The day I met my Hosea...

Growing up I didn’t know Jesus. I didn’t have hope for eternal life, I only had hope for THIS life, and so my goal was to make the most of my short time here. I was a girl, a girl that in the eyes of the world, had it all. I was a professional model, on magazine covers, calendars, posters, hosting TV shows, on a reality show, dating a teen heart throb, making appearances at huge Hollywood events, thousands of girls looking up to me, people wanting my picture and autograph everywhere I went, I was every girl's dream. I was what everyone would look at and called "successful". It was everything I had ever hoped of being; I was successful, known, and therefore, I was important, worthy, valuable. I had it all, or so it seemed...

On the inside I was dying and broken. I weighed 95 pounds and was physically dying of an eating disorder that took over every moment of my life. I no longer had my own identity, but I had to conform to what the world wanted me to be and look like. I had no real friends, just people who wanted to use me to get ahead in their own life. I myself only wanted to use people for my own success, trying to date as many famous men as I could to get higher in my own social status and reputation. I used people and they used me. I was abused for years, raped, wounded, but it didn’t matter. My heart was broken many times, and so I broke hearts to get over the pain. I was in thousands of dollars of debt in order to uphold this “image” that no one can ever really attain to. So I stole, lied, gave my body for modeling opportunities, compromised my own morals, and cheated people in order to continue to survive. I had abandoned my family because they saw the destruction this life was causing me and I wasn’t going to listen to them. I was a secret alcoholic drinking and crying myself to sleep every night because of the hurt and pain deep within my heart that I could never express. I had thousands of “fans”, guys that thought I was the hottest thing on the earth and girls that looked up to me and I was their “idol”. That’s what I had wanted my whole life, to be known, famous, successful, having people look up to me, though I knew deep in my heart that this was never the life I would wish on anyone else. But to me, it was all I had, it was what I thought made me worthy, valuable.

At my rock bottom point, when I had given up all hope of attaining this worldly “perfection” and literally on the brink of death, I met Jesus. By the grace of God I ended up on the retreat, opened up a Bible to this random story called Hosea about a man that God told to marry a prostitute named Gomer. She kept committing adultery and doing horrible things, but yet he still loved her! And I wondered to myself, “God, could you still love me? After all the awful, terrible things I’ve done, you would still want me?” And the answer was yes. That night people prayed for me and I got healed of my eating disorder, of alcoholism, of depression, of the lies people had spoken over me, and the pain I had experienced my whole life. For the first time in my life, I felt love, and for the first time in years, I felt joy. My life was changed in an instant, and it was right there that Jesus became my everything.

i met my Hosea. The One who loves me and died for me even in my sin. The One that chose me and said "I want HER. She's the one I want to be with me for eternity." The One who fought the realm of darkness and the grips of death over my life, and saved me from my pit of hell. The One that regardless of all my shortcomings, FIGHTS for my heart. The One who is jealous for all of my heart, who wants ALL of me. The One that holds out His hand and helps me back up when I fall. The One that will never leave me, never forsake me, and never love me any less than He did even when I was living in my life of sin. Who is this God? Who is this man, Jesus, that would love me despite all this? He is my Beloved, the One my heart loves and I will stop at nothing to love Him with all that He is worthy of. And He is yours, because YOU are HIS.

"I will make you my wife forever

[betroth you to me],

    showing you righteousness and justice,

    unfailing love and compassion.

I will be faithful to you and make you mine,

    and you will finally know me as the Lord."

- Hosea 2:19-20