An Instrument in His Hands

Part 3 Chapter 7

Part 3

Chapter 7

Tears came into my eyes. I could not hide them from Leahla, though I tried.

All those nights I had laid awake praying for Aaron’s safety among the Lamanites! All those years that I had worked so hard all day and evening so that I could sleep instead of missing him!

‘Tell me,’ I whispered, my head bowed.

‘I was a girl, and I travelled with my mother to the Land of Middoni to visit her cousins. The king of the land was Antiomno, kin to us.’

I raised my head and looked at her. ‘My brother said that you were a Lamanite princess’.

She immediately protested, ‘Oh, no! I’m just kin to them. But at the time of my visit, Aaron and others were tied up and on public display.’

I gasped.

‘They looked terrible – underfed, beaten, bleeding, and raw where the rough ropes tore at their skin, almost naked. Aaron still bears the scars of those ropes on his flesh.’

I covered my face with my hands and rocked back and forth. I knew he had suffered terribly! I had felt it! I knew the Lamanites hurt him!

‘Yet, in Middoni there were a few that believed, and they came each day to place food in their mouths, often to be persecuted themselves. But the missionaries bore all the abuse so patiently, and with such cheerfulness, that even my mother stopped railing on them. In fact, I confess that one evening, I myself snuck them some food,’ she whispered.

‘Thank you,’ I whispered back. When I finally uncovered my eyes and looked at Leahla, she was smiling with immense satisfaction.

‘You still love him, don’t you,’ she said smugly.

That was obvious, but I wasn’t going to say so to his wife.

‘You waited all those years he was gone to marry him, didn’t you,’ she added, smiling delightedly.

I shrugged. I could have married Daniel. But I hadn’t when I dreamed of Aaron. I sat back, remembering the mountain and the terrible rice gods. When I looked again at Leahla, she was lying back contented, sure of my feelings.

‘Oh, no! Oh, no!’ I protested. ‘Don’t you think that now you can give up and die because I will replace you!’ I protested. ‘If I have any love at all for your husband, I will fight my hardest to save you for him. Can I do otherwise? If you die under my care, can I ever look him in the eye again?’

Leahla gazed back at me, startled. She had not considered this. We stared each other down for a while, until she glanced behind my shoulder as if looking at another person. Then she nodded in that direction as if talking to someone.

I turned to see, but there was nobody there. Who was she talking to - a spirit? An angel? Was she a visionary? Or dying?

‘We will leave that to God,’ she concluded with finality. ‘I will continue my story.’

‘If it does not tire you,’ I cautioned.

‘Speaking of my husband never tires me,’ she said. ‘Mother took me home to Shemnilon and I did not hear what happened to the brave Nephites for many years. I went to live in Lemuel where there were  Amulonites who preached against the missionaries. The men of my family listened to the Amulonites and did not believe the missionaries when they came to our city, so I was not baptized.’

‘Then how?’ I interrupted.

‘I will tell you.’ She looked pleased that she had my full attention and prepared herself to plead Aaron’s case to the full. He was an angel in her eyes.