Redeeming Grace: Ruth's Story Read online

  I can’t bear it. Her heart cried with a pain so fierce she longed to run to the hills and scream until her lungs burst. This could not be happening to her, to them.

  The men carried first Mahlon’s then Chilion’s body into the dark tomb. Naomi sobbed aloud, Orpah quickly joining in. Ruth wept quietly beside them both.

  As the sun banked lower in the west and the men rolled the protesting boulder back over the cave’s opening, the truth hit Ruth with the force of a mighty wind.

  This was real. Naomi’s god or the gods of Moab had exacted a heavy price upon the three of them, especially Naomi.

  And left them all completely bereft.

  20

  As night began its descent, Boaz paced the hills, searching for the lamb. Adi had favored the ewe since its birth, treated it like a daughter at times. They had laughed that God had given them sheep instead of children, but he had not minded. At least the animals brought the smile once more to her lips.

  How could the animal have strayed without his notice? He had told Adi to stay abed that morning when she felt ill, and he promised to care for her small flock. She trusted no one else with the animals. During the famine they had become her children, and she had spent days and nights in the fields, traveling far in search of green grasses, sometimes with only a sling for protection. But how could he deny her? She had found no joy in her normal tasks, and when Reuven had promised to teach her all he knew, having been a shepherd in his early life, Boaz relented.

  She would not be happy with him now if he could not find her favorite. Where was the animal? Dusk threatened with each step away from home, where he had sent the other sheep with a servant. If the boy could be trusted, more men would soon join him in the search. The whole town would celebrate as they always did over even one lost lamb. But not if he couldn’t find the foolish animal.

  He shaded his eyes against the blaze of the sun’s last glorious rays, walking carefully toward a nearby ravine. The rains had only recently begun again, but wadis could quickly flood with rushing waters, especially after such a drought. The ewe could be swept away and lost forever.

  Boaz felt the sweat beneath his tunic as he quickened his pace. He called out, but the sheep did not know his voice as they did Adi’s. She should be here to help him. But he could not let her weaken herself when she had already spent the night coughing in the room next to his.

  He rubbed his face and called, “Sheep!” again. Adi had names for them all, but for the life of him he could not keep them straight. He picked his way over the dry ground and hurried toward the wadi before he lost all light. One glance toward the town told him the men with torches were still some time in coming. He looked back toward the wadi and made his way to the bottom. Looking right and left, he strained to see, calling as he walked slowly in one direction, away from the sun’s final glare. And there, when the sun held barely a thread of light in the sky, he saw her sprawled on her side, unable to get up.

  Boaz knelt and examined the ewe, running his hands gently over each leg. Nothing broken. He peered at the bottoms of her hooves, feeling for stones. Nothing. At last assured that she had simply fallen onto her back and couldn’t roll over in this narrow part of the wadi, he lifted her heavy body and set her upright. She stood a moment, shook herself, then looked up at him.

  “Come,” he said, leading her up the embankment. How did Adi manage with these animals—and at her size? Adi was such a slight woman, much too thin since the last pregnancy and two miscarriages to follow. He had feared for her life each time and was almost relieved when she seemed to take to shepherding instead of making baby clothes.

  “How did you manage to get down there?” He spoke to the sheep to comfort her, to make sure she continued to follow as he walked toward home. Adi would be glad he had been the one to find her. They would celebrate, perhaps, if the cough had left her and she was feeling better. Naomi would have made sure of it had she been here. But Naomi had been gone over eleven years. By now Boaz was certain they would not see her or her sons again.

  The town drew closer, and he met the servant boy near the city gates with instructions to take the ewe to the pens near his home. He passed through the door, assured the men at the gate he no longer needed assistance, and heard the gate barred behind him.

  The desire to whistle filled him, and he almost gave in to it as he walked Bethlehem’s streets toward home, but he held back his exuberance. He never could carry a tune he would want the city to hear. But his step was light as he neared his courtyard, saw the torches lit in welcome.

