Good morning,

Sorry for not being active for a couple of days on the blog; I have been busy and sick. I was  in bed for two days with a really bad headache that would not go; but now I’m feeling much better. Right at this moment I’m reading a book called Spoken For by Robin Gunn and Alyssa Bethke.

It speaks about dating but most importantly it speaks about our love story with Jesus; how he pursues us with unending love. Another book that I read that touched me when I read it was Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. This book is beautiful it speaks of  topics like self-worth and self-love; choices and consequences but most of all God’s love for you and I. The story is a retelling of the biblical story of Hosea and Gomer but set in the California Gold Rush time. The story starts with little Sarah in New England in 1835 where she lives with her mother in a beautiful cabin. There she meets her father who is a married wealthy man in England. Sarah is the product of an affair between her mother Mae and Mr. Alex Stafford who does not want her and has never wanted her asking Mae to abort the baby before Sarah was born. After the fight between her father and mother they are left destitute as Mae does not want to part from her daughter.

Mae seeks shelter with her parents who want nothing to do with her for her reputation has been tarnished as she was a mistress to a married man. That left her the only option moving to the shacks in the docks to become a prostitute for a living. After a while mae dies from an illness and Sarah is left as an orphaned. She is then sold into becoming the mistress of a rich pedophile. Fast forward 10 years Sarah now called Angel decides to escape Duke and boards a ship to california; where she is robbed of all possessions and money. Her not wanting to be raped by the ship members decides to go into prostitution in a brothel in San Francisco. There she meets Michael Hosea who has gone into town for business. He catches a glimpse of her and after asking God and praying for his future wife; God speaks to him letting him know that Angel was the “One” he had to marry. Michael did not know that this woman was prostitute and after finding out he decides to obey God’s command and pays the fees for Sarah to service him. During this time he talks to her and asks her to marry him which she refuses in different occasions. After an incident that almost leaves Angel dead he marries her and moves her to his house  out in the outskirts.

There Angel is healed and is not treated right by Michael’s family member. Which makes Angel feel more unworthy as she is still battling feelings of self-worth and insecurity as shame, hatred and love. She decides to leave michael and she services someone to drive her to the town so she can go back to prostitution. Michael finds her and pays for her to be freed from the brothel that she is at. During different times she leaves and he keeps seeking until she leaves for three years in  which she finds God, comes face to face with the past and accepts him in her life. She decides to open a house for woman of ill repute( prostitutes) so that they can get out of that life and find a job and where they are tought new abilities to go into trade. At the end she is sought by michael’s family member to be brought back to her husband as he decided not to look for her anymore; she had to go back of her own free will. She decides to leave Sacramento and goes back to michael’s farm and they reunite and they forgive.

What struck me of this story was Angel’s character; she was a hard woman who suffered too much at a young age and that made choices that continued to break her spiritually and emotional. This woman was scarred and wounded in the deepest part of her soul; she had been mistreated as a child and her body had the scars of it. The choices she made after being married and have been spoken to her about God had consequences not only for her but also for her husband and those around them. Michael’s obedience and steadfast love for God made him a man with a deep commitment with the Lord. His love and pursuit for his wife reminds me off God’s relentless love and pursuit for you and I. Michael never stop praying and hoping that his wife would return and that she would give her life to God; just as Our Father never stops hoping that his son’s and daughter come to his path. Michael showed love where there was hatred and feeling of shame and unworthiness. He showed patience and love where there was fear.

This book to me represent most of all God’s love. Through all that Sarah did God was with her and he loved her and even though her choices took her farther apart from him; he was still there right beside her; helping and guiding her. She had to be at a breaking point for her to see his hand working in her life instead of seeing her husband as her God. Michael was an almost perfect man in the book but after all he was just a man who God used to take and show this woman of a different love then what her parents had in the past. We are like the tree firmly planted in our wants and desires and God is like the wind that moves the leaves and branches and a lot of tree to where he wants them. I can’t recommend this book more than enough; it was just that good.

1.Corinthians 7:23

^“ You were bought with a price; do not become bond servants of men”

I have not forgotten about the post or posts I will be doing in dating; so don’t worry the day is  getting closer. I will be active in this blog for only three days in this week as I am preparing for the friday of next week as I will be preaching. It makes me so nervous to be on top of that altar and preach I don’t think I will ever get used to it but that it’s what I’m called for. Leave a comment below👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻has anyone of you read this book? what are your thoughts? do you guys want me to do a book review section in the blog I would love to do it as it’s my favorite thing to do.