by Dawn Morris
“I can’t believe you’re here and that you still love me,” I said quietly, wrapped in his arms. Jannik nuzzled me, gently kissing my face.
“Dani, I will always love you. I can’t believe God actually brought us back together.”
“I can’t believe it either. It has been so hard. But Jannik, we’ve got to get out of here!” I pushed myself up and got out of bed and began pacing. We needed to come up with a plan.
We fell asleep, both exhausted. When we awoke, just before dawn, I crept into the kitchen of the cottage, careful to keep the lights off. I took some fruit and cheese from the refrigerator and quietly poured two glasses of water then went back to my room. I’d already pulled down the shade so no one could see us. We sat on the bed, the bowl of fruit between us, and continued plotting our escape. As the sun rose, we heard a loud humming sound outside.
I pulled the shade to the side and looked out into the garden. An intense light flooded my eyes. The humming noise grew so intense, my ears hurt. I gasped as I felt the earth tremor below my feet. Jannik ran to my side just as the light vanished. The world went pitch black.
Emergency lighting flickered on, and I heard people shouting from inside the main house. As I stood looking out of the window, I saw a man run out of the big house and look up at the sky, pointing.
Huge rocks began falling out of the sky. Terrified, Jannik and I dropped to our knees, and he began to pray out loud, “Yeshua, help! Keep us safe!”
I crawled to the front door and wrenched it open. Jannik followed me, and we sat in the doorway. It didn’t seem to matter now if we were seen—and watched the unbelievable devastation outside. We clung to each other as great flashes of lightning bolted toward the earth, landing in explosions all around the small house. I cried out as a huge gap in the earth appeared between the main house and the garden. Loud screams filled the dark air.
My own screams joined in the shared terror as I watched the main house fall away out of sight. I lunged forward, wanting to get away—to where, I didn’t know—but Jannik stopped me and held me firmly in place.
“We can’t go out there right now.”
I screamed as the earth rose up in great waves, and we fell to the ground.
“God help us!”
Jannik and I tried to get on our feet, but we only stumbled back to the ground. He put his body over mine protectively.
I screamed again as part of the guesthouse collapsed right next to us. The devastation went on and on as we clung together in terror.
Finally, it was over. We could see nothing but complete darkness.
FLOOD
Chapter 46
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land, like a stranger in a foreign country.
Hebrews 11:8
We left Ur the next morning. Surprisingly, the crowd in the street just stood by as our carts and horses, cattle, and herds of sheep and goats passed through the city to the gates. Abram rode before the caravan, dressed in armor, his face stern. Sarai rode beside him, dressed in a simple white dress, a stunning bride. All of the servants were armed and vigilantly watched the crowd. Abram believed all his male servants should know how to defend their valuable flocks, so they were trained in combat skills. Together, they were a formidable small army.
I rode in a cart with Terah, Lot, and Ebe. Haran’s body followed in a cart behind ours, at least his bones did. The vicious crowd had set fire to his body after they killed him. Late in the night, Abram had gone to the palace and gathered Haran’s charred bones and brought them back to his grieving father.
I prayed silently as our cart barreled through the city gates, looking behind us for any sign of the mobs from the night before. I was anxious to be gone from the city.
We traveled many weeks, always keeping the Euphrates River on our left. When we came to villages, we stopped a few days to rest and resupply as best we could. Even as we met people far upriver from Ur, Abram and Sarai were known by name. His prowess as a warrior was widely celebrated, or feared, while Sarai’s beauty was legendary. Wherever we went, people stared at her.
One day, as we traveled near the river, I looked back at Terah and noticed he was looking ill. Terah looks grey, I thought worriedly. Abram saw me looking at his father, pursed his lips together, and nodded at me silently. He’s worried, too.
The next day, we came to a small city built on the banks of the Euphrates River. Its arched houses were made of mud and looked like beehives rising out of the ground. It was quaint. We would stay. Our family settled in a long house made from several connected beehive structures near the edge of the town.
The whole family was gathered in Terah’s room, by his bedside.
“I am grateful you never gave up on me,” Terah managed to tell his son breathlessly. His skin was grey, and his lips had a blue tinge. He was stretched out; Abram sat on the bed next to him. Sarai stood behind him, her eyes red from crying. I rested in a chair across from them.
“I would never give up on you, Father,” Abram assured him. “Mother Ariana told me how much my mother loved you and prayed for you to know God.”
Tenderly, Terah took Abram’s hand in his. “I lived my life to please myself all of these years.” He paused and drew in a deep breath. “I regret I resisted the Creator’s goodness until now, but I have peace, knowing that soon, I will see Amalthai and your mother, too, Sarai. Please bury me next to Haran, your brother.”
Lot and his wife stood at the end of the bed, their arms intertwined. Lot wept quietly.
“I promise, Grandfather. I will bury you next to Haran.”
Sarai spoke, the rich timbre of her voice muted with grief.
