Through the Deep Waters (44 page)

Several seconds ticked by while Dinah seemed to gaze into nothing and her hands repeatedly clenched and unclenched. Then she sagged forward, her forehead nearly meeting Ruthie’s. “I want Him. What do I do?”

Ruthie smiled through her tears. “All you have to do is ask. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ … and you will be saved.”

With hesitance, in a voice so small Ruthie might have imagined it, Dinah said, “I believe.” She straightened her shoulders and spoke with more boldness. “I believe.” Wonder broke across her countenance. Tears flooded her eyes. She raised her face to the ceiling. “I believe, God. I believe.” Although the words emerged on a sob, no one could deny the joy ringing in her tone. “I believe, I believe …”

Ruthie situated herself on the bucket again and sat in silent witness to Dinah’s awakening. She’d never seen anything more beautiful. A lump of gratitude filled her throat. Such an honor, to play a part in guiding Dinah to the everlasting love of her heavenly Father. Tears rolled unendingly down Dinah’s
cheeks, and warm rivulets flowed down Ruthie’s face, as well. She felt God’s presence in the closet with them, penetrating both of their beings.

She folded her arms across her middle, envisioning God’s arms holding her close. She and Dinah had each received a healing today.
Whatever You want for me, wherever You want me to go, God, I’ll follow
.

Dinah had found her peace. And so had Ruthie.

Dinah

After dressing for bed Dinah turned from the wardrobe to find Ruthie closing the Bible she’d purchased. The tips of several strips of paper stuck out from the Bible’s top edge, splaying in various directions. Their haphazard arrangement reminded Dinah of wildflowers along the side of a road. Her lips twitched into an amused grin. “What did you do to my Bible?”

Ruthie skittered forward, her face alight. “I marked several of my favorite passages. See? At the top of each marker is the reference I want you to read. And so it’s easy for you to find them, I inserted a paper at the right page. Now that you’ve decided to be a follower of God, you will want to grow in your faith. Reading your Bible is the way to grow. So”—she thrust the Book at Dinah with a little giggle—“here you are! Grow!”

Dinah took the Bible and gazed in wonder at the number of slips protruding. Ruthie had an envious grasp of God’s Word to be familiar with so many different passages. “Where do I start?”

Ruthie pressed her finger to her chin, seeming to examine the markers. Then she tapped her fingertip on one. “This one. It’s a story, a very short story, about a woman who reminds me of you. This woman had—” She waved her palms as if erasing something in the air. “Oh, me and my talk-talk-talk! Don’t let me tell it to you. Read it yourself.” She hurried to her side of the bed and knelt on the floor, folding her hands in her familiar prayer pose.

Dinah peeked at the reference written on the paper’s tip in Ruthie’s flamboyant handwriting—Luke 8:43–48. A part of her desired to open the Bible and absorb herself in the story, but another part of her resisted. Amos had told her about a story in the Bible, and the images of Bible-Dinah’s assault still
hovered in the back of her mind. Did she want to risk filling her mind with yet another heartbreaking tale?

“Did you forget which one I showed you?” Eagerness quavered through Ruthie’s voice.

Dinah sent her roommate a sheepish look. “I know which one you said. But … it isn’t a sad story, is it? I read about a woman named Dinah, and I …” Unpleasant remembrances dried her throat. “I can’t forget how sad it was.”

Sympathy showed in Ruthie’s eyes. “What happened to Dinah in the Bible was sad. Even though she went to the neighboring village when she’d been instructed not to, Shechem should not have … er, taken her. And Dinah’s brothers … Oh my.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “That story has troubled me, too. There is so much wrong in it.” Then her expression brightened, and she nodded toward Dinah’s Bible. “But I think you’ll find the one I marked full of right. Read it, Dinah. Go ahead.” Ruthie closed her eyes and bowed her head.

While Ruthie prayed, Dinah sat on the edge of the bed and placed the Bible in her lap. Swallowing a knot of worry, she slipped her finger between the pages and flopped the Book open. She scanned the little numbers beneath chapter eight until she located forty-three. Drawing in a breath, she leaned forward and began to read about a woman who had suffered a blood disorder no physician could cure. But then she touched the hem of Jesus’s robe, and her illness was healed.

Her heart caught as she read the final verse. “And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.” Dinah placed her palm over the wonderful words as warmth flooded her. Setting the Bible aside, she dropped to her knees beside the bed and bowed her head. Although she’d listened to Ruthie’s prayers countless times in the past months, she wasn’t sure what to say. Her relationship with God—her Father—was so new. So she prayed what was on her heart.

Dear God, thank You for healing me. Thank You for loving me. Thank You … Amen
. She rose as Ruthie rose. Ruthie extinguished the lamp, and both girls slipped into bed.

Ruthie’s content voice carried across the darkness. “Good night, Dinah.”

“Good night, Ruthie.” But she lay with eyes open, staring at the gray ceiling. Closing her eyes meant dreaming. The images—familiar and frightening and unwelcome—began to take shape in the back of her mind. Then, as sweet as a lilac’s bouquet wafting on a fresh spring breeze, Jesus’s statement to the woman who touched His robe whispered through her heart.
“Thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.”

