Wooing, Part II

It feels a little like I've been composing this blog in my head for the last week or so, but each composition has come out wordy and still incomplete. I hope you'll allow me to take a stab at it now, and maybe get it out of my system. :)

If you have read the previous "Wooing" post, you know that I decided to take Ann Voskamp's How to Make a Marriage Bed blog into the advanced classes for some practice with abstract reading and discussion. Students' responses have been fascinating...and painful.

I forgot that Japan is the country where the responses (that I've heard) to hardworking Martha and listening Mary are something along the lines of, "Why wasn't Martha respected above her sister?!" and "What was Jesus thinking?!" I forgot that grace (which I might define, right now, as an undeserved gift of love) is truly so large that it's maybe incomprehensible.

The discussions we've had in classes have been good. They have been real conversations about real, broken relationships in a yet-broken world. Some of the blog-readers have decided the Farmer is cheating on his wife. Others have decided the wife is cheating on her overly-forceful husband. Only one conversation made it to the realization that sometimes love worked-for and earned might somehow disregard the gift of the lover.

I could not convince the students--could not help them entertain the thought--that there was a Lover willing to simply give them His love.

I am reminded, through all of this, of how important it is to pray. Pray for...God's persistent wooing. His persistent grace...a revelation that goes beyond the painful experiences of brokenness that we all share...to bring freedom, healing, and love.