Prostitution and God. Most people don’t put those two things in the same category. In the 1989 novel, Redeeming Love, Christian author Francine Rivers tells the love story of a young prostitute and a God-fearing man who vows to soften her stone-cold heart and show her the truth of Christ’s unchanging love, despite her rejection.

Set in California during the gold rush of the 1850s, Angel expects nothing from men and views God as a joke. After overhearing her father say she should have never been born at the age of six, she feels her whole life has been a mistake from the point of conception. Sold into prostitution at only 8 years old, she experiences things many people couldn’t imagine.

Angel remains alive through her hatred of the men who use her and her master, Duke. She strives to escape the enslavement, but after many tries, she sees no use. She feels she must always remain a prostitute and that her life was meant for it. With this feeling of hopelessness, Angel seeks the refuge of death to finally escape it.

Then she meets Michael Hosea, a man following God’s call to marry her and love her despite her lifestyle. At first, she views him as any other man. His promises and love for her mean nothing to Angel. However, when she reaches the point of near-death after a vicious beating from her bodyguard, she finally gives in to his marriage proposal.

Day by day, Michael nurses her back to health with his gentle care. He shows her his farm and the fruit of his labor, hoping to show her another life. He teaches her daily chores and loves her unconditionally, but her bitter resentment toward men still remains the same.

At her first chance, she runs away from him and back to prostitution. Not willing to give up on her, Michael finds her and brings her back home despite her betrayal. He slowly begins to defy every expectation she holds of men, causing her heart to thaw and release emotions she has forced down for years.

With this new sense of vulnerability, Angel runs in fear that Michael will control her and then crush her heart ? something she couldn’t allow to happen. Yet Michael’s persistence remains until she finally lets down her guard and loves him back. But she feels more than love for him; she idolizes him. After everything Michael did for her despite her treatment to him, she feels an overwhelming sense of unworthiness. She decides to leave him once more, even though she will always love him, in hopes that he will find a wife he deserves.

Despite his grief, Michael knows that he must not follow after her this time. In hopes of showing her God’s love, he became her god. He realizes her final healing must come from the recognition of God’s persisting and unconditional love, and that only then will his wife return to him on her own.

Redeeming Love represents a modern retelling of the Book of Hosea. Michael’s love for Angel parallels the prophet Hosea’s love for his prostitute wife, Gomer, and helps to show God’s love for his people despite their constant sin against Him. The novel represents a Bible-based love story that can bring one closer to God without it seeming monotonous.

Rivers writes the book in third person, enabling the reader to understand the feelings of those around Angel from many perspectives. Through her depth in explaining the emotions, she exposes the emptiness and hatred of Angel in such harsh reality that I felt I was reading a first-hand account of the feelings of a prostitute. Rivers also describes the pain Michael goes through because of his wife’s betrayal, showing the pain humans cause God because of their sins.

Although Redeeming Love is a Christian novel, it doesn’t deny the reader of the authentic situations a prostitute faces, yet features them in a gentle way. The book represents a powerful plot that brought tears to my eyes in many parts due to the love, sadness and realization of what my sins do to God. I craved to read through it, yet hoped it would never end.

Before each chapter, Rivers includes a famous quote or Bible verse that summarizes the conflict for the chapter. The quotes foreshadowed the chapters, therefore intriguing the reader before even beginning the chapter.

Redeeming Love contained conflict and interesting situations in almost every chapter, making it easier to read since it hardly contained boring fillers or respites. Rivers wrote in detail, but remained far from the point of over-description. She didn’t utilize a lot of difficult words, which made the story easily flow and the reader able to understand, without making the book seem childish. Redeeming Love can be read more than once and still interest the reader because of the engaging themes.

The book can relate to most teens and adults because it contains lessons on purity, sin, love, self-confidence and other issues. It brought me closer to God and caused me to reflect on the story for weeks afterward. The novel can change the life of the reader through Rivers’ exceptional writing on God’s love.

Redeeming Love, with a length of 486 pages, costs about $15 for paperback or $20 for hardcover. It is available at Amazon.com and at most local bookstores.

For more book reviews, visit the Jan. 13 article, Holocaust tale narrates childish tragedy.