Story Description:
An Epic story of love and forgiveness, suffering and restoration
When her beloved grandfather Isaac dies, Dinah must follow his final command: travel to Job’s household to marry his son. After Job’s world comes crashing down, Dinah finds herself drawn to this great man brought low. What will she risk to fight for his survival?
Mesu Andrews weaves an emotional and stirring account of Job and Dinah. Love Amid the Ashes breathes life, romance, and passion into the classic biblical story of suffering and steadfast faith.
My Review:
Thirty-five-year-old Dinah has cared for her grandfather, Isaac, for 15 years making her feel secure, capable and useful. When Isaac dies, Dinah doesn’t know what to do with herself but she knows she must keep her promise to her grandfather at all costs. That promise was to travel to the City of Uz and marry Job’s son, Ennon, who is 39-years-old. Before leaving with Job’s caravan, Dinah collects all her vials and herbs for healing as she knows the minute her greedy Uncle Esau arrives he will strip her home of everything.
Dinah meets up with a little Cushite girl named, Nogahla who pleads with Dinah to let her be her mistress for she has no one and nowhere to go. At first, Dinah laughs and tells the girl it’s silly because she herself is essentially nothing but a servant too. But the little girl is insistent and Dinah relents. Together they worked to carefully wrap Dinah’s vials for healing.
Esau absolutely despises Dinah and lets it be known when Job announces that their caravan wouldn’t be leaving for Uz until after they had eaten their evening meal so they could travel under the cover of darkness. Esau, with his hateful persona, spits out that they weren’t leaving until then because of: “..that woman…and she’s already been defiled!” Job was terribly upset and didn’t take those rude and harsh comments lightly and even though Esau was his favourite grandson, he wouldn’t endure his bossy tongue.
As the caravan leaves and begins travelling, Job becomes suspicious of his guide and this upsets him because he thought he could trust him, after all he did hand-pick him himself. The guide was pressuring Job to keep moving in the wake of a violent storm. With this on his mind, he told his other guides to keep moving. Job soon found out why the guide was hurrying them on through a raging storm for he had no idea what fate awaited them when they reached Uz.
The story of Job from the Bible is one of immense tragedy and one wonders how one man could remain so faithful in spite of the tragedies that befell him. If we all had a quarter of the faith that Job had, our world would be a much happier place. I would never have known this was a debut novel. Mesu Andrews writes with clarity, a studious insight into scripture and a knowledge that puts many of us to shame. I loved the way the story flowed without missing a beat. Love Amid the Ashes is a story of immense faith, tragedy, suffering, coping, love, and redemption, and allows us to gain a better understanding of both biblical characters, Job and Dinah.
"Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group".
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