In the Field of Grace (32 page)

“I never thought to hear you say those words to me. I have longed for you in my dreams, and cried many hopeless tears. I should be really angry with you for your stubborn refusal to approach me. If it weren’t for Naomi and her brazen scheme to send me to you in the middle of the night, I would never have revealed my heart to you.”

“Naomi put you up to that midnight visit on the threshing floor?”

“My mother is bold.”

Boaz roared with laughter. “Your mother is going to receive a magnificent gift from me. That woman is pure gold. And she can cook on top of everything else.”

Ruth gave him a teasing smile. “I think you are marrying me for my mother.”

“I won’t deny there are certain attractions.”

She thumped him on the arm. Then she gave him a melting look from her honey-colored eyes. “Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth,” she said, her voice a whisper.

All thoughts of laughter and teasing fled Boaz.

Boaz told Ruth she could have an enormous wedding, if she desired. He knew a large wedding would take weeks to arrange and prayed with considerable fervency that she would refuse. Ruth teased him for a whole hour about the elaborate wedding she planned to have. Linen fabrics from Egypt, perfumes from Lebanon, a hundred lambs roasted for the whole of Bethlehem. In the end, his dismay became too obvious to hide and she laughed until her belly ached.

“Serves you right for suggesting such a thing. As if I would wait to marry you for the sake of a fancy wedding,” she said. “Next week will do very well. With Naomi, Mahalath, Dinah, and Sheba helping, we will have time to spare.”

Even a week seemed unreasonably long to Boaz. He thought of Jacob waiting over seven years for Rachel and pitied the poor man.

Boaz directed his men to build a wedding canopy and hung it with sky blue curtains. Mahalath and her mother draped fresh garlands of wild flowers and leaves over the top of the canopy and the sides of its curtains.

When the evening of their wedding finally arrived, Boaz went to Naomi’s house to fetch his bride. Her friends had spent the day with her, accompanying her on her
mikvah
bath and helping her to dress in her bridal finery. As tradition dictated, she had dressed
as a queen, though for the first few hours, her face would remain covered with an opaque veil. Their friends followed the bride and groom gaily to the bridal canopy, walking through an avenue of oil lamps lit in advance in preparation for this moment.

When they arrived at the prepared canopy, an old Levite pronounced the marriage blessing over them: “May you increase to thousands upon thousands; may your offspring possess the gates of their enemies.” Then Naomi removed Ruth’s veil and laid it upon Boaz’s shoulder.

“The government shall be upon his shoulder,” the Levite proclaimed.

Boaz hardly heard the words; he was too charmed by Ruth’s ravishing beauty, finally free of its veil. Her hair had been adorned with gold beads and hung with garnets and pearls, and bracelets jangled at her wrists. “I can’t believe you are mine,” he said. “I never thought I could feel this happy again.”

She gave him a playful smile. “Wait awhile before you say that. If my government is to be on your shoulders, you might find yourself carrying a heavier burden than you bargained for.”

For seven days, Boaz and Ruth sat under the shade of the festive canopy, bedecked in wedding finery. Even though their wedding took place quickly, Boaz made sure that there was plenty of delectable food and wine available for his guests so that during the seven days of feasting they never ran short of refreshments. In the end, to surprise Ruth, he did order a hundred lambs to be slaughtered and gave half of the bounty to the poor. One thing for certain, no one went hungry or thirsty during that week.

They had come through so much, he and Ruth. They had loved other people and suffered unbearable loss. And yet in time, God had given them a new dream, a new love. He had redeemed all that sorrow. Everyone in Bethlehem celebrated the joy God had chosen to give them after such a long struggle with hardship and loss.

For many years afterward, the people of Bethlehem would remember Boaz’s wedding feast fondly. It wasn’t merely the refreshing
wine or the delectable food that stood out in their minds. It was the simple joy of knowing that two noble people who had always done their best to make others happy had at last found happiness of their own.

When finally he held Ruth in his arms with no obstacles and boundaries between them, Boaz felt the tension of weeks sweep out of him. They had been alone for hours, and every moment of that time had felt like a balm to Boaz’s bruised heart. “Are you happy, beloved?” he asked.

She caressed his face with a shy hand. “You are my home,” she said. “You and the Lord. I’ve never been so happy. All I ever wanted was to belong. Naomi and her family gave me that. When death ripped it away, I thought I was done with joy. I thought the best I could do was to survive. Live another day. Then you came into my life and l learned to love in a deeper way. I thought death was the end of my dreams. But death led me to you.”

Boaz was glad the light of the lamp had dimmed, for he could not quench the tears that filled his eyes. “God overcame death. Death itself could not conquer the Lord’s plans. After so many years of loneliness, He has filled my home and my hearth with love again.”

She twined her fingers into his and raised their joined hands for a soft kiss. “You know, if God can overcome death, surely He can bless a barren womb?”

“If that’s His plan, I better do my part.”

His wife giggled. “You just did.”

