The Ruby and the Pearl

Living at your parents’ house again is weird. Nobody knows how to act. The children have turned to devils; your parents over-parent you and over-indulge the kids; your husband is just trying to put one foot in front of the other and to keep them both out of his mouth. For you, each sunrise beckons a new battle. The whole house feels tight. You could cry every day, but there’s no point. What you need is a revelation.

Thankfully, you're just stepping into the best part of the day: the quiet hour. The two-year-old is napping while her older sister colors in the living room. Your parents have taken to having quiet time as well, and today, hubby is at a job fair. The front porch swing is all yours.

You settle in on the swing with a book and some tea and wait for your old friend. Every day at this time, old Chester ambles up with the mail and friendly words. In this neighborhood, mailboxes hang next to the front door, meaning that Old Chester walks from house to house, lugging a bag. It never weighs him down, though. Bearing a smile bigger than his face, it’s clear he loves his job. Chester has walked this neighborhood since you were little, and he remembers how you used to greet him in the front yard, “usually covered in dirt,” he loves to remind you. One summer in your teens, sickness had taken him off the route. The whole block breathed a sigh of relief when he came back after Christmas with that smile as big as ever, though he was noticeably thinner and walking more slowly. “Cancer can’t beat me!” he’d laughed. He regained full health and had held his place in the neighborhood ever since.

You, on the other hand, couldn’t have felt more out of place. But Chester’s daily delivery felt like home for a few minutes. You sit waiting, once again just pretending to read because your mind is always racing, your tears always threatening to breach a precarious dam. With your left leg curled under you, you concentrate on the bare toes beneath that keep you swinging. The constant connection with the smooth, cool paint comforts you. Right on time, you hear him, “Well, hello, Missy! How're you today?” 

Smiling at the nickname bestowed when you were in training pants, you close your book and answer him as honestly as you always have, “Hi, Mr. Chester. Things still aren't great. My husband is at a job fair, though, so hopefully something will pan out.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard about that fair! Down there at the stadium, right? Should be able to find him something down there.”

“Well, I hope so,” you mumble, without a hint of actual hope.

Old Chester squats down in front of the swing and tilts his head to grab your eyes with his. “Come on, little Missy. Things won’t be like this forever. Don’t forget, ‘He’s got the whole world in His hands.’ That means you, too. This is just a short trial—”

“He’s been out of work for eight months!” you interject, holding back agitated tears.

Chester shifts his bag around, so that it hangs behind him, and takes a knee. He reaches over to set your family’s mail on the swing next to you, and then he takes both of your hands in his. “Missy,” he gentles, and the dam just breaks. You can’t control the sobs. He squeezes your hands and looks earnestly into your face.

“Missy, God hears your pain, and He sees your fear. He hasn’t forgotten you. Eight months feels like a long time when you’re in it, but when you’re old like me, you’ll realize how short it really is. And, if you keep fighting—if you keep your eyes open to see—you’ll be able to look back on a life full of signs and clear testaments to God’s presence the whole time.” His fervor peaks, then he noticeably softens. Still, intensity undergirds his whisper: “But you gotta fight for it, because there’s a lot of people out there who drown in life's difficulties, and end up bitter. That’s the easy way, hard though it becomes. It’s easy to focus on the negative, but it'll destroy you. Don’t take the easy way. The narrow path is hard, but it brings life even in the drought, Missy Girl. Hold on to Jesus.”

You and the mailman wait in silence to let the words he spoke settle in. As they work, you find your shoulders relaxing, but the tears keep slipping down. You pull back one hand so you can wipe your cheeks, but then you’re not sure what to do after drying your palm on your jeans. It was like you’d interrupted communion. Returning to his hand feels untimely and unsuitable, so you awkwardly wrap that arm around your middle. He keeps the other hand.

 To your relief, Chester breaks the silence and draws you back in. “You haven’t lost your faith, have you?”

“No, I…” you trail off, suddenly wondering if you could remember where you’d put it. 

“He hasn’t left you. I’m sure of it.” He smiles.

You sigh. “Thanks, Chester. I know. I guess I just stopped hearing His voice a long time ago.”

“Doesn’t mean He stopped talking,” he offers.

The mailman’s words were probably true enough. You hadn’t been listening to know either way. “Thanks. And sorry… I’m sorry for all of this. I know you have work to do.” You gesture toward his bag and look at him in repentance.

“This is my work, Missy. Giving people their mail is just a hobby,” he winks. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, see ya.”

