A Reflection on Francine Rivers' Redeeming Love

Last summer, after I discovered Ruthie Hart's blog, I saw a few of her book recommendations and she so strongly encouraged people to read Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers.  I respect Ruthie's opinion and during the days when Ryan and I only had one care, waited for him and trekked to Barnes and Noble.  That was also the day that I ran into a very elderly man who would not leave me alone, but that's another story.  Over the next few months, Redeeming Love collected dust on one of my numerous book shelves as it waited for me to pour through its pages.  I started it after one of my alerts and couldn't put it down.  I became enamored with the characters and I wanted to see Angel succeed and find the love of God.  After starting it, it only seemed fitting that I would share an Instagram photo and I received so many "likes" and comments.  I even got more book recommendations on what to read by Francine Rivers.  After reading Redeeming Love, I know that I will definitely be checking out more of her work. 

If it were a movie, don't you think Hayden would be a perfect Angel?  She's beautiful but sassy and I think it would be awesome to see her in this role.  Plus Henry Cavill is so handsome, a perfect Hosea!

As much as I like book reviews, I think I'm going to stay away from that and try to apply this one specifically to my life and why I like them versus why everyone should read it.  Hopefully this works, so bear with me.

Angel is a prostitute during the gold rush in California.  Originally from the East Coast, she was sold into prositution and her earlier life wasn't any kinder to her.  Growing up, she grew cold and bitter at life and stopped trusting people, especially men.  Michael Hosea is a farmer who conveniently is in the gold rush town to sell goods when he sees Angel for the first time.  He immediately feels a call from God that this woman should be his wife.  The story goes on to tell their trials and tribulations in the theme of Gomer and Hosea, a story from the Bible. 

Y'all, I loved this book! 

Most of the book focuses on Angel's character development.  I think Rivers could have gone further into this and at times I did feel like she went a little too briefly over some of Angel's past.  I think it would have helped the reader to understand why Angel's personality was so hardened.  Rivers' lack of detail kind of forced the reader to side with Michael Hosea but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  I loved the character of Michael Hosea.  I would have loved to read this in high school, especially those times when you feel like you're never going to find a good guy to date.  I should have probably read this in college too, to be honest.  Michael Hosea represents all good men.  Men of their word who have honor and a quiet strength about them.  He had never-ending love and patience for Angel, regardless of how difficult she made life for him.  I also loved the new characters and families that were introduced later in the book.  It was as if you were growing with this couple in their love.

This book made me pause in reflection with my own marriage.  I wrote earlier in this post that I probably should have read this book in college, just because I was at a point where I was really frustrated with my personal relationships.  I was casually dating and I almost felt like I was dating just for the sake of dating.  The guys in college were smart, handsome, and career-driven.  I'm sure if I looked any of them up, they were probably successful in buckling down a job right away.  One of them was part of the NFL Draft and from what I understand, is at the very least, practicing with a professional team.  Despite how these guys looked on paper, I was rarely truly happy.  I've written about this before but there was definitely a point where I was almost certain that no guy that I met in college was going to follow me through the Air Force.  It was a sad thought and one that I just came to terms with at that time.  I decided that I should still date but these relationships quickly turned out to be fleeting and at surface-level I said that I just wanted it be casual, but deep down it hurt that I didn't think that I would be able to have more.  I remember spending nights incredibly frustrated, staring at texts, trying to decipher what each thing meant.  I would try not to put too much thought into each of these small details, but after awhile it was just exhausting. 

Ruth, the mom of one of my best-friends, said that we just need to be happy.  We wanted that quality relationship, but we were letting ourselves focus on things that weren't important.  She said that we needed to make ourselves happy first and then we'd soon find out that people are attracted to happy people.

So I prayed.  I often prayed while walking to the ROTC detachment on campus and I prayed on the long walks back to my sorority house.  I asked God to help me in my pursuit to be happy and I'll just do my best to put faith in the situation.  I didn't let go right away.  I was dating a really nice guy who right now is on his way to becoming a doctor.  I knew that the relationship wasn't going to go anywhere, but looking back part of me thinks that I was just really worried to be alone.  Maybe I was 50 shades of shallow in college, but regardless of what front you put up to the world with your organizations and leadership titles, you could still be lonely.  So somewhere in that flurry of figuring out personal relationships, Ryan, my future husband, walked back into my life.