“That was for practice.”

She lowered her lashes and pretended that she wasn’t turning red. “I don’t think you need any.”

Boaz gave a wide smile and pulled his wife closer. “Still, I didn’t know I was helping to fulfill the Lord’s purposes. I shall have to take things much more seriously now. I wouldn’t want Him to accuse me of slacking on my responsibilities.”

Uninterrupted joy took time to make its way into Ruth’s heart and stay. In the first days of her marriage, something akin to disbelief mixed with unbearable relief dogged her hours. She could not believe that Boaz truly wanted her and that they were genuinely married. Some days she awoke not daring to open her eyes, wondering if her new life would prove a dream. As disbelief gave way to conviction, she began to wonder if Boaz would come to himself and realize that he had made a grave error. He would compare her to Judith and regret his impulse to come to her rescue. In those early days, she still expected to see disappointment reflected in his kind eyes.

It never came. Week after week, his regard for her proved steady and strong. He shared his days with her and made her laugh with his entertaining accounts of the events at work. Knowing her love of words, he encouraged her writing and began to teach her the business and household accounts. When he had initially suggested that she learn how to keep the accounts, she had been disconcerted. “Me? You want me to learn about your business?”

He laughed. “What? Do you think they will arrest me for teaching you? You have a fine mind, Ruth, and it would be a help to me.”

The thought of being useful to him had overcome her doubts, so that at the end of many evenings, they sat together, reviewing the business of the day. She found him a patient and astute teacher, and learned quickly because her desire to please him surpassed her fear of failing. He taught her about the Lord, and together they made time to pray. She learned that he knew the troubles of many of those who worked for him and prayed for them with the concern of a father.

Before long, he convinced Naomi to come and live with them, assuring her that his house was big enough to handle the addition of twenty women, let alone two.

“You better not think of bringing twenty women in here,” Ruth
was quick to point out, and he laughed at her possessiveness.

“The one is more than enough for me,” he said, kissing her with the enthusiasm that never ceased to amaze her.

Without her having to ask, Boaz took charge of Chilion’s and Mahlon’s lands, and cleared the fields of the debris that over a decade of neglect had wrought. For the first time in years, Elimelech’s portion became ready for the plow. Boaz spent his own money on the work and the improvements, paying the wages of the workers he had hired, though none of it would return to him. There would be no gain from this investment, only loss to Boaz. Yet he never seemed to care. He certainly never brought it up to Ruth or Naomi, or held his generosity over their heads to belittle them in any way.

As days melted into weeks and autumn slipped into the early days of winter, Boaz’s affection and care finally began to sink into Ruth’s heart as a reality. She began to believe that this happiness would not prove false or be snatched away from her. She began to trust in the joy that the Lord had poured into her heart.

One chilly morning, as her small family gathered to have breakfast together, Ruth reached over for the warm bread that Mahalath had served and her stomach gave a great heave. Cold moisture covered her forehead and upper lip. She felt clammy as another roll of nausea washed over her. She pressed her lips together and staggered to her feet, desperate to leave Boaz and Naomi’s company and find a private spot in the back of the house. She made it to the edge of the courtyard before doubling over with a violence that disconcerted her.

On her knees and shaking, she sensed Boaz’s tense presence at one side and Naomi’s on the other. She tried to calm her bilious stomach by force of will for their sakes. She might be physically miserable, but she knew that her sudden sickness was bound to strike fear into their hearts. She said a quick prayer and to her surprise the nausea passed. Within moments she felt completely well again.

“I must have eaten something that did not agree with me last night,” she said.

She noticed that her words made no difference to Boaz’s pallor or Naomi’s unusual silence. Boaz insisted that she spend the rest of the morning in bed, and to humor him, she did not demur, although she felt as healthy as one of his fat ewes. By evening, the nausea returned, though it was milder this time.

The next morning it attacked her with full force again. Ruth ate sparingly that day, trying to give her belly a chance to recover. But the third morning she was sick yet again. Boaz’s alarm had turned him pale and uncommunicative. He ordered her to stay in bed the whole day, and she did not argue. She could see anxiety had a hold of him.

“There is nothing wrong with me but an upset stomach,” she told Naomi while Boaz rode to oversee the plowing of his fields.

“When did you last have your flow?” Naomi asked without preamble.

Ruth’s breath caught. “I’ve forgotten. More than a month, perhaps. Do you think …?”

Naomi straightened the covers over Ruth. “Too early to tell, my dear. Best we keep it to ourselves for now.”

Boaz arrived from the field covered in mud and came straight to Ruth. Instead of the exhilaration that his outdoor explorations usually gave him, his face looked grey, his eyes shadowed. “Shalom, Naomi,” he greeted his mother-in-law with a smile as he washed his hands in the basin she filled for him. They had learned that he never waited for a servant to take care of such needs. He came over to Ruth and kissed her on the forehead. The ascetic kiss irritated his wife, though she took care to hide her irritation.