“Joab.” Sarah dropped to her knees by her husband. He looked so ill … his once-firm jaw line now marred with angry scars. The eyebrows that had depicted his strength in their perfect arches were burned away. Yet, never had he looked more wonderful to her. She brushed aside a brown lock of hair. He needed his hair washed. Perhaps tomorrow.
“You came back.” His husky voice melted away the last of her willful desire to run. How could she have left him in the first place?
“I have.” She touched his hand. “And I plan to stay.”
She scanned his scarred body. The puss-filled sores had scabs forming, though the greenish-yellow infection still oozed from under them. She reached to touch the blisters on his face.
He grasped her hand. “We’ll get through this together.”
“Yes, we will.” But how? Truth-be-told, she had no idea.
“Trust God.” A smile quivered on his chapped lips, and his golden-brown eyes brightened.
“Yes.” The God of the heavens. The God who created the endless universe. Surely that God could help them. “I had wished we were dead, with …” She choked on Rupert’s name. To say it in the same sentence as death—she just couldn’t. “Like our son.”
His grip tightened. “One day we will be with him.”
Tears formed in her eyes, and she brushed them away. “I know, but I wanted it to be now.”
“Our work is not done. Abbadon …”
Sarah took a sharp breath. That was who spoke to her at the restaurant. How could she not have known him? “He’s here.”
“He is, but so is God.”
She shouldn’t tremble at Abbadon’s name. He had no hold over them. But he had nearly deceived her, as he had done others.
“Sarah, look at me.”
She looked into the eyes of the man whose strength had been hers for so many years. But he was not to be her strength, was he? She had relied on him, not God. No man could be the perfect protector and provider.
Joab’s eyes darkened. “He thought to bring me harm through you, didn’t he?”
She shook her head. “He could never do that. We have God on our side.” But Abbadon had nearly succeeded.
“We must choose to follow God.”
Like dynamite, his words exploded in her mind. Had God determined to test them? Was that why all this happened? “What are we to do?”
He stretched his shaky hand out and touched her face. “Bring God the glory.”
His caress, light and momentary, stirred within her a renewal. Indeed, she must do all she could to bring God the glory. The God who dwelt in the heavens. The God who dwelt in eternity. She pressed her hand against her chest and searched Joab’s face. “The God who dwells in us.”
Joab gave a slight nod, closed his eyes, and whispered, “The God who saved us.”
Sarah bent forward and kissed his brow. “Thank you, Lord, for showing me this, and for bringing me through.” But God, will You restore us?