BROKEN BY BEAUTY
By Joy Farrington
Authentic Media. 160 pages. £7.99
ISBN 978 1 780 780 573
I was pleased to have been sent this book to read. It is autobiographical in style and tells the story of one broken woman allowing God to use her as an instrument of change in the lives of other broken people.
Joy Farrington has a passion for people, purity and justice and, as I read, I was made acutely aware of my lack of passion. In this book you will travel with the author from the drug dens of Cobridge, Stoke-on-Trent, to the red-light districts of Thailand and Brazil. You will meet sex workers, sex tourists, addicts, and trafficked and trapped people. And in all these individuals, Farrington looks to see the remnants of God’s image in them, beautiful and creative. She loves them and prays for God to free them.
I found this so challenging, as it is all too easy to look at such people and say, ‘I thank God that I am not like that’ and pass by on the other side. Concerning the slavery that is human trafficking, the author invokes the words of William Wilberforce: ‘You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know’. Her desire is for the reader to be stirred to act.
As you read this book you may, like me, find yourself not agreeing with all her methods or her turn of phrase. But put that to one side and be moved instead by her Christlike love for those deemed unlovely and of little value.
The language is simple and does not assume that the reader is a Christian. I hope this book will be read by many within the church. In an age where sexual purity is scorned and where people are broken by the abuse and cheapening of God’s design for sex, we need greater compassion to adorn our doctrine. This book will open our eyes to the possibilities.
