JERUSHA KNELT BY HER BED and cried out to the Lord on Jenny’s behalf. The Rose of Sharon quilt was spread out before her, restored to its former beauty. Where the corner had been torn and the batting matted, Jerusha had skillfully pieced in new batting and sewn it with such tiny stitches that unless she looked at it very closely, she couldn’t tell it had ever been damaged. All of the ruined red silk rose petals had been replaced, and the mud and water stains had been removed by slow and careful washing. Now it was as she remembered it, the most beautiful quilt she had ever made. Jerusha’s thoughts carried her back to the days when she had labored over the quilt, planning her escape from the Amish life and cursing God for taking Jenna from her. She thought at the time that she was making the quilt for Jenna, a memorial to her precious little girl.
How You dealt with my heart, Lord. I was so proud and arrogant in those days. I believed You had killed Jenna because You hated me for my skill as a quilter. Now I know that we live in a sin-cursed world where bad things happen. But I also know that You are the one who gave me my skill and that every quilt I make comes from You and not from me.
She remembered when she had to make the choice between saving the quilt and saving Jenny from the storm. After she made the decision, she realized that the quilt had not been made only for Jenna, her firstborn, but also for Jenny, the little lost girl. And as she surrendered her own plans and the bitterness that was killing her, she found a wonderful blessing in the life of the little girl God gave her.
It was like the story of Job. Everything he had was gone, but in the end he repented and blessed God, and God restored everything and more.
Now Jenny was lost, and Reuben and Bobby had gone to find her. But Jerusha wasn’t angry with God. No, this time it was different. She trusted Him with Jenny’s life, and her prayers ascended to heaven on her daughter’s behalf.
Bobby and Gary and the rest of the men gathered in the front room. Three sullen men were standing against the wall.
“Two guys are missing,” Johnny said. “Luis and a younger guy. They must have Jenny.” He slumped down in a chair and put his hands over his face. Reuben started to move toward the men, but Bobby put a hand on his arm and held him back.
“I’ll talk to them, Reuben,” Bobby said.
He stepped in front of one of the men, a fat, beady-eyed, balding guy. “Where’s the girl?” Bobby asked quietly.
The fat man just glared back at Bobby. Reuben stepped forward and locked eyes with him. The fat man immediately started talking. “Okay, okay, the girl’s gone.”
Johnny looked up in surprise. “What do you mean, gone?”
“She got away when we were all out here drinking,” the fat man said. “She unlocked the door of the room somehow and ran out the back door. Jorge and Luis went to look for her. They wanted me to come, but I told them to find her themselves. It was too cold out there.”
Jerusha sat at the kitchen table as the first rays of dawn came up over the eastern fields. A kiss of frost had formed on the windows, and the beautiful crystalline patterns etched their magic on the glass. She lit a fire to take off the chill. Fall would soon be coming to an end, and it would be time for the Thanksgiving feast, for weddings, and for the friendly fellowship that the Amish shared together during the long winter months.
Once she would have felt great anticipation, but now her life seemed disconnected from everything but Jenny. It was hard for her to comprehend. She had lived in the simple way, she had been faithful to the ordnung, and she had shunned the world. But the world had crowded in on her life for the second time now, and once again her daughter was at the center of the storm. She thought of the Rose of Sharon and how the quilt had been inextricably bound to the lives of both of her daughters. And then it occurred to her—The quilt is bound to my life too!
She remembered the days when she had cut the pieces for the rose pattern, more than a hundred perfectly duplicated pieces of silk, overlaid and stitched together to make the beautiful rose in the center of the quilt. She thought about the way the rose had shone in the soft light of dawn, the morning of the big storm before she left for the fair. Not one stitch out of place, not one pucker, each piece perfectly placed and bound together.
You are the quilter of our lives. Your hand places us perfectly into the pattern of Your plan for us—a plan that You have always had in mind.
As Jerusha let the wonder of this revelation wash over her, the deep, peaceful voice that she had come to know again in these troubled days spoke to her spirit.
I sent you the Rose of Sharon quilt to awaken you, to tell you that I was reaching for you. But you had forgotten. You thought that the peace you knew before Jenna came into this world was born from your faith, from your husband, from the land. But it was from Me.
