I don't blog too often, and I don't read all that often either but this summer the Bible study that I had been a part of decided to read the book Redeeming Love and do a book club with it. I just finished the book and can't stop thinking about it, I wish I hadn't finished it and that I was still reading it. Needless to say I will have plenty to share at book club this Wednesday, but I have been pondering why I can't seem to get the story out of my head, and concluded that since I rarely blog that this might be a good place to share my thoughts.
First off if you haven't read the book you should, like I said I don't read a whole lot and I managed to finish the book in three days. I could barely put the book down, and whenever I did I would keep thinking about the story. I know I'm not the first person to read this book and recommend it to others. I figure that most people have already read it and I'm behind, but just in case you haven't read it I will try not to give too much away and only share the places it has caused me to go in my mind.
The story in short is about a young woman and the many wounds that had been inflicted upon her in her life, and the man who loved her and would not relent in his pursuit. Of course this is not just a love story, (it is a retelling of the story of Hosea in the Bible). The magic of this book if I may say so, is that as the man is attempting to give a new hope to her, I felt the hope of love coming back to me as well. The underlying spiritual principle of God and His relentless love to not only pursue us but His pursuit of His sovereign will for others to come to Him through our lives struck me differently than it ever had before through the telling of this story.
The other piece of this story that has kept me thinking is how neatly our lives are intertwined in the lives of those who are closest to us. I obviously know that I do not personally exist so closely to Jesus that I can see what He is doing the lives of those around me all the time. Reading a story you can begin to see how easily created characters are used to tell a greater story and in this story every character was telling God's story. I know that in our own lives we tell God's story but WOW, I wish I could see how me along with my friends are telling God's story, or how my family and I are telling God's story together.
Needless to say the ideas in this book Redeeming Love are not new but it has made me think about the perspective of an author...an all-knowing, loving author who never stops working in the world regardless of how hopeless we become in life, relationships, and love. We live in a world full of people who are dying inside their hearts, crying out to be redeemed from a world that has broken us all.
