RUTHIE!!!

CHAPTER 3

The wind lashed out with unforgiving ferocity, the rain that followed with unflinching justice. The Moabites started running for shelter, each to his own home, as the rain fell in what the elders described as revenge for the dead. Ruth was shutting the windows and securing the house from the rain, when the knock came. She opened the door to accept a drenched Orpah, who had a faraway look in her eyes. When she had shut the door and bolted it, she turned to her sister-in-law and watched with trepidation as Orpah, shaking with the cold, told her.

“Chil’ion is not home.”

Ruth’s mouth fell open. “In this storm?”

Then Orpah broke down and cried.

*

“Chil’ion! Chil’ion!”

From where he lay, he tried to gather the strength to shout back. His head was throbbing. And where the tree branch had struck him was matted with blood. For close to an hour he had been lying at the same place, drifting in and out of consciousness as the blood seeped from him. He put out an arm and tried to crawl toward the voices.

“Chil’ion!” he heard, from a distance. “Chil’ion!”

He gathered up his life—blood and croaked, “Over here,” tears forming in his eyes at the weak attempt. He felt a blinding pain in his head, and turned over on his back. Then he saw the sky, blue and unending, remembering the many times Elim’elech had told him about God’s love.

“As boundless and limitless as the sky, Yahweh’s love.” He hoped his wife would forgive him, his weakness. He wanted to be where his brother was, where his father was. He had killed the hope of ever finding God’s love in this strange land, after the deaths of Mahlon and Elim’elech; he just knew he had been forsaken.

Then he shut his eyes and dreamt about wheat. Golden, ripe wheat, at harvest time…

*

It seemed like ages to the two women huddled close together in the house. The heavens finally shut their doors, and Ruth hurried to open the windows. She had finally managed to convince Orpah to go back home, when the dreaded knock came.

Chil’ion had joined his fathers.

Orpah was a widow.