  He entered the house and waited while a servant washed his feet.

  “There you are, my lord.” Reuven had aged much in the years since the famine first began. He walked with a limp now, and his hair was purest white. How much longer would Boaz have him to lean upon?

  “Yes, I’m home at last. One of the sheep wandered off and fell into a ravine. She is fine though. And here we are.” He smiled wide until he met Reuven’s troubled gaze. “What is it?” He was used to the occasional squabble Reuven was forced to bring to him in the evenings, though tonight he wanted only to find Adi and enjoy a fine meal.

  “I fear . . . that is . . .” Reuven paused and cleared his throat. “She did not wish it, but I sent for the town physician and the midwife to attend to Adi, my lord. She has not stopped coughing since you left, and I feared . . . well, perhaps it is also a womanly thing.”

  Boaz jumped up before the servant could dry his foot. He raced down the hall, Reuven slowly following, and stopped at the room where Adi lay sleeping.

  He breathed a sigh. Reuven was simply overreacting. She was fine, as she had been every time she had lost a babe. “She seems to be resting well now, which means she will soon recover,” he said, glancing at his servant. “Did you say the physician came earlier?”

  Reuven nodded. “The man gave her something to stop the cough and help her sleep. The midwife did not tell me anything. She will stop again tomorrow.”

  Boaz stared at him for a lengthy breath. Adi had said nothing about another pregnancy. In fact, it would be much too soon because she had just recovered from a miscarriage barely two moons ago. “She wouldn’t be coughing unless she was sick.” He spoke to make sense of Reuven’s obvious concern. “Did the doctor give a cause? Is she feverish?”

  Reuven shook his head. “The doctor did not know the cause. But he did suggest that Adi is worn out from too many pregnancies and too much exertion with the sheep. She is not strong, my lord.”

  In his mind’s eye, Boaz felt again the weight of the sheep he had lifted. Adi cared for thirty of them, all of similar size. Why had he not sent a servant with her to help each day? A strong man or woman, someone to lift the fallen or care for the larger animals? What kind of a husband was he to let her care for them alone?

  “When she is well, she will not handle the sheep alone again,” he said, already thinking of which servants would be best suited to helping his wife without making her feel weak. She would not want him to think her incapable.

  “Very good, my lord. I shall make a list of possible candidates for the position of hireling shepherd to Adi.” Reuven’s gaze drifted beyond Boaz to Adi’s sleeping form. How peaceful she looked.

  Please, Adonai, give her rest. He walked into the room and knelt at his wife’s side. How he longed to stroke her hair, her cheek. But he resisted the urge lest he wake her. In a few days she would return to normal, and he would speak to her about rearranging her duties so they didn’t tax her so. He would have to think carefully about how to word his requests. Adi could be stubborn when she wanted something badly enough.

  A smile formed as he gazed on her beautiful face. Thank You, Adonai. He might not have sons, but at least he had Adi. And despite what anyone else thought, that was enough.

  The following morning, a knock on the door interrupted Boaz’s quiet meal. Adi had slept without waking and still lay abed, so he had chosen not to disturb her. Reuven returned from answering the door with the midwife
in tow. Boaz stood as the woman entered the room. He ushered her to the sitting room and invited her to rest among the cushions.

  The woman glanced at Reuven, who quickly excused himself, but she refused to sit as Boaz had instructed. Instead, she lifted her wizened head and stepped closer to him, her voice low.

  “I did not wish to convey this news to your servant, my lord,” she said.

  He looked into her dark eyes. His stomach clenched at the knit of her brow and the slight scowl on her wrinkled face. “Tell me.”

  “I spoke with the physician after I examined her. She is bleeding, my lord, and not in the normal way of women. That is why she is so weak.” She stepped back, her gaze assessing.

