Author: shelleybea12153

Staring at the Palace, Angel felt fear once again.  The Palace was gone.  Burned down nothing left but charred rubble. Why, why did she leave the safe, soft arms of Michael to chase a dream of getting her gold and settling down in cabin of her own.

Smoke, the dream was now all going up in smoke just like the Palace.

Angel was soon back in business.  Paid the owner, Murphy, with the only thing she had to barter with.  Her body.   He wanted it all.  Her, for himself and a large cut of the action.

She had no gold, no clothes, no food, no place no friends.  She was right back where she started in San Francisco. Except it was winter now and snowing. That voice in her head is saying what she knows now in her heart.

“There is never going to be a cabin, nothing is ever going to change.  I should have stayed with Michael“.

The days ran together.  She was right back where she started so long ago, numb, existing but not living. Long ago, really has lived out life in only a year and a half.

Angel sat on her bed eyes tightly closed, she made no sound, but the room was filled with silent screaming waiting for the next young miner.  He smelled of fresh soap. Hurry up, lets get this done.

“Michael!  Oh, Michael”  Angel had never seen him so angry.  He had never been this angry. He could fight off an army if he had to.  He had to save Angel from herself!

“Anyone else want to come between me and my Wife?”  Angel trembled with fear.

After a while they stopped the wagon on the way back to Michaels home and Michael tried to talk to Angel begging her to tell him why? But she became angry, at him, at the world, at life, and lashed back at Michael with all the fear and hate she had bottled up inside.  Broken in piece right before his eyes.

When she finally stopped hitting him, he pulled her into his arms and held her tightly.  He could feel her whole body shaking violently.  He could feel the fear radiating from her.  His rage frightened him. If he had hit her back once, he would have killed her.

He had almost gone out of his mind when she left him.  Afraid he had lost her.

After trying to wash her life and sins away in the cold creek with gravel she finally let her guard down and started telling Michael about her life. From birth until present day.  Michael confessed to Amanda how he wanted to kill her.  He too was a sinner and in need of God’s grace and forgiveness.

Michael now sees her, instead of a harlot he has rescued,  as the nameless child who had been broken and was lost.  Michael starts to see she needs a new life, new clothes and a change of scenery.  He takes her to Sacramento as a way to start fresh for both of them.  Angel is allowing him in little by little.  Some boys in town call her lady and for the first time she sees that maybe, just maybe she could be a lady.

“You are not a prostitute anymore, Amanda.  You are my wife.”  Michael smiled. “You can love me as much as you want and feel safe.”

Falling in love meant you lost control of your emotions and your will and your life.  It meant you lost yourself.  And Angel couldn’t risk that, even with this man.

Oh, how many times have I felt that I couldn’t let go and let God.  Was He all He said He was?  I was so afraid until I finally let go and trusted HIM!

Angel woke up Dreaming about Duke.

“You can’t get away from the Duke, the Alpha and Omega.  Four thousand miles was far enough, yet here I am”

Had it really been a year?  Seemed like only yesterday.  She knew he was still looking for his property.  For now it is only in her dreams that Duke finds her.

Michael took her up to the place high on his property to see the stars.  Like the night sky, full of bright shiny stars against black velvet,  her reality would soon fade as the night sky turned back to day and the stars would fade.  Bright hope would fade as daylight returned to her life.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t escape the truth.  She was guilty of being born.

Four months and she was still walking wounded.  That’s what Michael said as Angel moved about.  She had seen the stars, he was offering her hope for the future but she was “walking wounded”.

I think I have “walked wounded”, unable to move on past the pain and hurt.  I think it has taken me years, lots of therapy, love from my husband, many self-help books to finally see all I really need was to allow God to work in me and forgive myself.  God has already redeemed me just like He is redeeming Angel but if you don’t walk in the Spirit you might be walking wounded.

Michael was not only hearing  God’s voice but he was starting to hear a dark and powerful one.

Angel didn’t like the emotions that Michael was stirring up in her.  She had never been treated like this before in her life.  He complimented and encouraged her.  He had a sense of humor and made her comfortable with her mistakes.  HE GAVE HER HOPE.

Yet the same dark and powerful voice Michael heard was talking to Angel.

“You have to go back to Pair-a-Dice, get your gold, get a place of your own.  Oh sure you can repay Michael first with chores and help him around the farm, but you must go back”

Michael could see some softening even though they had a huge fight, she was finally opening up some.  Letting him in a little.  He gave her another name now.  Amanda, softer and happier name.

Finally admitted on that terrible last night at the Palace, she had wanted to die and Michael ruined it for her by saving her life.  Now she was trapped as his wife.

Michael wanted desperately to show her the love between a husband and a wife.  Finally with God’s help he did. Some unknown and unwelcome emotion opened deep inside Angel.  Something hard and tight began to soften and uncurl. As it did, the dark voice arose.

“Get away from this man, Angel.  You’ve got to get out of here!  Save yourself and flee!

Paul is home.  Michael’s brother-in-law.

I can’t believe how he treats Angel.  Michael was a little naïve thinking he would accept Amanda, knowing the odds were good that Paul would have been to the Palace himself.  Like a tattling little brother he runs to tell Michael all about the woman he loves and how she is no good for him.  Michael wasn’t having it.  I am glad.  He should have hit him a few more times.

