Chapter One
Mystery Brides
I rubbed at my eyes. All the numbers on the screen were running together. There were many things about being an archaeologist that were fun, but cataloging and assigning reference numbers to artifacts was not one of them.
Something blurped on the screen in front of me and looking down I saw I had a message. In need of anything to distract me from the blurry data streams of endless digital paperwork I moved my mouse to click on the blinking icon.
Instantly I regretted my action. On a silent groan of dreaded expectation I clicked on the email that had my father’s name on it.
Whatever it was that he wanted of me was already pressing on my mind with restrictive force. More words of anger as to my choices in life which he was of the opinion had been poor ones?
Oh he’d encouraged me to pursue archaeology, but specializing in biblical archaeology had not been to his liking. Now as I scanned over the brief message I found myself rather shocked by it.
The message was rather non-accusatory and strangest of all he wanted my help with something of importance, ‘Hey Sam I’ve got something important for you. Something that actually uses your field of expertise. Looks like you were right after all. How about we catch some dinner at Roberto’s tonight, say 7 o’clock? Love, Dad.’
I stared at the screen in a mixture of hope and something akin to hatred, because of the emotions the simple message had evoked within me. Hope in the sense that my father wanted my help with something as I’d always sought to please him that is up until a few years ago.
Hate because I felt myself falling into the trap that I’d been thrown into far too many times already in my life. The trap of wanting to please my father in order to receive love in return. It never worked out like that though and instead I always ended up feeling used.
Despite knowing all that I did I helplessly watched my fingers move as if remotely upon the keyboard, “See you at 7:00 Dad.” My mouse clicked and the Send button flashed.
Oh no, did I really click the send button! Yep, I had, as I confirmed by checking my sent email folder.
Silently despairing of ever managing to wean myself away from the influences of negative people of prominence in my life I clicked on the return email that had already popped up, “See you later baby girl.”
I stared at the brief reply in wonderment. Just what did he want?
What was his line, ‘Looks like you were right after all’, about?
We hadn’t spoken in four months and then it had been a big blow up with lots of screaming on his part to which I had eventually just walked out from and gotten in my car to drive away as every hateful word replayed within my consciousness for the entire two hour drive home.
It had been Thanksgiving and dad had rented a cabin on a lake in a resort area for us to celebrate a day that always before we had celebrated at home. But with mom’s death seven years before Thanksgiving had never been the same and so I hadn’t been too opposed to spending it outside of the home full of memories from growing up there.
My announcement though at last year’s Thanksgiving hadn’t been popular, as I well knew it wouldn’t be. I’d told dad and my two sisters after most of the gluttony had been accomplished that I would no longer be celebrating December 25th as Christmas.
“Well why not?” My father had screamed at me.
“Well because for one it’s not the day of Jesus’s birth.”
“Well that’s not a good reason for not celebrating Christmas!” He’d stormed back with.
I’d known going in that it would do me no good to argue, but it was in my nature to try to get my point across so I had tried. I had explained the pagan traditions of Saturnalia and how Jesus was born by best accurate Biblical account around September 29th and that in reverse Christmas Day was really the birthday celebration of the child of Nimrod of the Tower of Babel and his wife Isis.
I also went into the word semantics of the word ‘christ’ as to how it does not refer to Jesus in specific, but rather it can mean any lord, with the occultic symbolism of that day, Christmas Day, being twisted to mean the celebration of something opposite of Jesus, hence anti-Christ, even as the reborn spirit of Nimrod in the occult world is to them the spirit of anti-Christ.
I had explained that December 25th hadn’t been observed by the early church and that later the reason given by the Catholic Church to move the birth of Jesus to December 25th had been so that pagans could continue to celebrate their pagan feast days and traditions and be called Catholic all at the same time. Then instead of just wrangling with my father, my sisters had lit into me big time.
They’d said about how I was trying to deprive their children of a good time by taking away the joys of the holidays not to mention their presents and so on. Mind you my nieces and nephews at the time were showing the most interest that they had exhibited all day in terms of listening into the adult conversation, which now had them looking up from the screens of their iPhones and tablets with interest.
