Are You Married to the Lord?

So you blame your relapse on Sin City. You were all caught up in the nonsense and it just over took your senses. There's a reason why its called sin city. You have to remember that you are a man. A human being, born with all of the same carnal wants and desires of any other human being. Just because you have become the bride of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ does not mean you can go into the devil's playground and walk away scott free. That kind of life gets in under your skin. There is so much more nastiness and evil in places like that than you will ever know and I know you have seen a lot of sin but just imagine that there is still even more. You thought you were prayed up and safe but obviously you were not. Know your limits. I have never been to Vegas and never had a desire to go. When I drove through the state of Nevada on my way to San Diego for family counseling I knew there would be problems. Its a desert. The whole flipping state is a desert basically. On my way back I was involved in an accident. I saw a huge snake on the road, I tried to avoid it, I cut the wheel too much and I was suddenly in a rollover. The car went over and over and over. We finally stopped on the other side of the highway, facing the opposite direction of traffic. The protection of the Lord was on us. I had my seatbealt on. My daughters were two and four. The baby was just tossed about and wrapped in the covers and blankets I had in the back seat for them. I didn't know the importance of child safety seats then. My oldest was thrown from the car but not until we basically landed and she literally bumped out of the back window. All of the windows were shattered. I had cuts and bruises all over my body. When the car stopped I looked for my babies. I found one and couldn't find the other. I found her at the back of the car, eyes, rolled to the back of her head. I cried out in a loud voice to God, please Lord, don't take my baby. I kept repeating that. She started crying and I thanked God. We were in the middle of the desert, not a soul around. Suddenly, a car came, it was a family in a camper. They had water, towels and a cb radio where they could call for an ambulance. God is good. This was before cell phones. They took us to the nearest hospital then helicoptered us to a hospital in Reno. I was on my own, my husband was in rehab in San Diego, that's why we had made the trip in the first place. Thank God for insurance and American Express. I have no love for Nevada. God wrapped that car up when it was rolling over and we literally came out of that with bruises and minor cuts. I know the Lord is real, he saved me and my babies that day. For years I couldn't tell that story without crying. We were blessed. The car was totaled, it was brand new too. I knew then and I know now, material things can be replaced but a life is precious and worth more than anything. That's why I could care less about things. Thank You God for this new car now, but if you take it away, I will still survive. Thank you God for the house, the clothes on my back, the job, but if you take it away, I still have My Lord and Savior, the Almighty, The King of Kings, The Mighty Counselor. If I lose it all today I know that Jesus will protect me and loves me. My Lord is my Husband, My Lover, My Friend.

Hosea 2:2-3:5 (New International Version)

Israel Punished and Restored

 ² "Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,
       for she is not my wife,
       and I am not her husband.
       Let her remove the adulterous look from her face
       and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.  ³ Otherwise I will strip her naked
       and make her as bare as on the day she was born;
       I will make her like a desert,
       turn her into a parched land,
       and slay her with thirst.
 ⁴ I will not show my love to her children,
       because they are the children of adultery.
 ⁵ Their mother has been unfaithful
       and has conceived them in disgrace.
       She said, 'I will go after my lovers,
       who give me my food and my water,
       my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.'
 ⁶ Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
       I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
 ⁷ She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
       she will look for them but not find them.
       Then she will say,
       'I will go back to my husband as at first,
       for then I was better off than now.'
 ⁸ 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 they used for Baal.
 ⁹ "Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,
       and my new wine when it is ready.
       I will take back my wool and my linen,
       intended to cover her nakedness.
 ¹⁰ So now I will expose her lewdness
       before the eyes of her lovers;
       no one will take her out of my hands.
 ¹¹ I will stop all her celebrations:
       her yearly festivals, her New Moons,
       her Sabbath days—all her appointed feasts.
 ¹² I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,
       which she said were her pay from her lovers;
       I will make them a thicket,
       and wild animals will devour them.
 ¹³ 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,"
       declares the LORD.
 ¹⁴ "Therefore I am now going to allure her;
       I will lead her into the desert
       and speak tenderly to her.
 ¹⁵ There I will give her back her vineyards,
       and will make the Valley of Achor ^[a] a door of hope.
       There she will sing ^[b] as in the days of her youth,
       as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
 ¹⁶ "In that day," declares the LORD,
       "you will call me 'my husband';
       you will no longer call me 'my master. ^[c] '
 ¹⁷ I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
       no longer will their names be invoked.
 ¹⁸ In that day I will make a covenant for them
       with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air
       and the creatures that move along the ground.
       Bow and sword and battle
       I will abolish from the land,
       so that all may lie down in safety.
 ¹⁹ I will betroth you to me forever;
       I will betroth you in ^[d] righteousness and justice,
       in ^[e] love and compassion.
 ²⁰ I will betroth you in faithfulness,
       and you will acknowledge the LORD.
 ²¹ "In that day I will respond,"
       declares the LORD—
       "I will respond to the skies,
       and they will respond to the earth;
 ²² and the earth will respond to the grain,
       the new wine and oil,
       and they will respond to Jezreel. ^[f]
 23 I will plant her for myself in the land;
       I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one. ^[g] '
       I will say to those called 'Not my people, ^[h] ' 'You are my people';
       and they will say, 'You are my God.' "

Hosea 3

Hosea's Reconciliation With His Wife

 ¹ The LORD said to me, "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes."  ² So I bought her for fifteen shekels ^[i] of silver and about a homer and a lethek ^[j] of barley. ³ Then I told her, "You are to live with ^[k] me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with ^[l] you."
 ⁴ For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol. ⁵ Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.