In the Field of Grace (22 page)

“Yes you could. The Lord helps us bear all our tribulations. He does not remove the sting of them. He does not wipe away their pain. But He helps us forebear. Think of Joseph.”

“Joseph who?”

“Joseph Ben Jacob. Who do you think? Do you know his story?”

“Of course I do. I’m not from Moab!”

Ruth laughed. “Sometimes I wonder.”

Dinah rolled her eyes. “What about Joseph?”

“Remember how for long years, things went from bad to worse for him? He went from having to contend with jealous brothers to the bottom of a pit. They sold him into slavery and sent him off into Egypt with shackles on his feet and brutal slavers for company. Still, he clung on. He worked hard and was rewarded with success in the house of his master. He did right in every way, but instead of continued success, he suffered the horrors of unjust betrayal and landed in the stinking hole of a foreign prison.

“He was thirty when he was finally released. All those years away from home and family and his father who loved him. His youth gone. The best years of his life stolen. No wife, no children, no land or home of his own to show for it. We all think of the reversal of his life, and how he became a great man. But even great men cannot turn back time. He could never get those years back.”

“Are you trying to encourage me?”

“All I’m trying to say is that sometimes God allows bad to slide into worse, because in His hands difficulties have a way of yielding incomprehensible blessing. Joseph suffered unimaginable hours of torment and loneliness. Yet in the end, he saved a nation. Without him, you and I might not be here today. And every moment of his suffering played a role in the future of Israel. He became the man he was in part due to those heartaches. You think the God who used Joseph’s burdens for good can’t turn the ashes of your pain into beauty? Even if Adin were to reject you, the God of Joseph would see you through. No sorrow is ever wasted in His hands.”

R
uth noticed a tear in the hem of her tunic. She only owned two and both had grown threadbare. After supper, she sat close to the lamp, doing her best to mend her garment. The dim light made it hard for her to see, and she squinted, bringing the fabric closer.

“How are you progressing with your plans for Dinah and Adin?” Naomi asked as she washed the heap of wild capers she had picked that morning, before the buds had a chance to open. Her pickled capers were the best Ruth had ever tasted; her stomach gave a light rumble at the thought of them.

She tapped her belly to quiet its murmurings. “He kissed her today.”

Naomi raised her head. “Is he taking her to wife, then?”

“Not exactly.” Ruth stopped her mending and laid her tunic across her lap. “Adin needs a little prodding.”

“Some men are like that. I could name one or two, myself. You have to know the right approach, or you will cause more harm than good.”

“I didn’t force him to kiss her, Mother. He did that on his own.”

The corner of Naomi’s mouth tipped. “I’m relieved to hear it.” She started her preparation of brine, adding her special blend of herbs and spices.

Ruth picked up her needle again and adjusted the wool. “For all that Dinah pretends to be so hard, she has a tender heart. Adin could break it with a harsh word.”

“Does he love her?”

“He is not indifferent. I suspect he cares deeply for her, though, of course, he won’t admit it to me.”

“I hear she has a bad temper.”

Pulling the tunic toward her nose, Ruth tried to see her handiwork in the dark. “She has been known to say a few harsh words now and again.”

“I’ve heard she has turned that tongue of hers in your direction more than once. Not that you’ve ever complained to me.”

Ruth gazed up in surprise. “Are there no secrets in Bethlehem?”

“Few. Why did you not tell me that girl was harassing you?”

“And worry you needlessly? You can see for yourself that she has changed toward me.”

Naomi shook her head. “What did you do to tame her malice? I couldn’t believe my eyes when she came to fetch you this morning, like you were her childhood friend.”

Ruth grinned. “I showed her kindness.”

“I wonder if it will last.”

“My kindness, or her civility?” Ruth asked, her voice wry.

Naomi’s brown eyes crinkled on the sides. “Both, I shouldn’t wonder. It’s hard to be kind to such a girl.”

“Some days, it is.”

Dinah showed up at Ruth’s door again the next morning. She had changed into a clean blue tunic, her face shining from recent washing. A slight scent of almond oil clung to her.

“Shalom, Ruth,” she said. Ruth waited for the usual, sarcastic barb to follow. Nothing came as she waited for Ruth to braid her hair, demonstrating unusual patience. Hannah joined them on the
road, and together they walked in companionable silence to the field, for once free of tension.

Dinah went immediately to work, positioning herself behind a couple of laborers who hacked at the wheat with high speed. Ruth noticed that she made no complaint, even as the heat of the sun gained strength. She thanked one of the men, who gave her a hand with a particularly unwieldy bundle.

“Did Dinah just express gratitude?” the man asked in a loud voice. “Is the world about to end?” The laborers around them snickered.

Ruth grimaced. Why couldn’t they leave Dinah be? But the expected explosion of defensive speech did not come. Dinah merely smiled and continued her work. Ruth was no less astonished than everyone else. Being caught by Abel and realizing that lord Boaz knew about her indiscretion must have shaken her more than Ruth had realized.

