Elijah’s Mantle Series: Lined with Praise #20
(The content below isn’t chosen to incite a reaction due to the brutality of the deaths. After the stories I have heard through the years of prodigals taking hard roads, hearing their stories, what sometimes has turned the prodigal back to the Father’s house has been heart-wrenching moments of loss, real life scenarios like this. After every crucifixion, there is resurrection. God wastes nothing–and that is how we both want to rejoice and weep at the same time. God saves our lost lambs in ways we could never imagine.)
Jorai had been surrounded by the wolves, who’d nipped and tore at him until they herded him to a pack of other prisoners, less lost, as lost, or more lost than himself, who day by day became more lost than before. The group of boys to men he found himself running with got no rest or water until they came to a camp of run-down shacks outside a gaping door in the side of a rocky mountain that only goats dare try to climb. They stumbled into those shacks, collapsing on the floor or makeshift stacked beds. Some had straw, dirty straw. Some had nothing. It all had stench and the grime from within the mountains.
They woke before dawn, were given stale, soiled bread, and sent to work in the deep dark of the mines. The little ones who found themselves in those deep mines brought the prisoners water. Not refreshing water. Water that had dripped conveniently from some other place. All the cool, clean water was used in the sluice boxes that chased out the dirty to find the jewels of the mountain. Fylers and elves guarded the water source, and no man dare drink from the sluice water. Many had tried only to find themselves poisoned by the dross of the mountain.
Jorai often wondered where the refreshing waters were, the waters from which he had drank freely growing up — from the well in his mother’s and father’s yard, from the streams he’d fished in as a boy. When he thought of that cool water, he could hear his mother singing as she worked on his Mantle of Praise, her silver thimble sparking starlight off the sunshine. For a moment, he thought he heard her voice, singing, but he couldn’t make out the words.
Old men and young swung with pick axes or shoveled the the slate, rock and rubbish pulled off the walls with their tools. Nobody spoke. They worked, with no real plan. Were jewels, gold or silver found? No one knew. It was an exercise designed to break the will and hope of those who worked in the mines. At the day’s end, a horn blew, and the men trudged out from their darkness into darkness. Too tired to play, too tired to hope, too tired to pray. Fires burned around the camp, the only real comfort they were afforded. They walked through a line for a bowl and old crusty, moldy bread.
Jorai stood, not knowing where to sit, when the water boy pulled the edge of his shirt, pointing to an old man sitting by a fire on the edge of a group of men who sat staring, exhausted, thoughtless. Jorai followed to sit next to the boy and the old man.
As Jorai bent to sit, he wondered at how hard it would be to rise up again. The old man looked at him solemnly, almost kindly, if kindness could be found in the Forest Where No Man Returned Unbroken.
Tearing at the hard bread, wondering at the hardness of it, he caught the old man’s eyes. The Old Man shook the bread as if to say, “Watch,” and dipped it into the soup, loosely called, because it had no flavor, no readily seen nutrients. Mimicking The Old Man, Jorai did the same, finding it was the only way to eat the bread.
“How long have you been here?” Jorai asked. The man looked puzzled, as if trying to remember something important. Finally, he answered simply, “When Hope was fresh.”
“What is hope now?” Jorai asked, puzzled at the answer. He hadn’t even thought of hope. It was as though his hope had been left behind at home with his song, sewn into the mantle his mother had sewn him as a child, and expanded with his wife when they married.
“Hope now?” asked the Old Man. “I know why now it is needed. I didn’t when I came into these woods. It has grown, though I cannot see evidence for what I hope. It has grown in strength like an old oak, not easily shaken away anymore, though I think in the beginning, my hope was very faint-hearted, wanting to give in to the despair.”
“What has given you hope in a place like this?” Jorai asked, looking around at the men and the boys, sitting around the campfire. Some sat blankly. Some looked to pick a fight with their neighbor, as if by fighting they would feel alive.
“It is my choice,” the Old Man said simply, shifting his eyes briefly to the guards, “They want me to throw my hope away. It is my own rebellion. My rebellion is to choose to Hope in The King of All Kingdoms and His Son. At first, to spite the guards–because when I first came to the woods it was to spite The King of All Kingdoms.”
“How does that spite give you hope?” Jorai asked, confused.
The Old Man just smiled. The little boy beside him leaned against his arm.
“I see you have met Zere,” The Old Man said. Zere gave Jorai a wan smile, as his eyes dipped to sleep.
The Old Man hummed softly, a song that reached into Jorai’s memory.
