Today I was doing some reading in the Psalms, and on a whim, decided to read through some of the book of Hosea--an old favorite that I haven't read in years. I realized, as I was reading, what a perfect Lenten meditation it was. If you're not familiar with the story of Hosea, it begins with God commanding Hosea to take a "wife who plays the whore". And he will love her, and she will leave him. She chases after flashy men who give her flashy things, and yet he loves her. 'And the Lord said to me again, "Go love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the people of Israel."' The book is full of God's anger toward Israel, as well as sadness, and pleas for reconciliation. Most touching, I think, is in chapter 11 (**Ephraim was the largest tribe in Israel): "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to the idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I knelt down to them and fed them." And, a beautiful call to repentance in chapter 6: "Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is He who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth."