|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Things Are Different Now: the Journey from Moab to IsraelBy Jessica Leopold Things are different now; I know they are. My little sister was burned on the altar by Mount Peor. My father picked her up by her arm-just a small baby-and she screamed as she dangled from his hand. My mother yelled and tried to stop him, but he pushed her back and she fell. She put her face in the dirt and cried, scraping the ground with her fingernails and moaning with a deep voice. I curled into the corner, shutting my eyes as tight as I could… but I could still hear her weeping. Even since then, things are different. When my father came home, my mother was lying on the floor. He kicked her in the face, smearing ashes and manure across her cheek. Blood poured from her broken skin and ran down into her mouth, but she still didn’t move. A few days later, we went to Mount Peor-my mother and me. In the middle of the charred altar was a pile of bones and ashes. My mother quickly put some of the ashes in her pocket and we ran away. If anyone had seen us there, we would have been killed, probably burned alive. On the way back to town, though, we saw a small caravan of travelers. My mother grabbed my hand and pulled me into the brush. “Israelites,” she said under her breath. I heard of them before. There were four of them, two young men, an older man and a woman. They looked very different, particularly the woman. She wasn’t colorful like the dancers by the bathing pool, nor did she wear the gold and purple plates in her hair. But I still thought she was beautiful. My mother pulled me away and we went home. Things are very different now. I saw that Israelite family the next day. They pitched their tents on the edge of our land and I was secretly glad. I watched them and observed their odd customs. Intriguing, they were. My mother whispered to me that they believed in a different God… the God of Israel, she said. “They do not believe in Baal?” I asked. My mother told me they believed in a God they could not even see. It was not long after, that the eldest boy began making arrangements with my father so that I might be his wife. I did not know everything that meant, but I knew I was happy about it. Mahlon took me as his wife and I moved into the house of his parents. Naomi, Mahlon’s mother, taught me how to prepare the appropriate meals. While we were working together, she would tell me about Bethlehem in Judea, reminiscing about Israel. She told me how the children of Israel were enslaved in Egypt and that Yahweh opened up the sea and brought them into a Promised Land. When we talked about the Passover, she started crying. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “I miss my home,” she said, “Things are different now.” In the next few years, many things happened. Mahlon’s father, Elimelech drowned in the sea. We were still grieving when Chilion found a wife and then brought Orpah into our family. Shortly after this marriage, Chilion and Mahlon were both robbed, beaten, and left to die near the bathing houses. Our family was shattered. Naomi decided it was time for her to return to Bethlehem. Orpah and I tried to help her and to follow her. But she told us to go back. “Go back to your mother’s house,” she said. “You are both so kind and I pray that God deals with you in the same manner as you have dealt with your husbands and with me.” Orpah cried and kissed Naomi. I held my sister’s hand tightly, but she let go and turned back toward Moab. I watched her go… and remembered the baby screaming when my father carried her out of the house that night. I thought about the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea and shouting for joy when they were delivered out of bondage. Naomi said to me, “You have to go back with her. You will never be anything if you stay with me. I am too old to have any more children and even if I could have another son, would you wait for him to grow up? It’s just impossible. Don’t waste your life. Go!” I answered her: “I know things are very different now, but don’t ask me again to leave you. Where you go, I will go. The Israelites-your people-will be my people. And your God will be my God. Even until the end of your life, I will be with you and where you are buried, I too will be buried. Yahweh-the God of Israel-will be my God, and do this and worse to me if anything but death parts us.” When we came to the river, I thought Naomi might ask me to leave again, but she didn’t. Instead she smiled, shook her head, and looked toward Judea. We would arrive in Bethlehem when the fields were white unto harvest.
ninetyandnine.com © 2002, Jessica Leopold --------- Jessica Leopold believes that too few people understand the value of Ruth's testimony. |
|
|
