Hosea 3:2
"So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:"
This is not the usual love story. This is not the dream that a young girl wants to live out, but the love story in the Book of Hosea is an important love story. It is about a man whom God told to go and marry a harlot. Hosea obeyed and he loved her, but she wanted to go back and become a harlot. She left him and went back to her adulterous ways. Yet, when others would have left her and divorced her, the love of Hosea moved him to buy her back, even after all the shame she had brought to him.
This is the type of love God's people should have for each other. Anytime you enter into any type of relationship, you are entering into a risk that you could be hurt. When a man and woman choose to get married, there is a risk that the spouse will hurt the other. When a person chooses to go to a church, there is no doubt that you are entering a relationship that could likely cause hurt. It doesn't matter what type of relationship it is, there is always the risk of hurt. When you realize that hurt may happen as you enter a marriage relationship, business partnership or just a normal friendship, you can keep yourself from becoming disappointed.
Moreover, when you enter a relationship because of your love for the person and not for what they can do for you, then when the hurt comes you will still want to be involved in that relationship. The strongest relationships are not ones where you seek to get what you can get out of it, but the strongest relationships are ones where you love them for who they are. Friend, whenever you enter a relationship you have to understand that you are going to discover weaknesses, but true love will help you overcome those discoveries. Married couples will eventually discover each others weaknesses, but that should not cause them to end the relationship. When a person joins a church, they are going to discover the weaknesses of that church, but that shouldn't cause them to run to another church. True love does not seek for itself; rather, it seeks for the other.
My question that I want to pose is this, what is the line that you will not cross in restoring a relationship? Hosea's wife left him and committed adultery with several men, yet he took her back. This is in no way saying that it was easy, but his love for his wife enabled him to do this. When the other person in a relationship shames you, are you willing to take them back? True love may not enjoy being shamed, but it will never let shame hold them back from loving.
Furthermore, how deep will your love be hurt before you choose to stop loving someone? I know this is a rhetorical question because love never ends, but many people have severed relationships over hurts. A church hurts them, so they quit that church or completely quit going to church. A person has been hurt by their spouse, so they run and get a divorce. True love is willing to be hurt for the sake of helping the other person.
Let your line of love be like our Saviour's Who in spite of what we did to Him, He still loved us. Strive to get to the point in every relationship that no matter what someone does to you, your love will compel you to take them back.