A routine began that day for Jorai. The day started with harsh work in darkness. The work ended in darkness, but every night, he sat with the Old Man and Zere. Every night, they talked quietly about what Hope looked like to the King of All Kings.
It was odd, Jorai thought, how rebellion has the power to push one to destruction or salvation.
Choosing Hope at first seemed like a faithless relationship. In the beginning, if he felt hope for five minutes in one hour of the day, it was a win for that day. For five minutes, He wasn’t giving the guards, the forest what they wanted–total and complete submission to their abusive enslavement.
Then, one day, he’d had hope burst within him for ten minutes in one hour. The creatures of the evil one must have sensed it, for they gave him a beating that night.
When they’d left him, Zere brought him water he’d stolen, stolen from the water that ran before it reached the sluice. The Old Man helped carry him to the shack and tended his wounds. While he tended them, he hummed songs. In his head, Jorai filled in the hum with words from the songs He’d carried within him but had forgotten.
As Hope grew in Jorai, so did the memory of the songs of faith he had sung with his parents and his wife, even with Davey. Around the fire at night, the Old Man would hum, and Jorai would add the words. Zere would settle against his leg, and he was reminded of Davey. As he sang, he tousled Zere’s hair, just like he used to Davey’s.
One day, the Old Man asked Jorai what He hoped for. When he’d first been captured, Jorai had hoped to be free to return home, to his wife and son. He still hoped that, but he knew that wouldn’t be possible unless he hoped in the King of All Kings to save him, that his King would one day hear the cries of his heart, and that somehow his heart would be worthy of Hope fulfilled.
“I give my allegiance–of all that I am to our King,” Jorai said quietly, passionately. “I didn’t have it out there, outside of this forest. If I cannot have it here in this place which has left me broken, I cannot have it out there. I am trusting Him, to take care of my family, though I have not. I am trusting Him to save me. Though it wouldn’t make sense to many, it makes sense here,” Jorai said, pointing to his heart. Tears in his eyes, he reached blindly for The Old Man, grabbing his hand, shaking it in conviction. “I am trusting Him for you, too–and Zere.”
Around the camps fires, the murmurings stopped. All the men and boys looked toward the Old Man’s campfire with Jorai, Zere and a group of others. A quiet, one filled with peace, like a breeze that carried the smell of Spring swept gently through. It unsettled many. The Fylers sensed it, too–and with the elves, they stomped around the camp, kicking out the fires, herding them all into their shacks.
During the night a terrible wind swept through. Trees crashed. The slats from the shack were pulled apart one by one. Many of the work crew ran to the mine, thinking to find safety there. Some sought to escape in the woods, and the Fylers tore after them, through the funneling clouds and pelting rain, capturing them by their arms, their shirts, and flinging them into the trees. They’d rather them dead than free.
The winds tore through the camp, wrapping the sluice around tree trunks and branches. As if the wind had fingers, it flung the rocks from the dam built by the slaves to keep the water flowing to a trickle, to keep them thirsty, to keep them unable fill themselves. Freed from its prison, the waters joined the storm, flooding the camp, washing deeply through the mouth of the mine, falling recklessly into all its hiding places, battering all who had gone in seeking safety.
At first, Jorai had pulled Zere and The Old Man into a nook in the mountainside, but as the waters rose they tried to climb. Looking up, Jorai thought he saw a goat climbing upward and followed pulling Zere and the Old Man. The water rose upward, pulling the Old Man from His grasp and then Zere. Jorai hung on the rock, weeping at his failure. Later, he couldn’t tell you what held him against that rock so that he didn’t fall. He’d say it felt like a big hand held him there, keeping him safe.
With the rising sun, the waters receded. Fylers, elves, and slaves were strew around, just like the sticks and rubbish flood waters bring. Survivors looked through the rubble for other survivors.
Those that had sought safety in the mines drowned.
Some tried to outrun danger and were flung about, landing on the hard ground, in briars that tore at them, impaled in the tree tops.
Jorai—how did he find himself saved? Instead of seeking to save himself from his own imprisonment, he tried to save The Old Man and the boy.
He helped pull out the men from the mine and bury them, praying a lament over them for their mothers and fathers.
Then he helped pull down those died after being flung in the trees by the fylers and the violent winds. It was there he found The Old Man. His eyes misted, his chest heaved in pain.