I like to think of Ryan as a gift from God because I seriously was not expecting him at all.  He was literally in Afghanistan when he started talking to me and I was in Wisconsin.  All I knew was that he had me swooning.  He was 1). incredibly handsome 2). a Marine (ladies, a man in uniform, c'mon), and 3). we could have hours of conversation.  In reading Redeeming Love, whenever God spoke with Michael, I could relate to feelings of excitement and confusion.  I could also relate to Angel with feelings of distrust.  I wanted to fall in love with Ryan but I didn't want to end up looking like the college girl idiot who had fallen for another impossible relationship.  There was a distinct moment in which I was very upfront with him and basically laid it out that if he wanted to have a casual thing while he was on leave that was fine.  I went further and said that there was no need for him to basically tell me all of these sweet things, if that was the case. I think I hurt his feelings.  I was honestly worried that his post-deployment leave meant that he was going to be hooking up with girls from back home until he had to head back to his base.  Fortunately that wasn't the case.  For me that verbal declaration gave me some semblance of power in the relationship knowing that I could say that I didn't care that it was casual, as long as we both understood that.  It was actually really hard for me to say that, especially to Ryan because I cared so much for him.  It basically helped create a boundary to hopefully help prevent any hurt. 

I didn't want it to be casual, I loved him and I knew he was in my life for a reason. 

There was a hiccup in our dating where after we decided that despite long distance we were going to make it work, I could tell he was distancing himself from me.  That was hard to take because I was certain that we were falling apart and that would have only reinforced every negative bias I had for relationships.  I was sitting on my bed and received a phone call from him saying that he thought that we maybe should go back to what we were before we made it official.  I was trying to keep my composure but I was really torn up over that.  I finally had this beautiful relationship and then the other half of the equation wanted it be casual.  I was heartbroken.  I remember sobbing to my sorority sister, Lindsey and she was such a calming light in that really dark time for me.  What you've got to understand is that by that point in time I thought I finally had this relationship that I deserved.  I had this beautiful man who loved me and wasn't out to use me and then BAM there it all went.  I was devastated and my self-worth was probably at an all time low.  I remember Ryan texting me and I could barely text him back.  I didn't want to.  Memories of miserable college-relationships, fueled with frat dance parties and beer came to mind.  

More praying happened and I basically felt like God (and Lindsey) were telling me that if I let it go and if he was the good man that I knew he was, he'd come back to me. 

Within the next couple of days, Ryan apologized and said he made a terrible mistake and that we should be in a relationship together.  He had been hurt in prior relationships before and he didn't want to see ours fall apart due to the distance.  Of course, me being headstrong and loyal, had no idea where he was coming from with that.  He had gone to a party with his Marine friends and realized that all he wanted was to be with me, not surrounded by these people or dancing with any other girl.

A few weeks later he asked me what I thought about marrying him.

I totally thought he was kidding but that's a story that I'm sure I've told many times here.

Reading Redeeming Love reminded me that sometimes you just have to let faith and hope do work.  Not everything can be planned and managed, but you grow in faith and love.  This story also taught me what it means to be a more earnest partner and spouse. 

I recommend this book, whether you're married or not.  I speaks volumes on patience, love, and compassion.  I also loved the characters in the book.

Have you read Redeeming Love or any of Francine Rivers' other works?  What did you think?

Finding a Church Home

 

I don't normally talk about faith here, but I wanted to talk about faith because on Easter Sunday I came across the most amazing church but the journey didn't just start there. I have always had a great relationship with Christ.  In times of joy, fear, or sorrow, I pray to him.  This relationship with God went through waves while I was in college.

I grew up in the Catholic church and went to CCD every Wednesday. I was a devout Catholic and went to church despite not feeling inspired. From my experience, most kids can't stand to sit through an hour long mass but that was what "going to church" was like for us. CCD was a little more tolerable, especially as we got older. One of my friends' dads became our weekly instructor for class and he was an awesome guy. Those classes were far more inspirational than any mass with instilling a sense of faith. I didn't want the Catholic church to me by sole source for the word of God, because most of us were cafeteria Catholics, picking and choosing what fit into our lives. Plus as I got older and confirmation rolled around, I found myself disagreeing with most of the religious doctrine to the point where I really didn't follow enough of it to probably be considered a devout Catholic. However, my family being Filipino-Irish were all Catholics and I went through the entire process of holy sacraments. 