I’d countered my sisters with the plea of, “Shouldn’t we try to be authentic in our walk with God, especially when God specifically says not to observe the celebration times and feasts of the pagans?”
Then my one brother-in-law had broken into the conversation in high dudgeon as if he hadn’t been listening to anything of what I’d previously said, “Why do you have to be one of those people making it hard for everybody? You’ll be telling us we have to throw our Christmas tree out next!”
Well that had fallen rather conveniently or as the case may be inconveniently with what the conversation was about and I had responded to it by quoting Jeremiah 10, which specifically forbids the cutting down of a tree and decorating it in one’s own home. Oh my father had really lost it then.
Blood vessels had pumped to capacity as he’d screamed, “You take the Bible far too literal Samantha! You better watch out or it will ruin you! Goodness knows you’ve already let your over attention to matters of faith cost you a promising career as an archaeologist. Is this all you do sit around thinking up things to cause trouble? Look what you’ve done and how upset you’ve made everybody! You ungrateful…..” He’d gone on and on, until finally I had just stood up from the table and left.
Now staring at the brief message before me I could only wonder as to what had magically put me back into my father’s good graces. Something wasn’t right, as I didn’t believe in magic.
I did then what I should’ve done before sending off my reply. Closing my eyes I prayed, “God I don’t know about this. I was faithful to share what You revealed to me and I was rejected for it and now I doubt his sincerity about me being right about anything from his perspective which I doubt has changed. What is this all about? If I shouldn’t go please tell me now and I won’t go.”
“Go.”
Blinking I looked up and whispered, “Why?”
“Because I wish to preserve you even as a faithful father does for a child he loves.”
Feeling on the verge of tears I whispered out brokenly, “But my father doesn’t love me like that! He has something up his sleeve and I know it won’t be good for me in the long run!”
“Samantha you have no father other than Me for even as I created you in My own image I am Father of all. Listen to Me and do as I say.”
Crying I pressed my face to the keyboard and nodded my acceptance of my Heavenly Father’s will even as I felt the love through His words that my earthly father had never shown to me.
“Oh God, I don’t want any more pain! Please help me to only listen to Your voice and not to the voice of any other.”
“Keep My ways and I will be with you always. I hear every prayer of those who put their trust in Me.”
A silent moment passed and then, “Tell me Samantha what is it you want of Me?”
Blurry eyed I looked up at the fuzzy screen before me and then about at the littered papers which were the evidence of my work and forcefully I said, “I want to be happy! I feel so alone!”
“You do not belong to this world, but to Me and I jealously keep what is Mine. How can that soul which is entrusted to Me find joy when they are separated from Me for I am Spirit and you are of the flesh? Do not think it strange how you are set apart from the ways of the world for indeed I am calling you to Me and I honor your faithfulness of spirit above all else. You will have reward both in this life and far more in the world to come, and yet the trials of this life must go on a little longer.”
Feeling shaken beyond belief I slid down off my chair to the floor as it suddenly felt like my little office at the university had become hallowed ground. I lay there praising my Abba Father, as I felt the current of His Spirit course through me like a tide of living water sweeping away all the hurt and struggles of my life.
I was ready to do anything for my Heavenly Father, even as I no longer feared the mechanization’s of my earthly father. Peace swept through me and I lay enshrouded in it completely at peace with life for once.
*****
My eyes opened and with some alarm I lifted my head up off the floor. One glance at the clock which read 6:30 had me coming to my feet in a hurry.
How long had I been out? Hours seemed to be the unavoidable answer and yet as opposed to any embarrassment over having slept on my office floor I instead felt fortified by a strength it seemed as if potent enough to keep me awake for days on end.
Busily I closed down everything and glancing in my small compact mirror I allowed myself to take the time to smooth my tangled hair out a bit. My father would just have to receive me the way I looked, which frankly wasn’t bad.