He heads next door, and you take a big gulp of tea. Feeling both grateful and embarrassed, you watch Chester until he disappears onto Mr. Shaw's porch. You begin combing through the handful of mail beside you, making one pile for your parents and another for you. All the letters in your pile bear the printed yellow strip across the bottom, noting that they were forwarded from the house you loved and lost. This makes sorting mindless, as long as you don’t think about that old address.

As you set to opening the first envelope, your eyes wander to your parents’ pile. You note that the address on the topmost envelope looks handwritten. You’ve always longed for a world where people handwrite letters as a matter of normal communication. Seeing that letter makes you feel nostalgic for a time you’ve never known, and you’re a mite envious of whichever parent will be receiving such a treasure. With that thought, you check to see whether it’s for Mom or Dad, but find that it is actually for neither one.

There, in plain letters, you see your first name running right along into your maiden name, with your parents’ home address under it. The script looks familiar, and though it warms your heart and quickens your pulse, you can’t place it. No return address is offered. The postmark, only half-stamped, offers an unhelpful clue: Ecuador. 

You set aside your other mail and take up the exotic, Ecuadorian envelope addressed to the you who used to be. Leaning back in the swing, you hold it up, examining the lettering. Definitely a man’s scrawl. Untidy, but not careless. Running your finger across your young name to feel the indentation, you wonder for another moment before ending the mystery. You turn the letter over and open it carefully, reverently.

Inside, you find a single, folded sheet of paper torn from a legal pad. As you slide it out, you feel the backs of words on your fingertips, as though, with much urgency, they are pushing through the paper to reach you. The same, familiar handwriting meets you when you unfold the letter. Of course, you scan immediately to the bottom to find the sender’s name.

“Eric,” you whisper.

You stop and look up. What? Why would he--? What is he doing in Ecuador? You interrupt your own thoughts by looking at the signature line again to confirm what you had just seen. Still Eric. You skip your eyes back to the top. The first line stood by itself, above even the greeting, with each word underscored with its own personal line:

“It was a prophecy.”

Oh, God.

You lower the letter onto your lap, closing your eyes. You hadn’t heard from God in probably a decade, and here He is showing up twice in ten minutes. And this time, with him.

Eric.

His name, written with his own hand, on his own paper, and mailed to the you he used to love. You hadn’t seen or heard from him since the day he walked away from you—what, ten years ago? Almost exactly? Remembering that you had just finished your junior year in college and watched him graduate the week before, you confirmed it. Summer had been just beginning, and your world was ending.

Eric Davidson was the player his team had dubbed “Preacher Man”—the guy everyone knew not to invite to certain things. He was peculiar, to be sure, but he wasn’t weird, and he wasn’t disliked. Actually, everyone loved Eric. He was intense, but genuine. Exceptionally principled, and different, but approachable. He was never in a hurry. It was like he had all the time in the world for the person before him. And everyone talked to him, about everything. He was like the campus counselor, or chaplain.

And he shattered your heart.

You never knew why he broke up with you. Not really. In fact, he said he loved you and wanted to marry you, but that he was confident that God was saying no. That was how things were with him; when he’d heard from God, that was the end of the matter. Breaking up with you had broken him, clearly, but he also truly believed he had to. He had held you, cried with you, and then kissed you goodbye. You’d never seen him again because he lived three states away. His number changed—embarrassingly, you’d tried calling him a few months later—and he never had Facebook. (You'd checked for that, too, a few times, before you met your husband.) You hadn’t gone asking, but the few friends from college you kept up with had no idea what had happened to Eric.

The loss hurt deeply, but you moved on, believing that if Eric had been The One, then it would have worked out. This sentiment, while true, wasn’t the whole truth. One small fear had turned to shame the night Eric broke up with you—a haunting shame, which you kept buried. You just weren’t good enough. Eric had been mistaken to fall for you. That’s exactly the right word: he had fallen. You just never could hear God like he did; you never understood the Bible like he did; you never evangelized like he did. You admired Eric for all of those things, but you just never had a heart like his.

You carried this shame into your next serious relationship a couple of years later. He was such a great guy—genuinely incredible. Thankfully this time, God didn’t out you, and this guy did marry you. You always felt a secret guilt, though, like he never realized who you really were—or maybe he realized too late and was making the best of it. This contempt for self haunted you, but you shushed it away most days and told it what you wished were true, that it was wrong. But now this letter, seemingly from another time and definitely from another world, waited to confirm it. It took you a long while to work up the courage to open your eyes. When you did, you started at the top again.

“It was a prophecy.”

What was?

You keep reading:

"Hi Sunshine.

"It’s been ten years now, and I am finally free to tell you what I wanted to tell you all those years ago.

