Excerpt
If salvation was based on works or according to how hard a person tries then Gomer would have scored high on the work's chart. Even now, it moves me to tears when I think about how hard my wife tried- she really did try. She not only changed her wardrobe but she also changed the color of her hair and lipstick, she changed everything! She was trying. She even changed the tine she went down to the village well to draw water. She tried; she even knew how critical it was to change the ungodly crowd that she was once associated with, oh she tried. However, like a beast of prey she was caught between two ferocious attackers, on one side she faced the awful internal pull of the wiles of her old world. At the same time, she experimented with the terrible external push of the self-proclaimed pious and pompous. The pull and the push underneath her skin provoked within a war of wills wherein the commitment to God was at stake. She struggled with her unconverted passions that were constantly being prodded by the lips and arms of her many lovers. Then the push, it was the push of those self-righteous synagogue goers always seeking to make themselves better at the expense of others. It was the push of those self-seeking pious and religious individuals who in attempting to hide their guilt constantly point the accusatory finger at the life of others. One day she burst into the house, with tears steaming down, she cried out to me, "e;Hosea is this what your religion is all about, I don't want any part of it, I knew then that it was only a matter to time before she slid back in the wickedness of her past.