Well, I have issues, like any one else, but I am beginning to think that perhaps, like Hosea, my married life is a picture of the church- the Bride of Christ. Hosea was instructed to marry a whore as a dramatization of the interaction of the nation of Israel with God. One of unfaithfulness and degradation. For me it may be one that the bride doesn't want to trust the what she sees and hears (I'm not particularly pretty)... remember these are the ramblings etc, etc. What follows is a diary entry that I penned last week during my time away. It may have some truth in it.

I see the bride, but how can she dance in that dress? Form fit to the ankles- And that veil is much too heavy. She couldn't see where she was going if she could dance. In her fear of mis-stepping she has bound her feet. In her fear of her betrothed she has layered her veil to hide, not her imperfections but her fear that the bridegroom won't live up to her expectations- it is, after all, an arranged marriage.
Can anyone live up to her expectation? Can anyone be worth what she perceives to be her cost? Her investment? She has forgotten and now only knows from old letters... still, He sounds very promising. The father who razed her, well, he was never her father, a non-invested foster parent, really, yelling epithets as she ponders their past and her future. He was never much of a guardian- he had actually violated her and tore her self esteem down far beyond what any man, any normal man, could hope to reconstruct- but here, dare she hope? Dare she really believe is just that man?
He has already given himself and his promise of fidelity. He vowed, and gave His life... He has set a feast and prepared a banquet, He awaits only her certainty. Only her unabashed abandon. He awaits the brides invitation without reservation... without reservation.