Dinah closed her eyes.

“Go in peace.”

Her body relaxed, every muscle becoming loose and liquid.

“Go in peace.”

Dinah slipped off to blissful, dreamless sleep.

Amos

Amos tossed and turned on his straw-filled mattress. Why couldn’t he sleep? His hip ached, but he was used to the pain. He’d learned to sleep through it long ago. Wind blew, whistling through a crack in the window frame. But that, too, was familiar. He rubbed his hip and listened to the night sounds—an occasional
pop
as the blaze in the fireplace died, the distant howl of a coyote, the wind … None were intrusive enough to hold him awake. Yet sleep refused to come.

When had he last enjoyed easing quickly off to sleep and resting well all night? Staring at the thick ceiling beams running from side to side above his bed, he counted backward in time. It took very little effort for him to settle on a date. December 30. Three weeks ago.

He shifted, seeking a more comfortable position. But all the wriggling in the world didn’t relieve the throbbing ache in his hip. Or the lonely ache in his heart. Other than making egg deliveries and engaging in the short conversation with Miss Mead on the hotel porch, he had isolated himself at his farm. He’d had one visitor—Preacher Mead, who expressed concern about Amos’s lack of church attendance since the new year began.

Remembering the excuse he gave the minister—
“It’s a long, cold walk into town, and keeping this new batch of chicks warm and flourishing takes a lot of attention”
—his conscience pricked him. He hadn’t fibbed, but the cold and the chickens hadn’t kept him home from church before. The bigger truth was he didn’t want to encounter Dinah. So he stayed away. And in so doing, he removed his remaining means of fellowship from his life.

Another thought tormented him. Was his haunting loneliness related to the anger he chose to hold toward God? Since the day he’d thrown the rock, he hadn’t prayed. Hadn’t read his Bible. Hadn’t acknowledged God’s presence in any way. And each day, his despondence grew ever deeper and harder to carry. He could almost hear his mother’s voice chiding,
“Well, now, what do you expect? You’re His child. Of course you’re going to be lonely when you hold yourself from Him.”

With a disgruntled huff, Amos heaved himself out of bed and tromped to the table in front of the fireplace. Although only coals remained, a small flow of warmth crept across the floor and touched his feet. He sank into a chair in the dark room and rested his head in his hands. Dinah’s indiscretion had stolen so much from him. He still worked hard, but it all seemed pointless with the promise of a wife now gone. Because no matter how he tried to set his sights on someone else—Miss Mead, or one of the servers from the hotel who attended church, or any of the other young women in town of a marriageable age—he couldn’t push Dinah from his thoughts.

He slapped the table, irritated with himself. Why did she hold such prominence in his heart? Of course he couldn’t marry her now. Not knowing what she’d done. But thinking of pursuing anyone else left him cold and empty.

“So just stay alone, then!” The command burst from his lips without him planning to speak out loud. The sound of his own voice startled him, but once he’d started talking, it was as if his tongue had taken on a power of its own. He rose and paced the floor, charging through the shadows in a stumbling gait.

“Didn’t you spend most of your boyhood alone, left behind by the ones who ran on two good legs? Didn’t you stay at home alone when your brothers trooped off to the fields with Pa? Didn’t you come to Florence and start your
chicken farm alone? And you’ve managed just fine by yourself. So stop your moping.” He puffed to a halt behind one of the chairs and caught hold of its top rung. Curling his fists around the sturdy strip of wood, he growled, “Stop being a blamed fool, Amos. You don’t need anybody else.”

His final comment hung in the room like a veil of smoke from Pa’s pipe. Except Pa’s pipe smoke held a sweet essence. No pleasant aroma clung to his bitter utterance. He let his head sag and finished in a ragged whisper, “I might not need anybody, but I sure did want someone.” The desire to pray—to pour out his hurt to the God he’d trusted from the time he was very young—nearly sent him to his knees. But he stiffened his legs and set his jaw tight to hold the entreaty inside.

Even though he returned to his bed, so tired his heels dragged as he moved across the floor, and even though he closed his eyes and willed himself to lapse into sleep, the weight of resentment pressing his chest held sleep at bay for many more hours.

A pounding noise awakened Amos from disjointed dreams. He bolted from the bed, aghast at the sunlight pouring through the window. He yanked up his britches from the foot of the bed and fumbled into them as he headed out of the bedroom. How had he stayed in bed so long? The angle of the sunbeams across the floor indicated it was midmorning already. He was late in feeding and watering the chickens. And poor Sam and Gid probably thought they’d been forgotten.

Bang! bang! bang!
A fist pounded on his front door again. Amos limped past his shoes and opened the door. Cold air whisked in, chilling his bare toes. But when he drew back, it wasn’t because of the cold. Preacher Mead stood on his porch holding a set of reins. At the end of the reins stood a gray-nosed, swaybacked mule. Was he still dreaming? Amos rubbed his eyes with his fists, then looked again. The smiling minister and the mule were still there.