Prayer is a mystical thing, I think. Prayer in my childhood home was by rote. We were taught the Lord’s Prayer and we recited dinner graces found in The Book of Common Prayer. What to pray in any given circumstance was found in the Prayer Book. From somewhere deep inside of me, I discovered personal prayer in conversation with God. In the Book of Tobit, his son, Tobias travels to Media to claim family money left there for safekeeping; the angel Raphael, posing as Tobias’ travel companion, leads him to the home of a wealthy man, Raguel. Raguel and Edna have one daughter, Sarah. What a perfect match for Tobias. Tobias has been raised to treat others fairly and kindly and he is about to bring back wealth to his family. He will find with Sarah a woman of the same faith, class, and concern for others. There is just one little catch: Sarah is possessed by the wicked demon, Asmodeus, who has killed the first seven bridegrooms of Sarah. Is Tobias to be the eighth? Enter the maid of Raguel’s household. As Lindsay+ has written in her reflections, this is the maid most likely to have prepared Sarah for the seven wedding celebrations. With each wedding, the joy dissipates. I think of Juliet Capulet’s nurse, who was first wet nurse to Juliet and then her closest confidante. It could have been true of Raguel’s maid, who may have loved Sarah as her own. The maid lashes out at Sarah. “You are the one who kills your husbands!” And Sarah wept. Could it be that this maid was like a mother to her? The pain seems like more than just harsh words from the hired help. It is too bad that the maid did not turn to prayer to help the two of them in such a horrendous situation.
But Sarah prayed. She prayed to God with a deep, personal plea. She wanted to kill herself, yet the thought of the grief she would bring to her father was too much. She conversed with God and shared all that had happened, finally asking God to end her life, “but if it is not pleasing to you, O Lord, to take my life, hear me in my disgrace.” At that very moment her prayers, and the earlier recorded prayers of Tobit, “were heard in the glorious presence of God.” Oh, that we can believe that our prayers are heard in the glorious presence of God!
Edna was a devoted wife and mother. Raguel told her to prepare the room for Sarah and her eighth bridegroom, and she did. She brought her daughter there and, wiping tears from her eyes, she said her own prayer: “Take courage, my daughter; the Lord of heaven grant you joy in place of your sorrow. Take courage, my daughter.” In the bridal chamber another prayer was said. Tobias told God that he was taking Sarah with sincerity and asked for mercy “that we may grow old together.” And they both said, “Amen, Amen.”
A final prayer was made that night. Raguel roused the servants and sent the maid to see if the bridegroom was dead or alive. The maid returned and reported that the bridegroom was indeed alive and that nothing was wrong. “So they blessed the God of heaven” and gave thanks to God for all God’s blessings, especially for God’s compassion on Tobias and Sarah. It was most certainly a spontaneous prayer, filled with surprise at the outcome of the wedding night, and with petitions for the children’s future lives together. Can you see Raguel and the maid in prayer together? I can. The maid, the long-suffering servant in the family, the one expected to tend to Sarah through seven, and now eight, weddings and frustrated to the point of hurtful accusations towards the young woman, can finally pray, can finally share her thankfulness and her petitions for the newly married couple. What a blessing for the maid, and for all of us who discover prayer as our personal connection to God.
++++ Coming March 31st ++++
Chapter 25
Women at the Tomb
Content provided by Author Lindsay Hardin Freeman
Illustration: Claire Elam