Review: Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers

Title: Redeeming Love

Author: Francine Rivers

Publisher: Multnomah Books

Publication Date: May 9, 2005

Pages: 464

Genre: Historical Romance

Source: Family Christian Bookstores

Rating:

Summary (from Goodreads): California's gold country, 1850. A time when men sold their souls for a bag of gold and women sold their bodies for a place to sleep.

   Angel expects nothing from men but betrayal. Sold into prostitution as a child she survives by keeping her hatred alive. And what she hates most are the men who use her, leaving her empty and dead inside.
   Then she meets Michael Hosea. A man who seeks his Father's heart in everything, Michael obeys God's call to marry Angel and to love her unconditionally. Slowly, day by day, he defies Angel's every bitter expectation, until despite her resistance, her frozen heart begins to thaw.
   But with her unexpected softening come overwhelming feelings of unworthiness and fear. And so Angel runs. Back to the darkness, away from her husband's pursuing love, terrified of the truth she no longer can deny: Her final healing must come from the One who loves her even more than Michael does ... the One who will never let her go.

 

    When this book first came out, it was on display at our local Christian book store and I just picked it up on a whim. I have re-read it about a thousand times because not only is it such a compelling, heart wrenching story...but it spoke to me in so many ways! An incredible depiction of God's love shown through flesh, Redeeming Love takes the book of Hosea and elaborates to make it real.

Although it is not meant to be taken in place of the true book of Hosea, it encourages the reader to read the Old Testament in a different light. I think sometimes we read through the old books as factual...but these are things that happened to real people with real emotions and real SCARS. They are not too different from you and me.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has struggled with understanding how God loves us, and how we are meant to to love each other...which I think it's safe to say that includes all of us.

Beautifully flawed yet redeemed,