  Boaz stood, unmoving. Every fiber of his being rejected the words and their implied meaning. Adi was ill, yes, but she had been ill in the past and always recovered. She was slight of build but strong in spirit. She would be fine. Of course she would.

  “I would like to examine her again to see if the poultice I used yesterday did any good. If you are willing, my lord.” The midwife still spoke softly and glanced quickly about the room as if she feared being overheard.

  “You gave her a poultice?” Why did his words sound so wooden, as though they came from another? “And the physician approved of this?”

  “He was in full agreement, my lord.” She met his gaze. “I do not want to alarm you.” She stepped closer and placed a hand on his forearm. “I know how much your wife longs for a child, how hard it has been to lose them all.”

  The woman did not know the half of it. She was not the one holding Adi’s weeping form in the dark of night when no one else could hear. She did not know that the sheep only brought small comfort, for her empty arms longed for so much more.

  “I fear,” the woman went on, though Boaz wished her words would stop, “that she attempted another pregnancy too soon and something has caused the bleeding. Either she has lost the child already or is in the process.”

  Boaz stared at the woman, pulled his arm from her attempt to comfort, and crossed both arms to ward off a chill that he knew came from deep within him. He had not been with Adi often, had purposely avoided the times . . . hadn’t they? “But she has shown no sign of pain as she has in times past.”

  The woman nodded. “It is why I am uncertain of the cause. May I check on her?”

  “She is sleeping.” But he nodded regardless and led the woman to Adi’s chamber.

  She slipped past him and he waited, pacing the hall. Adi’s quiet voice drifted to him in answer to questions the midwife asked her. But they spoke too softly for Boaz to hear their words.

  Adonai, please heal my Adi. Please make her whole again. I care not whether I have a son as long as I have her. His stomach knotted with the prayer, and he stopped at the threshold of the room just as the midwife bid Adi farewell. She came out carrying a basket of soiled linens. He averted his gaze and glanced beyond her to his wife’s pale form drifting once more into sleep.

  He followed the midwife like one of Adi’s lambs and stopped with her near the entry to his home. “Tell me what you know.” He would not be kept in the dark about this, womanly business or not.

  “The bleeding has eased. Her cough also seems to have abated, and she said she is feeling better. She is simply tired. I think another day or two of rest and she should be back to her normal self.” The woman offered him a tempered smile. “But I would warn you, do not go to her for at least three months. Her body cannot take another loss.”

  He nodded, heat creeping up his neck at the intimate comment. He would stay away six months if that was what Adi needed. “But she will recover. You are sure of this?” How desperately he wanted that relief, to know for certain.

  “I believe she will recover,” the woman said, stepping into the courtyard. “But I am not a physician. I think you will want his opinion as well in a day or so.”

  Boaz watched her leave, then gave orders to have the physician summoned today. He needed assurances now, not days from now. But somehow he wondered if even that man with his knowledge of herbs and ailments would be able to give him the guarantee he needed.

  Weeks passed, and Adi improved as the midwife and physician had assured Boaz she would. Color filled her cheeks once more, but the bleeding had not stopped. She was unclean to him and to anything she touched and to anything sacred, which meant she could not attend the Festival of Firstfruits coming in a few months unless the bleeding stopped soon. The thought both worried and saddened him, all the more because he saw the way it weighed on her as she left for the fields with the sheep each day.

  He watched now as she called each lamb by name and walked away from him. Usually she turned and waved, but today she kept walking as if there was nothing else to say between them. This ailment was driving them apart, and he didn’t know how to get her back.

  He turned away and rubbed the back of his neck. Reuven hobbled across the courtyard stones and met him as he took the reins of a saddled donkey from a servant and led the beast forward.

  “My lord.” Reuven crossed his arms, then let them fall to his sides again, a sign of his frustration, his uncertainty.

  “What is it, Reuven?” He needed to meet Ezra in the fields, and he was already late for having watched Adi for so long.

  Reuven shook his head. “It is nothing, really. It is just . . . I am concerned for Adi, my lord. She seems too resigned.”