When I got to college, I went to Catholic Church a few times on my own. Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite masses and Palm Sunday as a kid always meant turning the palms into crosses with my mom. I held it dear as many Catholic celebrations brought up wonderful family memories. However in college, I met other people who took me to other Christian organizations and I fell in love with their style of worship. I've always loved to sing, ever since I was little kid. That was my favorite aspect of mass, even though the music can be a bit archaic (it's just not my type). Worshipping with other Christians and singing contemporary music was so uplifting. For me, singing is like praying twice. I love it.

However that didn't mean that I always liked the message that was being portrayed. I found myself attending one college service for the excellent worship and going to Greek InterVarsity for the small group unity. Greek InterVarsity is a Christian organization that assists the Greek system (sororities and fraternities) in finding their way to Christ. Eric and Jen, two of our advisors, were this fantastic young married couple who were always welcoming and so filled with love. With their assistance, I went to two-three Greek conferences in Indiana and loved attending our weekly meetings to talk about God. I had a great time with them and wish I would have made more time for them in my later years at college. At one Greek IV conference they had a guest speaker who was just completely ignorant to the world around him and spoke of his mission trip to the Philippines and was mocking the culture and traditions there. I was infuriated and Jen and Eric did a phenomenal job of supporting me through that really confusing event. Although it was a poor choice in speakers and not the organization, I had a difficult time going back to group events like that. Faith journeys are already fragile as is, with people coming from so many different areas of life, to have an a-hole of a speaker like that was the last thing I needed.

I rarely went to church in college, just because of my crazy schedule, but when I did go, I loved attending a church in Madison called Blackhawk. The Evangelical church is so beautiful and I loved the community there. They were even kind enough to provide buses for the students to take them to the church and back to campus. They also created a program where church members could "adopt" a college student and I met an amazing family through that program. They were such a wonderful part of my freshman year of college and even celebrated holidays with me. 

As fun as the experience of that church provided another perspective, I still allowed excuses to fill in my everyday and I was still seeking to grow my relationship with God. 

Ryan was never truly into going to church services so we didn't really ever attend church in Oceanside while he was stationed at Camp Pendleton. While I was at training in the central coast of California, my roommate and I found a church to attend and at first it seemed right up my alley. Then the pastor started doing really weird sermons and started preaching in a way that I didn't appreciate. It got the point where my roommate and I chose not to volunteer at the church or attend services. 

I was becoming more and more frustrated because I thought that I was going to have to settle for a church that I was less than thrilled with. I would see on Instagram or through other bloggers, really fantastic church communities that really focused on love and in a way, loved like Jesus did. When we moved to Montana, my quest to find another church continued. 

Around this time I found pastor Jarrid Wilson on Instagram and he describes himself as a gospel sharing misfit. He doesn't look like a typical pastor and that in itself intrigued me. He was just another young person looking to share God's word. I spent like an hour looking over his blog and Instagram feed and he was just an inspiring person. I bought his book 30 Words and have loved his young person perspective towards the word of the Lord. I definitely want to see one of his sermons in person some day and he'll be getting married in like less than a month to his beautiful fiancee. They seem like such awesome people, couldn't be happier. Definitely check out his blog and he also has podcasts that you can download for free on iTunes. 

Jarrid sparked an interest in me to really look for a church home instead of just a place to go to church, if that makes sense? So when Easter rolled around, Ryan was attending our friends' wedding in California and I was still in Montana. I decided to attend Easter mass with a couple that we're good friends with. I was excited to open my heart to Lord, especially since we have a lot to be joyous for when it comes to Easter. I was rudely made aware of why I don't like Catholic mass as the priest was all over the place. It was the worst homily I had ever heard, and I've attended Catholic mass for 18 years. It was disappointing and left a bad taste in my mouth. I felt like God was speaking to me and was saying that the mass I attended wasn't meant for me and I needed to seek a different experience. The mass got out at 10:20 and I found out that a non-denominational church that I was interested in was having another service at 11:00. I went over there and it reminded me of a smaller version of Blackhawk. Everyone was so incredibly friendly and welcomed me with open arms. The worship was inspiring and the sermon was captivating. I wholeheartedly took in God's word that day and could not wait to go to next Sunday's service.  I couldn't wait to share this with my friends and declare this place as my new church home. I don't normally do that and this is the first church that I've felt truly connected to. The "next" service was today's and it was just as inspiring as the last. I am so excited, happy, and thrilled to grow in my relationship with God and grow with this church.