Redeeming Love

by Francine Rivers

Let anyone among you who is without sin, be the first to throw a stone at her. JESUS, JOHN 8:7

As they reached the valley at first light, Angel felt the building warmth of the sun on her shoulders and remembered Michael dragging her with him through the night to face the sunrise. “That’s the life I want to give you.” She hadn’t understood then what he offered. She had not comprehended until she walked up the stairs at the Silver Dollar Saloon and sold her soul into slavery again.

Priests are only men. They’re not God. They come with their own personal prejudices and faults just like anyone else.”

“You’re strong enough already, Michael. You don’t need this. You don’t need me.” “I’m not strong enough for what’s yet to come.”

Michael saw God in everything. He saw him in the wind and the rain and the earth. He saw him in the crops that were growing. He saw God in the nature of the animals that inhabited their land. He saw him in the flames of their evening fire.

Though you deny me, I love you with an everlasting love.

Michael chose you. With all your past, with all your frailties, with everything. He knew from the beginning where you came from, and it didn’t make any difference to him.

Only he had opened himself to be used in her life by Christ. Through him, Christ had been able to fill her until she was overflowing. Michael had always said it was God; now she knew that was true. And the knowledge that he’d been the bridge between her and her Savior only made her long for Michael all the more.

“Sarah, Michael. My name is Sarah. I don’t know the rest of it. Only that much. Sarah.” Michael blinked. His whole body flooded with joy. The name fit her so well. A wanderer in foreign lands, a barren woman filled with doubt. Yet Sarah of old had become a symbol of trust in God and ultimately the mother of a nation. Sarah. A benediction. Sarah. A barren woman who conceived a son. His beautiful, cherished wife who would someday give him a child.