Harvest of Rubies (34 page)

I picked up an empty silver goblet that was resting on the table next to me and twirled it in my hand, blind to its ravishing workmanship. “I always knew that, somehow. She used to tease my father and make him laugh out loud. I haven’t heard him laugh like that in years.”

“I think she was the only woman with whom he had a deep relationship, certainly the only one with whom he communicated on a meaningful level. Somehow, she managed to draw him out of his shell. When she died, his world shattered.”

A memory of my father staring into space with red-rimmed eyes flashed in my mind. I saw myself as a child, calling out to him again and again, “Abba! Abba!” my voice full of the terror of a little girl who had already lost one parent and now stood petrified lest the other one disappear too. He had ignored my cries.

It wasn’t my Abba who had disappeared. It was me. He had stopped seeing me. I had grown invisible to him.

“I was there, remember?” I said to Nehemiah.

“You were there, yes. But you were too young to understand. In the first months of his loss, he was too devastated to pay any mind to you. Then as he started to emerge from that abyss of grief, there you were. He didn’t know what to do with you. He had no idea how to care for a child—a daughter.”

“I know. I was a nuisance to him.”

“Sarah, this is where you are wrong. He loved you. He didn’t know how to talk to you, how to show you what was in his heart. But he loved you.”

I crossed my arms, the silver goblet half forgotten in my clutched fingers, and sat up straight, my back rigid against his plush sofa. “My lord Nehemiah, I beg your pardon for disagreeing with you. But the truth is, I was a disappointment to my father. I was not as beautiful as my mother, or as winsome, or as sweet. I said the wrong things. I needed too much attention. I required too much care.”

“You think your father avoided you because he thought you weren’t good enough? Because he thought you demanded too much?
No!
Your father avoided you because he didn’t know how to reach out to you. The shortcoming wasn’t in you. It was in him.”

I blew out my breath in disbelief, but Nehemiah ignored me.

“When I came back into your lives, the damage had already been done. Somehow, you had come to believe that you had nothing of worth to offer. It had nothing to do with your father anymore; it was inside your own heart and mind. You were the one sitting on the judgment seat and finding yourself deficient.”

I crossed my arms tighter about my chest. “It was the truth.”

“It was a
lie
!” Nehemiah roared, making me jump.

He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was calm again. “I could see that learning to read gave you a sense of accomplishment. A new attachment to your Abba.

“I believed the Lord had given you the talent for a reason. I also hoped He would use it to bring you closer to your father. To heal this mistaken notion you harbored in your head that you are not special. Whenever I spent time in your company, I was struck anew by how precious you are. But you could not see it.”

My eyes grew round with wonder. He thought I was
special?

“But you wrapped your whole soul around your work. You established yourself in court and became the queen’s favored servant. But did you feel secure and happy? Did your success give you peace?”

I chose not to answer and he pressed on.

“Do you know why not? Because you were out of step with God’s design. God’s design includes the use of our talents. When God created the first man and woman, He gave them many gifts. And then He gave them work that required the use of those gifts. He assigned them a profound task, much more important than anything you can accomplish in your lifetime. They were to take charge of the earth. They were to rule over the world.”

I placed the goblet back on the table with a restless move. I could tell Nehemiah was gearing up for a good long lecture. Perhaps that was what I needed, I thought, and forced myself to listen.

“But do you think the Lord counted them worthy because of their abilities?” he went on, ignoring my restlessness. “They hadn’t even begun their work yet when He made His first pronouncement over them. He called them
very good
when they hadn’t achieved a single thing. They hadn’t proven themselves capable. He pronounced them
good
not because of what they had accomplished, but because of who He had made them to be.”

I felt myself freeze as I heard those words. I had never thought of God’s response to Adam and Eve in those terms. Nehemiah was right. God counted them as good already, before they had done anything worthwhile.

Nehemiah nodded his head, as though he perceived that I was finally beginning to comprehend his meaning. “This is a life of right order, Sarah. The heart that knows the Lord as the
source of its beauty and value knows freedom. You have lost yourself in the gifts God gave you. Those blessings have become your master.

“When your inmost being is in step with the right order of God, you reap His rest. Your soul tastes of His peace.

“Instead,
your
inner world produced turmoil, because you lost sight of who you really were. You lived in fear. Fear that you should prove dissatisfactory. For years I have watched you live a disordered life. You’ve placed your intellect, your ability to learn faster than most, your quickness of thought and understanding at the core of your life. This was never the Lord’s purpose for you.”

I made an involuntary gesture with my arm; the silver chalice knocked over. It made a hideous noise as it toppled on the polished ground. I hadn’t the strength to pick it up. I felt utterly arrested by Nehemiah’s words.

“My child, the Lord’s care for you has never depended on what you achieve. You were created for His love, not to be His work mule. Your accomplishments are meant to be a response to that love; instead you have made love a response to your accomplishments.

“I don’t know if your husband will ever love you the way you desire. I don’t know if he will ever see you as you truly are—a woman of rare qualities and beauty. I do know one thing, however. You can feel beloved and fulfilled even without your husband’s affections. The steadfast love of the Lord for you never ceases. Never, Sarah.”

I brought the edge of my expensive linen sleeve to my dripping nose. “I’m beginning to understand that. I am beginning to believe that the Lord is a very present help in my troubles. I have opened my heart to loving Him again.” I wiped the tears from my drowning eyes and wailed, “I wished you weren’t
going away, Cousin Nehemiah.” I realized what I had called him and bit my lip. “I beg your pardon. I meant
my lord.”