“Father, we have talked to the leaders of the city. You know, thanks to the blessings of the Creator, our presence here has brought wealth and protection to this place. I have asked the leaders if we may name this part of the city Haran in honor of my brother, and they have graciously agreed. So, Haran’s memory will live on.”
Terah managed a weak smile and closed his eyes. “Thank you, my daughter. I know Abram will take good care of you and of Lot, my grandson.”
Terah closed his eyes. His breathing grew more and more shallow. “Oh, Father,” cried Abram, as he bowed over Terah and wept.
I clasped my hand to my heart and prayed silently. Thank You, Lord, that he believed before it was too late.
One evening, Abram came home from the fields where the shepherds tended his flocks. His cheeks were ruddy from the sun, and his eyes were flashing with excitement as he described to Sarai and me and incredible experience he’s just had.
“I was walking along the river when all of a sudden a great light appeared all around me, and I heard the voice of the Creator.”
“What did he say?” Sarai asked excitedly. I wondered myself. The Creator had spoken to Abram years before in Ur, telling him to leave the city and go to the land he would show Abram. Instead, when Terah grew weak, we had settled here.
“I’m to leave and go to a land the Lord will show me. We are to live as pilgrims, not in the cities of men, but in the place where the Creator will lead us.”
“Did he say anything else?” I asked him. Abram turned to look at me, his eyes glittering with excitement from his encounter.
“He said that he would bless those who bless me and curse those who curse me,” Abram told us. His face shone with an intense glow. We sat together at the table eating a platter of dates and nuts as we listened.
“Where are we to go?” Sarai asked. She enjoyed living in Haran in our quaint beehive home and had made many friends in the city She must have been somewhat dismayed, though she would not show it. Sarai, above all else, was supportive of her husband.
“I do not know. He said he would show me. We leave tomorrow. Please have the household servants pack what is necessary. I will have Ebe go to the marketplace and purchase tents.�
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Abram stood up from the table, grinning. “I must go and tell Lot!”
We left Haran with all of the possessions we brought and all that the family had acquired in our years in that city, along with Lot and his wife and the many servants that Abram employed. We headed to the land the Creator directed Abram to go, a land called Canaan.
After many weeks, we came to the hill country near a place the locals called Bethel. One night, Abram, Sarai, and I sat around the fire watching the stars and talking. Suddenly a great light appeared over Abram. He stood and raised his hands in prayer.
Sarai scuttled over to sit close to me as loud, thunderous noise rever-berated the air around us.
“What is happening?” she yelled into my ear.
“I think it’s the Creator!” I called loudly back. I watched in astonishment as Abram’s face reflected the glory around him.
Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the light was gone. Abram ran over to us and pulled Sarai to her feet.
“Sarai, Sarai! We’re going to have a child! We’re going to have a child!” He spun her around and around, repeating the promise and yelling for the servants to wake up.
“What? What! How?” Sarai asked.
“The Creator said this land around us will be for our descendants!”
Some of the servants appeared in the firelight.
“Quick!” Abram ordered. “Bring stones so we can make an altar to the Creator. We will worship him right here.”
Abram tucked Sarai close to him and his arm wrapped around her. “God is giving Sarai and me a child! He’s giving this land to our descendants!”
Sarai was delighted. She flitted between Abram, the men building the altar, and me, literally dancing with excitement.
She grabbed my hands. “Mother, dance with me! The Lord told Abram we will have a child! Our descendants will live in this land! It’s going to be theirs!”
I danced with her as she laughed and sang. Once the altar was built, Abram called for a sacrifice, and we all worshipped the Creator.
“Thank God for his great might!” Abram called. I raised my hands and praised the Creator for his goodness to Abram and to my dear Sarai. You are giving them their heart’s desire! Thank you.
After years in the place the Creator promised Abram, a famine fell across the land. We traveled across the land from Beersheba in the north to Kadesh Barnea. After several weeks of trying to find food to feed our people and animals, Abram called for a family meeting. Lot and Ebe came in from tending the sheep, and we joined Abram and Sarai.
“We can’t go on like this.” Abram sat on the ground in the tent he and Sarai shared. “Soon our need will be so great that we will be too weak to travel. Lot told me there is food in the land of Egypt in the south.”
“How do you know that?” I asked. I hadn’t seen any strangers in weeks.
“We met some travelers as we went north looking for land to graze the animals,” Ebe answered. As he talked about the men and what they told him and Lot, I noticed how thin my grandson had grown.
“Yes,” Lot spoke, “They told us about the capital, the city of On, where a pharaoh lives with hundreds of wives and concubines. However, they warned us that the king’s men are always looking for beautiful women to bring to him.”
We all looked at Sarai. Wherever we traveled, everyone marveled at her beauty. Her dark eyes flashed with intelligent humor, and she was quick to smile, revealing deep dimples on either side of her red lips.
“Without a doubt, Sarai is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” I worried aloud.
“But we need food,” Abram pondered. “This pharaoh is a problem. Sarai, you are so lovely that I’m afraid if he knows you’re my wife, he will kill me to get you.”
Lot and Ebe murmured their agreement.
