Twice Loved at Armageddon

Twice Loved at Armageddon, Part XIX

Farah wakes by the ruins of their villa in 2006.  She is picked up by British archaelolgists working nearby. Impressed with her, they hire her to clean their house.  Realizing her potential, they help her enroll in Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

       Farah felt something like a wind rushing through her.  Her pain was gone but sleep overtook her. She woke later but could see nothing.  Did Scott put her in a tomb?  Was she wrapped in a burial shroud? No, nothing seemed to bind her. She was outside!  How did she get there?  In the darkness the house seemed but an indistinct mound in the distance. No light burned within. Would Scott have left her alone during the cold of night as some kind of treatment?  Why, when she had no fever?  In fact, her pain was all gone.

   That's when she realized that she was healed.  How, she didn't know.  Jesus at the time of her unfortunate illness was on his way to Jerusalem. Scott had told her that Jesus was going there for Passover. Had the signs and wonders associated with those events benefitted Farah somehow?

   When she brought her hands together to say a prayer of thanks, she realized she was holding her Cord of Hercules.  Why did she have it in her hands now?  She hadn't worn it around her waist for days. Then she realized she also wore her embroidered wedding gown. Why, she asked herself?

   When she smelled the costly perfume, it hit Farah like a mighty ocean wave! Scott had dressed her for burial and placed the symbol of their marriage covenant in her hands. She had been brought back from the jaws of death itself!  How?

   Now she wanted Scott.  She wanted to throw her arms around him, kiss him, and tell him that she was all right.  They would have a long life together after all.  He had to be worried about her out there all by herself.  She had to find him.

   In the first light Farah could make out only the distant Golan Heights, but in minutes the shadows would melt away.  Those at the villa and the servants' quarters behind it must have been sleeping in that morning. No one stirred, not even the workers with tools. But when the morning shadows died away, Farah wasn't ready for the awful truth.  Flavius's estate was gone, and all that remained of their home was a grassy mound!  Even the lush green vegetation had given way to scrub grass and sickly trees.  Travelers would never know it was even there.  The rocky road running north and south along the Sea of Galilee was now wider and paved smoother than the Appian Way.

   Then it hit Farah between the eyes.

   She was now in Scott's time, his world that he had talked so much about.  But she was alone there.  He had said it may be that way although he wanted so much for them to arrive there together.  For that he had tried so hard to prepare her.  Now she was on her own, like it or not.  She remembered he had said often that it was not possible to anticipate everything she would face.  No matter how well he had prepared her, there would always be surprises.

   She regarded her marriage cord, and her whole life with Scott came rushing back: her intense anger, his unconditional love, her unearned shame, her cleansing by John the Baptist, and fulfillment in their marriage booth. It had all been real between her and Scott.

   "Oh, Scott!" she thought.  "Scott, how long will it be until you take me and whisk me up again in those loving arms?  How long will it be until I feel you beside me?"  She looked down at her marriage cord again.  It would keep Scott and their marriage in her heart until they came together again. It gave her new hope as she thought of what she was going to do next.

   Scott had feared she would be dropped into his world at some place or time in which she'd never find him.  They had talked her transitioning into his world so many times.  It might be days or even years before they would be reunited.  They promised to love each other with uncommon strength until that day.  Scott said to be patient with him even if he didn't know her at first.  She had a loose plan, one that would need to be flexible.  Because he couldn't tell her everything she'd have to know, he had pushed her so hard to become as independent of men as the ancient world would allow without punishing her for it.