I snapped the compact mirror shut and slung my purse on over my shoulder. Closing my office door I shut and locked it and hurried out of the building to see that my little car was the last one on the lot of the small Christian college that I worked for.
Hurrying to my car I jumped inside and turned the key and faithfully my little pile of nuts and bolts roared to life before then coughing painfully.
“Easy. Easy.” I cajoled, as I feathered the gas pedal a little. The engine caught on with a little gentle nudging and its mechanical cough was left behind.
I eased it into Drive and began making my way to the highly expensive Italian restaurant named Roberto’s. Annoyingly I hoped that my father intended to pay as I was on the lean side of the month currently.
The restaurant’s parking lot was full, but I managed to squeeze into a small space at the back. One of the benefits of having a small car.
As I made it to the front of the restaurant I saw my father waiting outside. Approaching him I watched him shake his head ruefully as he asked rhetorically, “Still driving that rust bucket around?”
“Every day.”
“Why?”
“Well I decided that eating was more important. Shall we?” I said in gesture to the restaurant’s doors behind him.
My father blinked several times in the face of my rather uncharacteristic briskness of bearing before turning to hurry through the doors behind him. I watched the restaurant doors slam shut and the desire of one day having a man who cared enough to wait and hold the door open for me occurred to me all over again with potency of spirit.
Belatedly my father turned back and half shoved the door open. I caught it before it hit me and said, “Thanks.”, without really meaning it.
We were seated at an elegantly laid out table with a good view and silently I thanked God for the opportunity of having good food tonight. All I’d had all day was a couple of granola bars and the promise of food not out of a wrapper or can had my stomach yearning for the sumptuous event of consuming good Italian food to begin.
We ordered and after I had prayed silently I began to enjoyably sample the first offerings of food that came in the form of fresh bread and a salad.
I noticed that my father kept glancing up from his food to gaze at me curiously. Finally he began a more serious topic of conversation than the idle chitchat that we had engaged in since being seated, “So what’s professionally new for you lately?”
Looking up I shrugged before saying, “I had an article published in Bible Archaeology Comes Alive Magazine. I even had a radio interview to go along with it.”
Beaming with a smile rather uncharacteristic of him in relation to anything to do with me his youngest child he said, “I know! I read it and I’m not the only one. Some very influential people read it as well. People who have contracted with me to do some work for them.”
Straightening up a little I asked, “You’re an astrophysicist who works for NASA, why would anyone contracting you be reading about my work in Biblical Archaeology?”
He shrugged, as if to say he didn’t know either, but what he said was, “As of late there’s lots of things going down in regards to Biblical events that have attracted the notice of very important sectors of the government laboratories that I work with. Have you heard about the plans of soon implementing the construction of the Third Temple in Jerusalem?”
“I’ve heard the rumors, but I also know that they don’t have enough of the sacred red dirt needed to make the corresponding sacrifices that such a building would entail them to consistently have to make. Without the sacred red dirt and some other missing artifacts their plans are little more than just plans.”
“Sacred red dirt you say. Didn’t they find a good bit of that stuff a few years back when they excavated a hidden Levitical priest hole near the Dead Sea that was hidden away about the time that Rome sacked Jerusalem in A.D. 70?”
I stared at my father in frank amazement. Never had I seen him so interested in the field of expertise that I had chosen to occupy my time with.
Amazed or not I instantly distrusted whatever it was that my father was up to. Calculatingly I responded by saying, “I see that you’ve been doing your own research as of late into obscure Biblical matters. A few tons of sacred red dirt however do not make much of an impact when you consider how much traditional Jewish sacrifice rituals use of the stuff. A few tons will be used up within a year’s time of full on animal sacrifice ritual practices.”
Smiling slyly my father nodded before innocently asking, “What makes this red dirt so special anyway?”
If he knew so much about a several year old news bulletin in concern to the sacred red dirt discovery near the Dead Sea then he must surely know the dirt’s origin as well, but to humor him I said, “It’s made from a certain kind of plant material that no longer exists on the surface of the earth.”
