling and crying.

wait....why am i writing when i could be making coffee???