She cut her longings off there and pulled away to grin through her tears. “It is good to see you.”
“Likewise.” Pythius’s smile had changed. Not so light and proud as it had been when they met. Now it was colored by the sorrow that had saturated them when last they were
together. He looped her hand through the crook of his arm. “I am sorry it took so long for me to realize you were here. I did not even realize my sons were back.”
She let him lead her away from the grave, in the direction of the gardens. “I sent messages to everyone I could think of, but none knew where to find you.”
He chuckled—a low, ironic sound. “No, they would not have thought to look where I was. You might have though. Did you know, my daughter, that there is a Jewish temple here
in Sardis?”
Her eyes went wide. “You were there?”
“I have spent most of the summer with a man named Timon, a Levitical priest whose family ended up here during the exile.” He drew in a long breath and looked . . .
peaceful. “I have been learning the Law of Moses, the Prophets. Studying so that I might convert to Judaism, and my wife with me.”
Surely it thrilled her—it must, even though her numb heart registered no accelerated beating. “Pythius, that is wonderful.”
He laughed again. “No one else thinks so. I cannot explain it to them, but I knew that day I found you on the mountainside that I needed your God in my life. I needed him
to be my God. Whenever I am confused or doubt what I have learned at Timon’s hand, I remember feeling him with you. And I know again he is a living God, and that his ways
are best.”
A Psalm crowded her mind at his words.
As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
His ways were best, yes, but so mysterious sometimes. So many days she sat by the sunflowers on her son’s grave and wondered why the Lord had brought her here. Perhaps this
was her answer. Perhaps all her suffering was worthwhile in the eyes of Jehovah because it brought this great man to faith.
Perhaps, when feeling returned to her heart one of these days, that would fight off the anger that had been glossed over with numbness.
“Kasia.” Oh, how like Abba he sounded, able to make her name into a command to tell him what he wanted to know. “What has happened?”
My tears have been my food day and night,
While they continually say to me,
“Where is your God?”
She drifted to a halt and looked up at the spur of the mountain. Never could she do so without shivering at the memory of the shadows springing from it.
When I remember these things,
I pour out my soul within me.
“I am lost, Pythius, and I can find no star to guide me.”
“You?” He patted her hand. “You are not lost, Kasia, though perhaps caught in an eclipse. You know where your direction lies.”
Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him
For the help of his countenance.
She tried. She tried to pray as she had since she left home. How many hours did she spend in silence, banging at the gates of heaven? She prayed for her family, for Esther
and Mordecai. She prayed for her heart to heal, she prayed for the strength to stand without Xerxes, to need him no longer.
I will say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I mourn because of the oppression of my enemies?”
It was hard to pray without praying for Xerxes, but so help her, she would not beseech Jehovah on his behalf. No more. He had named himself her enemy.
Pythius dipped his head down to look into her eyes. “Is it as bad as all that? So that you cannot even speak of it?”
She swung her head back and forth. “There is nothing left to speak of. He sent me here in dishonor, Pythius. He will not acknowledge our child, he forbade me mention
Jehovah. My marriage is undone.”
“It can be mended.” He wiped a stray tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “For months I writhed in agony, remembering my son and the king’s terrible command. I
hated him, Kasia. I would awake in the night consumed by it. And I would go to Timon the next day, demand of him why his all-powerful God did not avert these tragedies. Do
you know what he told me?”
As with a breaking of my bones,
My enemies reproach me,
While they say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
“No,” she whispered.
“He told me I could not love the Lord with all my heart if any of it was filled with hatred. I had to first forgive, then I could seek Jehovah and be filled with his
understanding.”