He nodded approvingly, as if I was a star pupil with the right answer to the test question. I was tiring of this game quickly and if it hadn’t been for my desire for the food that would be coming shortly I would’ve very much entertained the notion of standing up and leaving the restaurant.
Our food arrived and focusing in on it I wasn’t quite prepared for the sight of my father’s hand reaching across the table to lay something golden and glittery on the table beside me. My eyes wide I stared at the curiously worked little golden amulet, whose emerald jewels glinted brightly up at me, from off the table’s dull background.
My eyes rose to my father’s smiling visage and under my breath I asked, “Where did you get this?”
“Can you tell me what it is? Wait I know you can. I can tell my playing along with the questioning stuff is working on your nerves, but humor me I’m wearing a wire for the benefit of my superiors so they can listen in.”
“You’re wearing a listening device?” I stammered out with even as he gestured to a dot on his shirt lapel.
“It even takes video. What? You don’t think I’d go walking around with a historical artifact worth millions of dollars on my own do you? Now for the benefit of those listening, what is this?”
Glancing around, as if to see those listening in, I cleared my throat and said, “It’s the symbol of one of the kingdoms that was sworn over to King Solomon through one of his wives. The kingdom in question appears nowhere else in recorded history and the name of it is synonymous with no earth culture we are aware of and yet she was regarded highly by King Solomon and it’s said that like Solomon’s mistress, the Queen of Sheba, she was reputed to be of a darker exotic appearance. Some claim India as a possible place of origin, but there is no mention of such a kingdom ever occurring there and they have a rather detailed history dating back to that time and before. As strange, as the occurrence of the exotic princess of that symbol is, there is also the unknown knowledge of just where in fact many of the princesses of nations King Solomon married came from as in the ancient world surrounding Israel at that time there was simply not such a volume of nations or city states as to support the hundreds of wives and thousands of concubines that King Solomon amassed within his personal harem.”
My father nodded encouragingly before adding, “Anything else? Perhaps more about the red dirt.”
I stared at the man who was my father, who I felt was betraying me in some unseen way. I didn’t want to say anymore, but my spirit was immediately prompted to do so and grudgingly I gave into the prodding of the Holy Spirit by divulging all my thoughts on the matter, “It is a belief of mine that Solomon engaged into alliances that stretched past our known world. Indeed, as the builder of the First Temple, he was the one that procured the red dirt which to all knowledge hasn’t been seen on the surface of the Earth since the great flood of Noah’s day. He got the red dirt by which to perform the Temple sacrifices from somewhere and I think one of these marriage alliances could have been what it took to seal the deal for the procurement of such a rare commodity.”
“Where do you think he got it from? Another planet maybe?”
I felt reticence to say anymore and so I didn’t. My father held his hand to his ear as if he was a very poorly trained spy and nodding his head as if in answer to a unheard conversation he then smiled at me and said, “You’re in if you want to be.”
“In what?” I asked.
“Enrolled in an expedition that’s tasked with the unraveling of such mysteries as this red dirt and beautiful amulet.”
I looked to the amulet resting upon the table. To some it may seem beautiful, but to me it held no allure. The symbology of design was a bit simplistic, but the general idea trying to be represented in the amulet piece was that of a curiously worked altar.
The altar even had a name, the altar of power. The problem for me though was that the altar was not to my God. In my work I came across many such pagan symbologies and to a one they all shared in the commonality of all having seen the passage of innocent human babies pressed down upon them to be slaughtered.
My God required no such sacrifice. In fact He had provided the sacrifice needed by offering up Himself to serve as the replacement for any future sacrifice whether of animals or of anything else. All one had to do was to believe in that sacrifice of the Savior, Jesus, His son in order to be saved, as by Jesus’s intercessory sacrifice and resurrection all sins are forgiven.
“Aren’t you going to answer me?” My father asked impatiently.
Coming out of my daze I glanced from the amulet to my father as all that had transpired in my office with my Heavenly Father earlier in the day reoccurred in fast-paced realization. Nodding my head I said, “I’m in. When do I pack my bags?”
