Kasey Comfort

I was excited to see this movie, as the book was a favorite of mine in high school and college. Watching the plot on screen, more things didn't settle right for me, and reading these reviews and comments, its becoming more clear why. Though the story of Hosea seems to be a beautiful depiction of Gods faithful love for us, there's something grossly unsettling about how instead of just rescuing Angel from prostitution, Michael expects her to be his wife and fall in love with him. That's one form of enslavement to another, and to expect her to move on from her past and even have the desire to be a wife is queasy. After being abused from the age of 9, its kind of hard to believe she would ever look at sex the same way again.. much less in such a short amount of time. The ending also did not give the sense of "redemption" that one would hope for. Angel left Michael and opened up a house for women in her situation, which rescued them from prostitution and provided them another route. In the end she gave this up to go back to Michael and be a house wife/ have kids. As if THAT is greater redemption and her greater purpose- not using her past to rescue others. Typically Christian conservative ethic. Coming from a conservatives background that taught me how undeserving I was of Gods love and how we are all like prostitutes'- filthy and undeserving and unfaithful children of God- Its no wonder I liked this story line as a young girl. But now that I'm older and see how messed up that is, It makes my stomach sick to watch it. As if Angel was responsible for any of her actions after what was done to her/what she was forced into. If Michael was truly a champion of love, he would've just freed her and helped her start that house for women- not forced her into a marriage, slip a ring on her finger while she was still knocked out from being beaten, and let her leave all she had accomplished to come bear him children. Pretty messed up message of what "love" is there, and what kind of "redemption" God wants for us. Also Never answered the question of why God allowed her mom to die so young, or for Angel to be sold into prostitution so young and go through so much. Why God "ignored" her situation and let her go through all of that trauma just to lead her to Michael so she could end up in a happy marriage? Pretty messed up. And all of these reviews saying there was too many "sex scenes" for a Christian movie are disgusting. Even Christians claim to believe sex is a beautiful thing between a husband and wife, which is what is portrayed in this movie. For people to look at that and "offended" shows some deeply toxic purity culture indoctrination. If this movie is a depiction of Gods love- no thank you.