“Because you are the Prince of Peace?”
Yes. And Jenny has never known Me in that way. So she has never known peace. Jenny is looking for something out there in the world to give her peace. But she will only find it in Me.
“Then tell me, Lord, how I must pray for Jenny.”
I have a plan for each of My children. But if My sheep cannot hear My voice, they will not follow Me into the sheepfold, where I can guard them and protect them. Jenny needs to hear My voice for herself, not from you or from Reuben. And until she does, she is in great danger. I have no granddaughters, Jerusha—only daughters. That is how you must pray.
Jenny waited until the fluttering and squeaking bats were gone. Her ankle was beginning to throb again, and her left side ached where she had landed when she fell off the cliff. The cave was cold, but it was dry. She was lying on a sandy floor. The dim light from the first rays of the sun filtered through the low entrance and lit the cave enough for Jenny to see around her. She could see that the cave was narrow in the front where the roof came down to the entrance but that it widened out the farther back it went.
The floor was smooth sand except where a few rocks stuck out. Back into the cave a little farther, someone had dug a pit, and she could see that a few pieces of burned wood and ashes from an old fire were still in it. Jenny slowly got to her feet and looked around. She could feel her heart beating in her ankle. There were ledges on the wall, almost like shelves, and the stub ends of candles were stuck on them. Someone had obviously used this place, probably kids.
As she was looking around, she heard a noise from outside. She shrank back against the wall of the cave and cautiously peered out the entrance to see Jorge walking along the trail, following her tracks.
The sun was barely up, but there was enough light for her tracks to be easily seen. Jorge continued walking right past the brush in front of the cave. Jenny’s ruse had worked! He continued on up the trail until he was out of sight.
Jenny sank back down on the floor of the cave, her heart pounding. She waited in fear for him to come back. After a few minutes she thought about hiding from him farther back in the cave. She looked along the shelf where the candle stubs were to see if someone had left any matches. There! A small circular metal tube with a screw-on lid was lying beside one of the larger candles. She picked it up and unscrewed the lid. Inside were about ten perfectly dry wooden matches. There were four candles on the shelf. Three of them were burned almost all the way down, but the fourth stub was fairly large. She gathered all of them up and limped to the back of the cave.
There was an opening in the back wall that she could just barely see. She waited in the silence to make sure Jorge wasn’t coming back, and then she struck a match on a striker inside the lid of the tube. The match flared up, and she lit the candle and held it aloft as she began to walk down the narrow passage until she came to a blank wall. As she stood looking for any other way out she noticed that the candle flame was fluttering. A breeze.
She raised the candle higher. About five feet up the wall was a narrow opening. It appeared big enough to crawl through, but she couldn’t figure out how to get up. Then she noticed a pattern of holes in the wall of the cave leading up to the opening, almost as though someone had cut them for a ladder. She took one of the small candle stubs out of her pocket, lit it, and set it on a rocky projection next to the holes.
Jenny blew out her big candle and started climbing. The first step was easy because she could use her right foot. But when she put her weight on her injured left ankle, the pain almost made her fall off the wall. She gritted her teeth and pulled her weight up using the handholds. Slowly she climbed up the wall until she came to the opening. She put her knee up and used her hands to lever herself up and into the hole in the wall. It was cramped inside, but there was just enough space to turn around in. She leaned partway out and grabbed the smaller candle off the wall where she had put it. It blew out, and then she was in darkness. Jenny rolled over on her back and tried to get the matches out of her pocket. Her ankle was throbbing, and she wanted to give in to the urge to just break down and cry.
The narrow passage she was lying in sloped downhill, and there were loose rocks underneath her back. As she struggled to get the tube of matches out of her pocket, she felt herself begin to slide. She struggled to stop, but when she tried to push her left ankle against the wall, a jolt of pain shot through it and she took her weight off. Desperately she clawed at the walls, trying to get a grip. She slid a few more feet and then, with an agonizing jolt, she jerked to a stop. She tried to move her legs, but the injured one was stuck somehow. She was trapped in the dark.