“Look,” a young man cried a few yards from him. “Look at the beautiful dove”
Jorai looked up to find The Old Man gone and a beautiful white dove flying in the blue of the sky. Jorai shook his head, rubbed his eyes. He asked the young man working beside him, “Did you see the old man up there?”
“What old man?” the young man said. “I only saw the bird.”
Jorai found himself saved that day. It wasn’t the the shock of those drowned in the cellars that saved him, nor the old man found impaled in the tree, but the little boy who’d touched something deep within him, reminding him of things his spirit had long forgotten in The Forest where No Man Comes Out Unbroken. He found him in the receding waters of the creek, his lifeless little body, his blue eyes open, staring, unseeing.
Without thinking, he gathered him in his arms and ran, as though his chest would burst. He ran through the woods, branches scratching, scraping, grabbing as though to keep him. The tears, they streamed down his face. He carried Zere, he didn’t know how far or for how long. He reached a road, continued running until he found himself at the Clockmaker’s Doorstep.
He kicked at the door, crying out. How he got there, he couldn’t tell you.
He didn’t know how much time had passed when the Clockmaker crouched down, put his hand on his shoulder, offering his hand to help him up. He walked him into the kitchen, set him in the settle, and set about making him a cup of tea.
Jorai poured out his story, his faithlessness, his disobedience, told him about his lostness and those who helped him remember. He talked about the old man and Zere, about how they’d given him Hope in The King of All Kingdoms..
As his he finished his story, Emunah came through the back door of the Clockmaker’s shop, along with Anahera. They’d come to take him to the healing houses.
“I just want to go home,” Jorai cried. “I want to see Simchara and Davey.”
“You are not yet ready,” The clockmaker said gently, kindly, firmly. “But you will be. . . It is your choice.”
At that moment, a pair of little feet darted out the back door behind Emunah. . . a clean child, in clean clothes, and leather sandals. He stepped back to look through the door into the room where the Clockmaker had taken Zere. He wasn’t there.
“Where did Zere go? What have you done with him,” Jorai asked the Clockmaker, looking back and forth from Emunah to the Clockmaker?
“Anahera will explain on your journey,” The Clockmaker said after a moment’s pause. Jorai looked at each face, looked through the kitchen window, before looking The Clockmaker directly in the eyes.
“Will you let Simchara know. . . about me?” he asked.
“She will know at the right time. She is in her own journey now. When she is ready, we will send her a message,” The Clockmaker said, in a voice both compassionate and commanding.
“But she, she and Davey, are they all right?” he asked.
All they would tell him was that she was with her parents, Simchara and Davey. He needed to go with Emunah to the healing houses, to trust her, and those who would help him not just regain his strength, but to gain more strength than he had before.
As he traveled with Emunah and Anahara, he thought about how he’d run from the woods to The Clockmaker’s shop. He couldn’t tell you how far he’d run. . . or how long it had taken. If The Old Man were there, he would have told him that he had enough hope to journey to a miracle. . .
Join me next week for the conclusion to Lined with Praise.
Pondering this powerful statement, Maryleigh, “Rebellion has the power to push one to destruction or salvation.”
Praise God for the soul that rebels to God and finds himself at home! I added a note to the beginning of the story that may be needed: “The content of the story isn’t chosen to incite a reaction due to the brutality of the deaths. After the stories I have heard through the years of prodigals taking hard roads, hearing their stories, what sometimes has turned the prodigal back to the Father’s house has been heart-wrenching moments of loss, real life scenarios like this. After every crucifixion, there is resurrection. God wastes nothing–and that is how we both want to rejoice and weep at the same time. God saves our lost lambs in ways we could never imagine.”
A good word for a time when hope is in short supply!
I added a note to the beginning that maybe needed to have been said: “The content of the story isn’t chosen to incite a reaction due to the brutality of the deaths. After the stories I have heard through the years of prodigals taking hard roads, hearing their stories, what sometimes has turned the prodigal back to the Father’s house has been heart-wrenching moments of loss, real life scenarios like this. After every crucifixion, there is resurrection. God wastes nothing–and that is how we both want to rejoice and weep at the same time. God saves our lost lambs in ways we could never imagine.”
One prodigal who returned home told me that her breaking was her making. You’ve illustrated that here.
Thank you, Debbie, for sharing that encouragement! Rejoicing for the prodigal come home with you!
” If The Old Man were there, he would have told him that he had enough hope to journey to a miracle. . ” Oh what precious hope to pray for hope! The lost will be found!!
Agreeing with you for the lost to be found, for their eyes to be opened to see the truth, and their hearts burn to come home!