Worth more than our mistakes . . .

I recently heard a story that ties in with a devotional book that I'm reading right now.

Several years ago, a family experienced the death of their husband/father.  Afterwards, while going through the man's belonging, the family found, not just one, but several copies of Francine Rivers' novel Redeeming Love.

The family laughed at first.  Redeeming Love?  Seriously?  That's something a woman would read.  Why in the world would our father/husband have even one copy of Redeeming Love, let alone several?

They stopped laughing when they heard what Paul Harvey would call "the rest of the story".

Many years ago, this husband's wife had an affair.  Several people encouraged the husband to leave her.  After all, isn't adultery grounds for divorce?  

He didn't leave.  Instead, he and his wife reconciled, and they spent many years together before his death. 

During this period of time, the husband discovered Francine Rivers' Redeeming Love.

Redeeming Love is a retelling of the Biblical story of Hosea.  In the Bible, Hosea is a prophet, living around 750 B.C., who is told by God to go and marry an adulterous woman.  So he goes and marries a woman named Gomer.  Some scholars believe that she was a prostitute. 

Why did God tell Hosea to marry a prostitute?  To illustrate the relationship that Israel had with God--that of an adulterous wife who'd left the husband who loved her . . . and to illustrate the God who still loved Israel and who desired a relationship with her, even though she had wandered away from him and was serving other gods.

Instead of Israel in 750 B.C., Redeeming Love is set in 1850's California, and tells the story of Angel, a prostitute, and Michael Hosea, the man told by God to marry her.  The book follows their relationship; Angel, cold and hardened from her time as a prostitute; and Michael, determined to love her no matter what. 

Francine Rivers wrote this book after her conversion to Christianity, calling it her "statement of faith".  She'd been a romance writer before she became a Christian.  After her conversion, she turned her talents towards Christian fiction.  (Side note:  I have read Redeeming Love and another book of hers, The Atonement Child.  I recommend them both highly.)

Why did this husband/father have multiple copies of a romance novel, albeit a Christian romance novel?

His reasoning:   He wanted his wife to know that she was worth more than the mistakes she had made.

Isn't that the message of the Gospel, illustrated by the book of Hosea?  That we are worth more than our mistakes?  That we are worth more than our sin?  That God, in the person of Jesus--just like Hosea the prophet, just like Michael Hosea in Redeeming Love--believes that we are worth more than the mistakes we make, than the sins we have committed? 

This is the same God that cries out, in Hosea 11:8, How can I give you up?  How can I hand you over? to an Israel that has turned away from Him. 

The husband in the story I heard about couldn't turn away his wife.  In the end, his love won her over.  He saw beyond her unfaithfulness, just as God sees beyond our sin.  He saw her worth and value as God's child, just as God sees our worth and value as His children.

Because it is not our mistakes that determine our ultimate value.

That is the message of God, of Hosea, of Redeeming Love, and of this husband to this wife.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.