“What can we do?” Sarai raised her hands. “If we stay here, we all will die!”
Abram nodded in agreement. “We can try and keep you hidden among our people, but if they see you, what if you say you’re my sister? They won’t kill me then, and as your brother, I can refuse to let them take you. Our men can protect you.”
Sarai nodded her head in agreement. We left for Egypt the next morning.
We stayed outside the city gates of On with our people, flocks and herds. Lot and Abram would take some of the men with them into the city to buy food while I stayed with Sarai and the other women in the tents.
After weeks of this, Sarai grew restless.
“I am tired of having to stay in this tent,” Sarai complained. “I think we’re far enough away from the city that we don’t have to worry, what do you think, Ariana?”
“I do feel bad for you,” I conceded. “Abram is very protective but with good reason! Ebe told me yesterday the pharaoh has over three hundred wives and concubines! I was shocked by such a horrible thing. Can you imagine all of those poor women?”
“It is shocking, but I have to get out of this tent, Ariana. Please, can we just go out for a short walk?”
“Maybe just a short one, away from the city,” I reluctantly agreed. Sarai threw her arms around me and hugged me.
“Let’s go!”
FIRE
Chapter 47
But immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of heaven will be shaken . . . and they will see the Son of Man.”
Matthew 24:29–30
I was frantic.
“Do you have a flashlight in the house?” Jannik asked. Although it was morning, the sky was black.
I told him there was one in the nightstand by the bed, and he made his way through the debris and found it. Stumbling, we left the house. Amazingly, most of the guesthouse had remained intact. The garden was a ruin. Huge boulders had smashed into the earth all around us, and we had to carefully make our way around them.
“This has to weigh almost a hundred pounds,” Jannik whispered, flashing the light over a tremendous rock. I gasped and grabbed his arm as another tremor shook the ground beneath our feet. Thankfully, it was less intense.
“I’m sure, as bad as that was, there’ll be a lot of aftershocks,” Jannik remarked. We scrambled through the devastation to the edge of the great rift in the ground and looked over the edge to see if there were any survivors. The main house was somewhere in the darkness below us.
“We’ll have to wait for more light,” Jannik said, his voice flat.
We stumbled back to what was left of the guesthouse to wait. We sat outside it in dazed silence. There were more aftershocks. Every time the ground shook, I was terrified. Finally, the blackness gave way to a dim grey light. Grit bit at our eyes, but we made our way back to the cliff’s edge.
We could just make out the shape of part of the mansion below us. It had fallen into the hole and was about fifteen feet below where it had once proudly stood. There was only silence.
Suddenly, there was another aftershock and the ground beneath us began to crumble. I jumped back as the ground gave way. Jannik also jumped back, in the opposite direction, and I watched in horror as a chasm opened up between us. The rest of the cliff and the house fell away, and Jannik with them. Smoky dust poured up from the hole below, obscuring everything.
“No!” I screamed. “Jannik!”
“Jannik! Jannik!” I called frantically over and over into the dark crevice before me. I fell to my knees sobbing uncontrollably.
“God, what can I do? Please help me. Please help me!” I moaned. Could I find a rope to reach him? Was he even alive? Desperate thoughts raced through my mind. I thought of one plan after another, but none of them would work.
“Jannik! Jannik!” I screamed again over the edge. “I can’t lose you again!”
I held the flashlight, but it was useless. Its flickering light hardly penetrated the darkness.
Ask me.
My thoughts grew still. It was the same voice that had warned me not to go out in the dese
rt. The voice I’d ignored.
I looked up and saw a streak of blue sky through the dusty grey light.
“God, I need you to rescue Jannik,” I whispered, as tears streamed down my dirty face. Where would I go, what would I do? I went back toward the guesthouse, the only safe haven I knew. I had barely reached it when a loud sound pierced the air and the ground shook again.
“God, what now?” I cried out. “Please, please help us!” I’d never heard anything so loud. Thankfully, it only lasted a few minutes.
“Please, God, please help me,” I prayed again, out loud. “I know Jesus is supposed to come back again at the end of all this. Please, won’t you send Him back now? Jesus, we need You more than ever! Please help us!”
Suddenly the dark room filled with a great warm light.
Awestruck, I looked around me and felt a trembling hope for the first time in a long, long time. The light was intense, but it didn’t hurt my eyes. It spilled into the guesthouse in a glorious display that glittered with hinted shades of color. It seemed to joyously chase away the smoky darkness from the room, like a sunrise after weeks of rain.
I went outside, hoping for a miracle. Tears streamed down my face as I took in the scene before me. The entire sky was filled with fiery rainbow clouds that arched down across the sky toward the Mount of Olives, on the east side of Jerusalem. I knew from the teaching I’d received at Petra that this was where the Bible prophecies said Jesus would return some day—when He came back. Hope filled my heart. Was it true? Was it now?
Where the fiery rainbow clouds met the mountain, there was a glorious light that I can only describe as otherworldly in its beauty. It must be Him! He’s here! He’s really come back! My heart beat wildly, and I looked around me, hoping.
