BOOK REVIEW: ‘Redeeming Love’ by Francine Rivers

What do you think love would feel like for someone who was rejected by her father and unwanted by her mother?

What do you think love means to a girl-child who wrongly learned, very early in life, that all men ever want from a woman is to use her?

Francine Rivers’ tackles this question in her book Redeeming Love; a touching story that speaks of unconditional love at the intersections of sacrifice, self-denial, and brokenness.

The story follows a girl who is badly scarred by a horrible past that threatens to completely ruin her future. Born into unfortunate circumstances, she finds herself the favourite in a meeting brothel with a wicked pimp-madam. It is here that she is renamed ‘Angel’.

At the peak of her hopelessness, God instructs a stranger, Michael Hosea, to take her as his wife, a love at first sight of sorts. It is an instruction he struggles with but ultimately agrees to.

(You might notice some similarities to Hosea, the prophet in the Bible who was instructed to marry an harlot.)

Now that he’s on board, he goes all out, even giving all his earnings to rescue her from her life of prostitution. However, their journey is not a smooth one. She runs away several times and goes out of her way to find creative ways to spite him.

Despite all of these painful experiences, he still does not give up on her.

His is a long-suffering and unselfish love, tempered with much self-control and patience, and a refusal succumb to her several attempts to seduced him, in order to force him to give in to his sexual desires without either understanding or reciprocating the love he was offering her.

This story makes us understand that God’s love not only draws us to those that are perfect and whole but is much more for those who are soiled (and, in the book, Angel is referred to as a ‘soiled dove’), blemished and broken.

Just as Jesus said in Mark 2:17:

 When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Mark 2:17 (KJV)

Your load of sin might be as heavy as the weight of an incurable illness. You might feel stuck in it, with no way out in sight, but God’s love is enough to redeem you from it all.

Angel seemed lost beyond redemption but with patience and the consistent and painstaking nurturing of Michael Hosea’s love, she was finally able to understand and accept God’s love, and, as a result, her husband’s.

Not only was her heart healed. Even her body that had been irrevocably damaged witnessed received the miracle of God’s love and repair.

Michael Hosea’s love teaches us that we should love at all times and not only when there is something we are aiming to get — not out of self-centered motives.

It’s the season of Love again; we should not just look for love because of the gifts we hope to receive, but also aim to dish out unconditional love (the God-kind of love) as we also hope to receive the same.

We should also never forget that the greatest love of all was given to us at the cross of Jesus when He died for all our sins. Jesus craves our love in return, when we surrender our lives to Him and live according to His purpose.

Above all, have you been thinking love is only restricted to a feeling of flurry butterflies in your tummy and a serious emotional high that gets you hardly capable of sound reasoning?

Then Francine Rivers’ Redeeming Love is a must-read; a proof that Love is not just a walk in the park, but a journey of selfless sacrifices, obedience and humility.