LOVING THE UNLOVELY

Chapter Seven:  The Life

by Tricia K. Brown

The atmosphere after the wedding reminded Hos of the time his parents took him to the circus. After the show, all the people had milled about in a celebratory mood. They had been in no hurry to leave the big tent, rubbernecking as they filed out, trying to get one more glance at the lady in the silk tights or the strong man, hoping to meet the lion tamer or one of the clowns.

Hos and G stood quietly at the entrance to the church, shaking hands with those who ventured to stop and offer a tentative, “Congratulations.” Hos could feel G’s body tense as certain men leaned in to give the new bride a hug. He was glad when they all were gone.

He was picking up the hymnals, still laying on the pews from the morning’s service, when it occurred to him that this was his wedding night. G stood silently at the back door, twisting the golden band on her finger. Reluctantly, he put the hymnals down, said a silent prayer, and took his wife by her hand.

There had been no preparation. When Hos left that morning, he had no idea he would bring a woman home with him that night. He unlocked the door to his small apartment, created from what used to be an attic in the church. He felt rather foolish, wondering if he should pick her up and carry her across the threshold.

“Women may dream about weddings,” he thought. “This is the part that men fantasized.”

But Hos had never imagined this. He never imagined himself making a whore his wife.

“Oh, God, forgive me,” he prayed as the thought flitted across his mind.

“Love her,” he heard God say. “Love her as who she is now—your bride—not who she was.”

“Help me, Lord,” Hos said.

And, He did, that night and in the days and nights from then on. Hos held to his vows—the ones he made verbally to G and the ones he made silently to himself and to God.  It was the Lord; it had to be. Because Hos loved G, really loved her, and every day that he was with her, he loved her more.

Though quiet by nature, over time, G slowly began to open up more and more. She admitted to Hos that she had been saved and baptized as a child, in a Vacation Bible school at a church near her home. She had gone there for the free cookies and Kool-Aid and left with a personal relationship with the Lord.

Obviously, at some point, things had gone south in the religious department. “But,” she said. “I never doubted that God was real. I never doubted that I met Him that day. I just wasn’t sure where He had gone.”

Hos tried not to push his expectations on her, but he spent time every day, praying with her and for her and for their relationship. Every evening, they would sit together, and he would read his Bible out loud. Hos was patient, allowing time for God to work in her life. He told her that everything that was his was also hers, gave her access to the bank account, and her own set of keys to the car. Perhaps, for the first time in her life, G was free.

Eventually, she began to settle into the role of a pastor’s wife. She learned to cook and clean and keep house. She helped do small jobs around the church. She bought new clothes that seemed more appropriate to her new life style, and surprisingly enough, life went on in the average sort of way that lives do.

Hos soon realized that his marriage was meant to be an illustration to his congregation and to the community. It was a picture of God’s love for sinful humanity.  So, he didn’t shy away from talking about it in his sermons.

“I love G,” he would say from the pulpit while looking at his wife, still sitting quietly on that same first pew, her cheeks naturally rosy now. Her face was no longer battered, her eyes more beautiful than ever without the shadows of make-up and pain. While the others had long quit staring, he could not help but admire her and marvel at the change.

His eyes took in her neck and arms, no longer gaunt from hunger and neglect. He glanced at the buttons of her simple dress, pulled tautly across her chest, a little snugger than usual these days. He grinned at her sandals pushed absently under the pew, her swollen bare feet comfortably crossed at the ankles. He breathed out a sigh of personal content, as he continued, more enthusiastically, “I love G, and because she loves me, she has left her former, promiscuous lifestyle.” 

Then, looking at his congregation, “God loves you.  He loves us, and He is calling us to come to Him, to live with Him, to leave our false gods behind. Like a husband and wife take their marriage vows seriously, God takes this relationship seriously, and He expects us to as well. He doesn’t want us to be like prostitutes selling our souls to the gods of money, power, sex, and physical pleasures.  He wants us, expects us, to leave those things behind and serve Him and Him alone.”

Unfortunately, though, while Hos had seen a change in G, he had not seen a change in the church. Actually, it seemed like they never heard, they never really understood. After all these years, he was still preaching the same message. The community was still steeped in wickedness. And the church, well the church, still seemed largely unconcerned.