Feminine Reading

Well, after I finished my nonfiction book on manhood, I decided to reward myself with a nice fiction novel reaching to the essence of femininity. Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers came highly recommended to me by a couple of important ladies in my life. I knew it was the perfect follow-up to Wild at Heart that I needed, and I purchased it immediately. Once I started mentioning that I intended to read it, I realized just how many women knew and loved this book. Ladies at my church admitted to reading it multiple times, some even on a regular basis. I could not wait to dive into the book.

The story is a fictional novel based on the Biblical book of Hosea and follows his prostitute wife named Angel through her life. The beginning chapters that tell of her early years are pretty hard to get through. She was greatly emotionally abused as a young girl and sold into prostitution at eight years old. Her way to cope with the constant sexual and emotional abuse was to shut the world out. Since she was a little girl, she was convinced that everything that happened to her was her own fault, and she never felt worthy of anything or anyone. At eighteen, she was finally at the end of her rope and taunting a man hoping that he would beat her to death and put her out of her misery. However, God had a different future in mind. A farmer named Michael Hosea had been praying for a wife when the Lord directed him to Angel.

The novel is about Michael's pursuit of Angel and her reluctance to let her walls down to be vulnerable again. The story is an incredible example of God's unconditional, never-ending love for us as His children. It was such a good book, that I never wanted to put it down. I even sacrificed a Sunday afternoon nap so that I could continue reading. I finished it in three days, and immediately regretted speeding through. I didn't want to be finished reading it. If I didn't already have another book in line to pick up (The Shack, by William Young), I would have flipped it right back over and started it again. I highly recommend it to anyone. It has the appearance of a romance novel, but it's truly a raw commentary of a girl from the "wrong side of the tracks" that gets saved by grace. I was blessed by this story, and I think you could be, too.