Historical setting: 602 C.E. The cottage in the Vosges
These boys stand here at the end of the bed twisting fingers, looking away from me, apologizing, sorrowfully confessing something. But what?
“You told Mater Doe you were sorry and she thought you were sorry you tried to kill me. But it was you who rescued my bones. I know what you did, and I’m grateful.”
“We should have saved you from the guards.”
“Your best gifts are with words and reason and the guards were acting on orders — not reason. What else could you have done? I told you to stay hidden and you obeyed. So, you did a soldier’s best to follow orders. I’m grateful you are both so courageous to come back for me, and with a wagon, so I didn’t have to come home a dead man being dragged behind a horse. And here you traveled all that way for days, just the two of you finding your way. I never imagined you could do that. And yet here we are home. Where did you find so much courage?”
Gabe said, “When they drove that polearm through, I prayed for God to stay close. But it happened anyway. So, I told God, that the God we trusted to save you had failed us.”
Greg said, “We both blamed God for letting it happen. God could’ve saved you, you know. But there was no one to help.”
I remind them, “God was present. And now we are all safe. Why are you sorry?”
Gabe answers, “I don’t know, we are just sorry, sorry, sorry.”
Greg suggests, “Maybe we are sorry that we blamed God.”
Gabe adds, “And that we didn’t know life from death, so we put you in the wagon under the dirty straw so we wouldn’t have to see you.”
“I can tell you I didn’t know life from death either at that moment. While you were blaming God I was praying, ‘Thank you God for these beautiful, brilliant boys, for giving them the courage to do an amazing thing.’ What else do you think God could do when everyone of us everywhere is asking for something different?”
“Papa, I know what you say, God just loves us anyway.”
“And God even loves the guards that poked you through. That’s what you say, but how is there any sense in anything then?”
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 