Bread of Angels by Tessa Afshar is the story of Lydia,
the seller of purple who is briefly mentioned in Acts 16:14. The story begins with
Lydia as a young girl learning her father’s secret formula for the richest
purple dye. After tragedy strikes, Lydia is forced to leave her ancestral home
and head to Philippi. In Philippi, she establishes herself as a seller of
purple and gained a reputation as an honest and generous businesswoman despite the
attempts of sabotage by those who wish to see her fail. One such act of
sabotage seems to be her ruin. Until one day, a chance meeting with Paul and
his companions, she turns her life over to God. As she learns more about God
and opening her heart to him, individuals from her past come to Philippi and
threaten to destroy everything she has worked so hard to build. Her newly found
faith will be tested and she must decide to stand up and fight for herself or
turn and hide.
One of the things I love about Tessa Afshar’s writing is
that she can take a simple and relatively minor person from the Bible and make
her come alive. She did it here in Bread of Angels. Lydia is mentioned briefly
during Paul’s mission trips in Acts, but her story is very significant. From
the opening page to the closing chapter, I was captivated by Lydia’s story and
how seemingly insignificant encounters brought her to a place of prestige and
influence. I also love how Tessa Afshar works the meaning of the title very
subtly in the story and seems to come from nowhere. While some details about these
characters and the times in which they lived are fictionalized and altered for
a modern reader, Ms. Afshar keeps the integrity of the main character, Lydia,
and opened my eyes to her story in a new way. I highly recommend Bread of
Angels.
Bread of Angels
is available in paperback,
eBook, and audiobook
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