Michael forgave Paul but sent him on his way.  Little did Michael know that Amanda would catch up with Paul and ask for a ride back to Pair-a-Dice.  Hell more like it.

Paul didn’t think Angel was good enough for Michael.  But he got his price for the ride.  Then informed her she wasn’t worth more than two bits.

I loved her reply:

“I know what I am. I never pretended to be anything else. Not once. Not ever!.”

“Here you are, borrowing Michaels wagon and horses and his gold and using his wife….And what do you call yourself?  His brother“

Hosea 2:
14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
Bring her into the wilderness
And speak kindly to her.
15 “Then I will give her her vineyards from there,
And the valley of Achor as a door of hope.
And she will sing there as in the days of her youth,
As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.
16 “It will come about in that day,” declares the Lord,
“That you will call Me Ishi
And will no longer call Me Baali.
17 “For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth,
So that they will be mentioned by their names no more.
18 “In that day I will also make a covenant for them
With the beasts of the field,
The birds of the sky
And the creeping things of the ground.
And I will abolish the bow, the sword and war from the land,
And will make them lie down in safety.
19 “I will betroth you to Me forever;
Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice,
In lovingkindness and in compassion,
20 And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness.
Then you will know the Lord.
21 “It will come about in that day that I will respond,” declares the Lord.
“I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth,
22 And the earth will respond to the grain, to the new wine and to the oil,
And they will respond to Jezreel.
23 “I will sow her for Myself in the land.
I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion,
And I will say to those who were not My people,
‘You are My people!’
And they will say, ‘You are my God!’ ”

1850 Pair-a-Dice in the Mother Lode of California

Smiling cynically, Angel saw on one corner a man preaching salvation while on the other his brother, hat in hand, fleeced the godforsaken. Everywhere she looked, there were desperate men, exiled from home and family, seeking escape from the purgatory forged by their own decaying hopes for a future.

These same fools sought solace where they were most assured of finding none-from her.
The things that happen to little Sarah in the prologue was horrific. I imagine she is wondering where God is, why her dad didn’t want her, why God and her mom hadn’t protected her with Cloe.

Where was God when mom died? How could God let such a little innocent child of 8 become Dukes new property?

How do we reconcile God’s character as it is revealed in Scripture with the fact that horrible things happen to the innocent?

From 8 to 18 we can only imagine what a life Sarah endured. We get a quick glimpse of a lover who helped her escape the likes of Duke but only to soon lose hope and was on her own again.

Along and with no hope. Angel hated her life. She hated Pair-a-Dice, Duchess, Magowan, and she even hated her own wretched helplessness. Most of all she hated men and the relentless quest for pleasure.

She remember the words Cloe spoke to her about God’s Truth,

“All men want to do is use you. When you give them your heart, they tear it to shreds.”

An even stronger force than the hatred that feasted on her was the weariness that sucked her soul dry.

At eighteen, she was tired of living and resigned to fact that nothing would ever change. She wondered why she was even born.

For this she was born, take it or leave it. God’s Truth. Only way out was to kill herself.
Her courage failed her over and over.

No hope for Angel,

“I don’t look back, and I don’t look forward and now doesn’t exist”

Michael Hosea

“Lord, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

I don’t think Angel had Michael in her mind either. But Michael knew he was going to marry that girl anyway. It was God’s Will for Michael.

All Angel knew was that this is all there was to life and if Magowan had his way her life would be over sooner than later. All Michael knew was that God had provide a wife for him. They were both in disbelief.

“I’m not here for sex.” Michael told Angel

“No? You’re her for Bible Study”

Little did she know God was at work with Michael and Angel answering prayers!

It is clear in our story that Michael and Angel both heard God and Satan speaking to them. How do you distinguish between the two voices that call you?

The only way I can silence Satan is with Gods’ Word in my heart and in my mind and in my soul daily, sometime minute by minute.

God was answering Michael Hosea’s prayers. Only not the way Michael had planned. Angel was not the wife he had prayed for. Consider the Jews and their fervent prayers for a Messiah-and how that prayer was answered through Jesus. Was He what they expected?

Angel was listening to Satan. He had managed to wipe all her hopes and dreams away. Michael was hearing God clearly but was not convinced He was right. Could God really want This Woman as his wife?

Angel was angered over the name Mara Michael gave her. He didn’t know her and what her life was like. How dare he assume things?

“You just came on one of my bad nights” Angel justified her anger but more than anger was stirring up in her.

What was it about this stubborn man that just wanted to talk? He stirred up emotions she had buried.

He spoke of a new life, one with hope. Not for her.

Hope was torment; Hope was an enemy. And this man was a thorn in her side.

Night after night Michael returned, Angel treating him like all the rest. She knew he was no different.

Or was he? Hosea’s personal questions echoed in her mind. What was keeping her here? Why didn’t she just walk out the door?

Angel decided to leave after all. But on her own with her own Gold she had made, but she had to convince Duchess and Magowan to let her leave. They were not so easily convinced and Angel soon found out the wrath of Magowan was her way out of this life. Push him far enough and he will end it all for her and she won’t need any courage. He will kill her quickly and this life will all be over shortly.

After the fourth blow, all Angel heard was the beast roaring in her ears.