Over the midday repast, Dinah sat next to Ruth and handed her the bread before taking some herself.

“You are good with a needle,” she said, pointing to Ruth’s repair of her tunic. “If I had tried to do that, it would have looked like the gap-toothed smile of a seven-year-old.”

Ruth dipped her bread into a bowl of wine. “I get a lot of practice.”

“All the practice in the world would not remedy my ignorance. I can outrun and outclimb any man, and I have better aim with a slingshot than most boys in Bethlehem. But I can’t sew a straight line.”

Ruth remembered the young man, who on their journey from Moab had saved their lives with one well-aimed stone. “I have an offer to make. You teach me how to use a slingshot, and I will do your sewing as long as the lessons last.”

“You want to learn how to sling stones? I’ve never known a grown woman to show interest in such a pastime.”

“It can come in handy.” She told Dinah about being attacked by thieves.

Dinah slapped the ground next to her. “I wish I had been there. That third bandit would not have escaped if I had been with you. One stone right here,” she said, pointing to the middle of her forehead. “That’s all it would take.”

Ruth laughed. “I never realized what a bloodthirsty girl you were.”

Just then, Boaz, who had been striding toward the group of laborers, chose to settle down in the empty spot next to Dinah. After greeting everyone, he turned to Ruth and Dinah. “I overheard a bit of your conversation as I walked by. You were attacked by lions?”

Everyone around them stopped speaking and turned their attention on Ruth. She squirmed where she sat. “Just one, my lord. And he did not attack me. He attacked the bandit that attacked me.”

“One seems enough,” he said with a smile and raised an eyebrow as an invitation for her to continue.

Again Ruth recounted the story of her journey into Bethlehem and the lion’s strange role in her survival. Her listeners seemed spellbound as she described the terror the bandits had inspired. When she told of the lion, even the men gasped.

Boaz shifted his body until he faced Ruth. “You don’t believe in living a boring life, it seems.”

“I believe it. I just haven’t figured out a way to manage it.” Everyone laughed.

“Do you think God sent the lion to save Ruth’s life, my lord?” Dinah asked him. “Or was it mere chance that he showed up at that moment?”

“Chance?” Boaz dipped his bread into the wine. “Chance is God’s way of showing up without making an announcement.” He rose with fluid grace. “Here comes Abel. I need to have a word with him.”

Adin, who had lingered in the field to finish the patch he worked on, joined them a few moments later. With a casual nod of his head, he sat in the spot left open by lord Boaz’s departure.

“You two seem very friendly today,” he said, eyes narrowed as he studied the two women.

Dinah smiled serenely. “I have to return to work. I need to make up for the afternoon I missed.” Without a backward glance, she ambled to the wheat field, her blue tunic swaying against her hips with every slow step.

Adin swallowed, seeming distracted as he followed her with his gaze. Ruth shook her lap clean of crumbs and rose.

He whipped his face around. “What did I say? Why is everyone leaving?”

“Nothing to do with what you said. We just have to work, Adin.”

A few evenings later, Ruth came home with a particularly large bundle of gleaned wheat. After helping Ruth sort through it and eating a modest meal, Naomi hurried out of the house to deliver a clay jar of pickled capers to Miriam.

Ruth decided to tidy up their meager belongings. As she folded her light veil and placed it in an old wooden chest, her eyes caught the old roll of parchment that Mahlon had purchased for her so long ago.

She pulled the delicate rolls out with careful fingers. The parchment was one of the few things she had refused to sell as they left Moab. It had been a long time since she had practiced writing Hebrew. Thanks to Mahlon’s and Naomi’s tutelage, she spoke Hebrew with a fluidity that would have been uncommon for the average Moabite. She wondered at Mahlon’s insistence that she learn the particulars of his language so that she could speak it like a native. Had he always sensed that she would live in his country one day?

She thought of how the Lord had directed her path, drawing her step by implacable step to Bethlehem. She did not comprehend His ways or why He had wanted her here. She only knew that He had never forsaken her.

She decided with sudden determination to write her story. It was a way to practice her writing and keep from forgetting the
precious knowledge Mahlon had passed to her. It was also a way of acknowledging the faithfulness of the Lord—of remembering every seemingly inconsequential act of mercy.

Searching in the cracked, wooden box that held her few possessions, she found the stylus and ink and began to tell her story starting with the day she met Naomi. As she wrote, she wondered what Boaz would think of her journey. Would he see Jacob’s ladder touching down on her life? Touching down in the wilds of Moab, from the day of her birth?

She stopped writing.
Why, Lord? Why did You bring me here to meet him?
She scratched his name on the parchment.
Boaz
. She thought for a moment and added:
Why did You let my heart get tangled up with a man I can never have?
Writing the words somehow brought a small flood of relief. It took away the sting of keeping a secret so deep no words had ever expressed it.