"By now, you’re probably not interested in all the details, but suffice it to say that the Lord woke me one night with a vision. It was heavy, pressing, and so, so bright. Words were spoken to my heart that forever changed everything I thought my life would be. I wanted to marry you, but He said no. Not just no to you, but to everyone. I am called to live life unmarried, forever. It has been terribly hard at times. But the good has outweighed the terrible, and the most important thing is that it has been right. I knew it was the right decision to leave you, no matter how much it tore out our hearts, and the past ten years in the jungle of Ecuador has shown me over and over again that this is where I should be.

But, the prophetic vision that night wasn’t just about me. I wouldn’t be writing you a letter if it was. He sent me to the foreign mission field alone, but He showed me something about you as well—it just wasn’t for you to know yet. Last night, the Lord sent me that part of the vision again… the part about you. This time, I know I must share it."

These words pull you straight out of the swing and onto your feet. Intense heat radiates from your body as you glance around for witnesses because this can't be real. Chester is walking on the other side of the street several houses down. An old Ford rumbles past, completely disregarding the revelation unfolding on your porch. With shaking hands, you kneel down on the painted boards and spread the letter out before you. Closing your eyes, you try to pray. It seemed appropriate, but you have no idea what to say—you’re too shocked—so you open your eyes and keep reading.

“I heard these words,” you read, “‘She must look to the Ruby and the Pearl. They’re just the beginning.’”

You catch your breath and sit up. What? How could he even…? There’s no way… You have to start that part again:

"I heard these words, 'She must look to the Ruby and the Pearl. They’re just the beginning.' Suddenly, I was in a room full of glittering gemstones. The enormity of it overwhelmed me, and the jewels were so bright. I didn’t hear any more words, but I saw you at another man’s side, standing in the middle. It was clear that that man wasn’t me. I don’t know really what all of that means, except that God wants you to know. I hope it speaks to you somehow.

"I have to confess that this part of the vision is what hurt the most. I could accept that I had a different calling, but it was heartbreaking to see you with someone else. It made me question why I couldn’t be the one—wasn't I good enough for you, good enough to be part of something so beautiful with you? I wrestled with this for a long time. But this time when I received the vision, I felt only gladness for you. I hope you’ve found that guy, and I hope that whatever that treasure means, you've got it. I guess you just need to look to the Ruby and the Pearl…? :)

"You'll always be the best.

"Eric"

A gust of wind threatened to carry the paper away, and you snatch it. You sit, staring at the glittering grass as the sun and wind play a game with shadows from the oak tree. You squint, thinking of the gems in Eric’s vision. You try to imagine yourself and your husband surrounded by jewels, and then become breathless imagining what they must represent. Look to the Ruby and the Pearl—he had capitalized those words—they're only the beginning.

A rudely honking horn bursts your reverie, and irritation replaces the wonder. You see your very own husband half-parking, bursting out of the car, and then tripping over his feet to get to you.

“HONEY!” he yells as he rushes near. “Honey, you’re not going to believe this!”

You hop up and meet him at the stairs. “You got a job?!” you ask, arms extended, ready to celebrate.

“No, no. I didn’t. This is better! This is so much better. Babe, you better sit down.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes! Yes. You’re not going to believe it,” he repeats as you sit. “It all became clear to me at the stadium. I—okay, this is going to sound weird—but I feel like I heard God’s voice.”

You raise your eyebrows.

“No, seriously. I don’t even feel like it. I know it. Without a doubt, God spoke to me.” His eyes were wild.

“Did He mention any… jewels?” you caution.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Never mind. Tell me!” your hands—one of them still holding a prophecy—rush him on. “What did He say?”

For the next ten minutes, he explains that he hadn’t found a job because he wasn’t going to get one. Instead, the two of you were going to rescue more drug babies—thousands of them. “Not just us, of course! We will put together a network of couples just like us, who want to conceive, but can’t…”

You start to cry.

Just then, the screen door swings open, full of the fury of a four-year-old who’d been crossed.

“Mommy! MOM-MY! Look what she did! Look what she did!” Your oldest runs to you with tattered paper in her fists and falls onto your lap. “It’s ruined! She did it on purpose! She was supposed to be sleeping!” she sobs.

The screen door creaks open and a little tow-head peeks through the crack.

“Ruby…” you begin, in your Mom voice.

The response is immediate: “I sorry, Pearlie! I sorry! I sorry!”

She runs to her daddy, who scoops her up and looks at you. You both suppress a giggle, and then he asks, “Hey, what’s with that letter you’re holding?”