Reading again

When I was younger, I had very few friends and was a huge geek.

Its ok, I dont need your sympathy, in fact Im sure some of you will say little has changed. But until my teenage years, my Saturday's were spent in the library getting as many books as I could carry and then the rest of the week, every spare minute would be spent consuming the books I'd got and disappearing into other worlds. I loved almost all kinds of fiction from "babysitters club" to "goosebumps" and "sweet valley high" (I already acknowledged I was a geek!)

This week, for the first time in years I found a book that gripped me to read like I used to. Since last Friday I've been unable to put this book down (one night I read til gone midnight...on a work night...this is almost unheard of for me)

Redeeming love tell the biblical story of Hosea through a novel set in America in the 1800's. "Angel" is sold into prostitution at the age of 8. She experiences unspeakable horrors and comes to believe that prostitution is all she is good for. Then God speaks to farmer Michael Hosea and tells him to marry Angel. Michael is a good upstanding man and can't understand why God would ask that of him. If he doesn't understand why he's marrying her, Angel certainly doesn't. She has put up so many barriers and learned not to trust men at all, so it is a difficult journey, but Michaels unwavering commitment to Angel begins to soften her. Scared of how she is feeling, she returns to prostitution, but once again Michael comes to rescue her. Eventually, Angel learns to love Michael. However, due to some of the awful things done to her as a child, Angel is unable to have children, and seeing how much Michael wants a family, she runs away again. This time, though, instead of returning to prostitution, she finds God, and opens a "safe house" for prostitutes who want to make their lives right and teaches them life skills to start again. Eventually, Angel learns that Michael is, 3 years on, still desperately unhappy without her, so Angel returns to him, knowing now that this is what God wanted all along.

Francine Rivers' writing is beautiful and really gripping. I literally couldn't put this book down. I dont usually like religious novels as I have often found them to be a little twee, but this certainly wasn't. I laughed at some bits and cried at others (on the tube, SO embarassing).

Of course, the story of Hosea in the bible is supposed to signify Gods love for Israel, despite the nations constant failure to live in a God honouring way. While reading a novel it is easy sometimes to forget that, but as I sat and read Hosea from the bible this morning, it was certainly brought to me in a new way as I related it to this story that I have so enjoyed to the love that God has for his people. Suddenly I was moved by it on a whole other level and God spoke to me about his love for me.

Highly recommended!!

So now I've bought her next book off Amazon for the plane :-)