He blinked and then blinking again he asked, “Don’t you even want to know how much the job pays?”
I smiled somewhat bittersweetly, “Some of us don’t formulate all our decisions off of what the bottom dollar accrued amount will be.”
He actually had the good grace to blush a little and with the decision made I went about devouring the excellent food set before me. I wasn’t as hungry as I had been but something said I had better pack down the calories while they were available.
I was going on an expedition. I wasn’t quite sure where they intended this expedition to be headed for, but if I was the one in charge I knew where I would look.
Dinner passed on uneventfully as father really had little to say to me even during the best of times and we’d already conversed more intimately than we had in many years.
We were in the parking lot and headed for our respective vehicles when my father called out, “You’re sure this won’t be a scheduling hassle for you? I mean up and leaving from work like this.”
I shook my head no, “Classes let out over a week ago and I didn’t have anything scheduled trip wise for the first month of summer anyway.”
He’d interrupted my brainstorming session as to what to pack for the expedition and more importantly how to pack it all. But his question did provoke an alarming one of my own, “How long are we going to be gone?”
He shrugged expressively, “Who knows. It’s the government.”
Suddenly locked up with tension I asked, “How am I supposed to pay my bills such as my apartment rent while I’m gone?”
He held a hand to his ear and seemed to listen. I was on the verge of stepping closer and repeating my question, when he called out, “Your first month’s salary has already been transferred into your account. It’s immediately available. A car will be by to pick you up on Monday and you’re to bring just one bag with you.”
I stared at my father in amazement. The government was still directly listing in on all this!
How could this not be as alarming to my father as it was to me? He waved at me benignly before hopping into his convertible and tearing out of the parking lot soon thereafter.
I however continued to stand there in the parking lot. Dimly I heard the buzz of overhead bug clouds dancing in worship to the parking lot lights. My hand itched to make its way to my purse and check my phone, but I fought the urge off.
Not a safe thing to do in a parking lot. I hurried on to my car and once there with the doors locked I couldn’t refrain myself from waiting any longer.
Pulling my phone out I engaged the Google app and had to wait the customary length of time for my old phone to crunch ones and zeros in order to do something basic for me. Finally I got to my banking hub and punched in my password and all the ridiculous other hoops they make one jump through.
“Come on. Come on.” I repeated, as the screen loaded and then I screamed.
I looked around the car hurriedly to see if anyone had heard my scream. The coast was clear and so I let my eyes track back over to the five figure deposit number.
“$18,000.” I whispered.
It was even available right now long after banking hours were over. That never happened!
My mind ran rampant all of a sudden with all I needed and could accomplish in three days with such a source of wealth. I’d set up my apartment for at least three months in advance as well as my phone bill. I’d pay off my two credit cards. Heck, I would even buy myself some new clothes, shoes, and a bag for this trip!
“Wait a minute, slow down.” I cautioned myself.
Closing my eyes I asked, “God is it all right to use this money?”
No response came, which left me the difficult conundrum of solving out the moral effects of my own decision. I didn’t like what the government did with my money, especially when it came to sponsoring things like abortions.
On the flipside this situation wasn’t about the government and what they did, rather it was their money now in my possession as earned income. Did that however do away with all the moral objections that I had with what the powers that be did with the money allotted to them out of people’s taxes?
Glancing into my rearview mirror I sighed. It occurred to me then that I did know at least one determining factor as to how to solve the situation.
God knew I needed the money. It wasn’t right to default on my rent or let my bills go unpaid. Perhaps it wasn’t savory either, but the reality of the moment was that I lived in a cursed world and the choices I’d rather not entertain sometimes demanded otherwise.
“Thank you for the money God. Help me spend it wisely.”
That said I fired my car up and it seemed to purr with new life. Two questions immediately occurred to me. Was I going to get 18,000 every month and secondly was this expedition going to go on that long?
Resignedly I admitted that I’d signed up for something that I really didn’t know anything about. God knew however and that was enough.