He laughed. “Cousin Nehemiah will do. Haven’t you been like my own daughter these many years?”

I gaped at him, awash in wonder. Since my mouth was already open, I decided to put it to use. “How did you grow so wise?”

“I pray often.” Nehemiah’s gaze dripped kindness. “I am pleased to hear that you have faith. You will need it.

“Sarah, I have probably climbed higher than any son of Israel in my generation. Some of our people respect me for it. Others revile me and call me a traitor for living with the Persians and adopting their ways.”

I knew what he meant. Having lived in the palaces of the king as a Jew, I had come across the prejudice of many of our people who thought I had grown too Persian. I nodded. “That must make it difficult for you, my lord. Unlike me, you are still very active in the Jewish community.”

He shrugged. “It’s not difficult if you don’t care for what other people think of you. Some judge me a great success. Others turn their backs when they see me. What’s that to me? So long as I have the steadfast love of the Lord.

“If one day all the works of my hand should fall apart at my feet, do you think I will lose the knowledge of who I am in God? Not for a moment! My heart may break. But not because I will think myself any less a man for that failure. I will always have my standing before the Lord as His child. I will always know I can go to Him and be welcomed. That is who I am. My work is a small part of me—an assignment from God. Whether He give it or take it away, it will not change how He perceives me.

“This is what I want you to learn about yourself, Sarah.”

Before I could respond, Nehemiah’s assistant burst in with
some urgent summons and I took my leave, knowing my cousin had already extended more time to me than he had to give. I was in no mood to return to my apartment and chose to go for a stroll in the gardens.

As I walked under an archway covered with pink roses, I pondered Nehemiah’s extraordinary revelations. The first thought that came to me was that he thought me
wonderful
. Nehemiah? My accomplished, sought-after cousin thought I was wonderful? I knew he had shown me favor through the years, but I had always assumed that it rose more out of a sense of duty to my mother than any real affection for me.

It seemed I had so many things backward. I thought my father was disappointed in me and I had come to believe I
was
disappointing. I had spent so much time trying to earn his love and he had loved me already.

Nehemiah’s last words burned in my mind:
That is who I am. My work is … an assignment from God
. I didn’t have his ability to rest in the Lord’s opinion of me. I had built my own measures of worth and acceptability. They were false; they destroyed my peace. It dawned on me just how doggedly I served these measures. I served them with more fierce determination than I served God. I wanted the good opinion of others more than I wanted the Lord. I suppose I was trying to undo all the years in my life when my father had ignored me.

But if Nehemiah was right, the Lord cared not if I cost too much, or if I proved useful. It mattered not to Him if others thought well or ill of me. His measures were so different from mine.

Overwhelmed by my discoveries, I collapsed on a marble bench and leaned against its carved back. It was a breezy day and I felt the cold creep through my white linen dress. I pulled my legs up on the bench and wrapped my arms around them.

Nehemiah had accused me of living a disordered life. I, who once had charge of bringing order into the queen of Persia’s life, could not bring order into my own. I could manage records; my heart defeated me.

Who could set the heart free but God? “Lord,” I cried out, in my mind. “You don’t see things the way we mortals see them. We judge by outward things, but You look at the heart. So much of my life, I have chased after outward concerns. I have wanted to excel. But You, O Lord, know my heart. Please forgive me for serving the false masters of my soul. Help me to please only You.” I thought for a moment and then emended my prayers. “Help me to
want
to please only You.”

I ran out of words. Somehow, in the quiet aftermath of my prayers, I grew still in my soul. It was a healing stillness. I knew that I was at the beginning of this journey—knew that having become aware of my sin and desiring to change was merely the start.

Still, I felt as though another great wall around my heart had begun to crack. As if by acknowledging my upside-down values, I had allowed God to draw nearer to me. I felt His presence as that of a cherished Father rather than a distant deity. Like a child calming in the company of a loving parent, I grew contented, and before long, fell asleep.

It must have been past noon when I awoke, stiff from my nap on the hard marble. A blanket of well-being seemed to cover my soul. I grinned, full of joy.

I was too happy to go back to the confines of the palace and decided to continue my earlier walk. The sweet scent of thousands of perfumed flowers clung to me as I walked, making my head spin with their beauty. It wasn’t until I reached the inmost wall of the city, standing tall and white like a barrier of ice, that I finally stopped.

From the corner of my eye I saw a little boy coming toward me, his nursemaid a few steps behind. I recognized him. It was Arash, Damaspia’s favorite nephew. At three, he was adorable enough to have won an army of admirers. He approached me with bold steps; I had met him a number of times while working for the queen.

“Do you have any parchment?” he asked. I had once given him a small piece, and he now asked for parchment every time he saw me.

“Good afternoon, Arash. I’m afraid I haven’t any parchment for you today.”

“Oh.” One chubby hand scratched his head.

A butterfly with lilac wings, drawn to the scent of the potions in my hair, began to fly around me. “What’s that?” Arash cried.

“A butterfly.”

With slow, deliberate attention, he repeated the word after me. We had played the game before. Most of the time he already knew the words, but he pretended to learn them, anyway.

“What’s that?”

“A wall. Do you know what color it is?”

“White. What’s that?” he said pointing to the structure jutting out of the base of the wall.

“Ah. That’s a buttress.” I assumed this was a new word to Arash. “It helps hold up the wall.” I repeated the word, breaking it into syllables to make sure he knew how to pronounce it. A twinkle in his eye alerted me to the fact that one of us was in trouble, and I was sure it wasn’t Arash.