  He looked at his steward, processing his words. “Resigned? Well, of course, she has no choice but to accept what is happening to her. She cannot heal herself. She cannot give herself a child.” He turned away, heat filling his face. And God is not listening. He couldn’t say the words aloud, but oh how he felt them! Why did the Almighty not hear his prayers for his wife? Why did she languish day after day? She had never done or said anything unkind in her life, and yet she suffered. Why?

  Anger filled him as he hopped onto the donkey’s back. “I’m sorry, Reuven, but I have to go. I do not understand why God allows the innocent to suffer. I do not understand why those who fear Him still undergo so many trials. Adi has faced trials all of her life, and God has done nothing to stop them.” There, he’d said it. He kicked the donkey’s sides and trotted away from his house, not waiting for his steward to respond.

  The stars were already out that night as Boaz finally returned to his courtyard and handed the reins to a servant.

  “There you are at last!” Reuven looked haggard and a little out of breath.

  “Yes, I’m sorry. I was roaming the hills. I thought perhaps I would run into Adi with the sheep, but she must have come home because she was not in any of her usual haunts.”

  Reuven wrung his hands, an action Boaz had never seen him do. “I’m afraid that is not the case, my lord. Adi has not returned.”

  “What do you mean, she has not returned?” His heartbeat increased its pace. Where else would she have gone? Adi no longer spent the night in the field with the sheep as some shepherds did. She wasn’t strong enough, and Boaz could not bear to let her stay away.

  “I sent men in search of her—hours ago, in fact—but none have returned.” The old servant sank onto a stone bench as though all strength had left him.

  “Which way did they go? I will join them.” He called to the servant who had taken his donkey to retrieve a fresh one.

  “I have sent men in all directions, my lord. I told them to check the Jordan and its tributaries.” Reuven’s words cut deep, and Boaz felt that his heart might pound right through his chest.

  “She wouldn’t go too close to the river. Not at its height. She wouldn’t risk losing one of the sheep into the rushing waters.” He ran a hand through his hair and glanced toward the stables. Where was that servant?

  “You are right, my lord. The sheep would fear the sound of rushing waters. She would seek quiet waters for them. But it seemed prudent to check those areas just the same.”

  “And with the recent rains . . .” He didn’t finish his thought. Even the tributa
ries had fewer quiet places now that the long drought and famine had passed.

  “I could go with you,” Reuven said, his aged face lined with worry. “I know the places shepherds go.”

  Boaz looked at his friend and shook his head. “Just tell me where you think she might be.”

  Had Adi been in her right mind this morning? She had been sad for years, even more so since she’d been ill, but she wouldn’t do anything foolish. Would she?

  “I would ride along the banks of every river you can find, despite the rains. I would check every ravine, every dip in the ground. Even every cave.”

  The servant appeared with another donkey saddled and ready. Reuven pulled a torch from the wall, handing it to Boaz. “You will need this.”

  Boaz looked into Reuven’s worried gaze. His stomach did a flip. Reuven did not fret without good cause.

  “I’m sure she is fine,” Boaz said to convince himself. “Probably chasing after a lost ewe. You know how she is.” He turned to the servant, who handed him the donkey’s reins. “Go, saddle another donkey and come with me.” If something had happened to Adi, he would need help, for he wasn’t sure he could survive what he knew deep down Reuven feared.

  Despite her sadness of late and her illness, Adi would not throw herself into the rushing waters. She would take care of the sheep like the good shepherdess she was.

  But as he rode with his servant in the dark toward the Jordan’s banks, his fear grew.

  The search lasted throughout the night, to no avail. At dawn the following day, Boaz stood near the edge of a ravine. He stepped carefully, noting loose rock and what looked like the broken edge of a cliff. The fear that had never really left him rose higher as he looked down. A body lay sprawled at the bottom, and a bleating fallen ewe unable to get up on its own lay nearby.