Sleep found me that night, soft and clean, without nightmares scratching at the edges of my mind. When morning light pressed against my eyelids, I opened my eyes slowly, half expecting the voices to return. But all I heard was Medad’s steady breathing beside me. The oil lamp was nearly burned out, its last ember flickering against clay. My brother stirred and rubbed his eyes. For a moment he simply watched me, as if confirming I was not an illusion carried by grief. Then he gave me a small, trembling smile.

 

He placed a bowl of warm barley porridge before me. The scent rose gently, and my stomach clenched from hunger I had forgotten how to feel. I took one careful bite. The warmth spread down my throat, comforting and strange. I ate slowly, savoring every spoonful as if rediscovering life one taste at a time.

 

After the meal, Medad touched my arm lightly. Today, you must see them. His voice was soft but firm. The families. The elders. Those you frightened. Those who lost animals. Those who still wake with memories of your screams.

 

My breath caught. The fear I felt on the road returned, heavy and cold.

 

Medad did not push. He waited until I exhaled, long and slow. Then we stepped outside together.

 

The village was already awake. Women were drawing water from stone cisterns. Children chased each other around fig trees. Men walked with baskets of dates and barley down the narrow paths. But when they saw me, everything slowed. Conversations broke apart. Eyes widened. Some mouths fell open in disbelief. Others tightened in fear.

 

Medad walked ahead gently, allowing them to see that I was beside him, calm and clothed and human again.

 

The first to approach was old Miriam, a woman with lines carved deeply into her face. I remembered chasing her grandson during one of my night terrors. The boy had slipped and scraped his knee, and Miriam had shielded him with her trembling hands, whispering ancient prayers between sobs.

 

Now she looked at me, her eyes clouded with age and memory. Her lips pressed together. She stepped closer until we were only a breath apart. Her voice was thin. Do you remember what you did?

 

My throat tightened. Yes.

 

She nodded, painfully slow. I waited for accusation or anger, but instead she reached out and touched my cheek with fingers that felt like dried reeds. You were not yourself. The mercy of Yahweh has reached you. Her eyes filled with tears. Then she whispered something that pierced me deeper than any wound. Welcome home, Elihu.

 

I could not speak. My vision blurred. Medad steadied me with his hand.

 

We walked on.

 

Not everyone came with tenderness. When we reached the marketplace, a man stepped forward with a gait that was as uneven as his temper. His name was Shalom, though peace was the last thing anyone ever associated with him. His missing two fingers on the right hand made his grip on the basket he held awkward, and the irony of his name rose in my mind like smoke. Peace, yet full of storms. Shalom, yet lacking even the parts that held things together.

 

He dropped the basket at his feet and pointed his half-hand at me. His voice shook with leftover terror and something sharper, something like hatred sharpened over years of fear. You. He spat the word like it tasted bitter. Spawn of demons. Plague of the tombs. Curse of our village. You tore into my goats. You destroyed my fences. You howled like a beast at my children. My daughter still wakes screaming your name. Elihu. His voice cracked. Elihu!

 

His wife tugged at his sleeve, whispering that enough was enough, but he shook her off.

 

Spawn of demons, he repeated. Yahweh have mercy, why did you come back?

 

My breath caught. I lowered my head. I could feel Medad tense beside me, ready to stand between us. But Shalom lunged forward and Medad stepped back deliberately, giving space, forcing me to face what I had been.

 

Elihu, he snarled, close enough I could smell the onions on his breath, you expect us to trust you? To let you walk free after the fear you carved into us?

 

His missing fingers pointed at me again. You brought darkness to our village. You think one Rabbi from Galilee can wash that away?

 

My heart trembled, but I lifted my head slowly. My voice came out raw. I am sorry. Truly. Yahweh has restored my mind. Jesus, the one who came through the storm, set me free. But I know what I was. I know what you saw. I do not expect you to forget, Shalom.

 

A strange silence followed. His chest heaved. His jaw trembled. For a moment I thought he would strike me.

 

Instead he stepped back and hissed through clenched teeth, I cannot forget. But perhaps I can learn to no longer fear. He spat again, not at me this time, but at the ground between us. Time will tell.

 

Then he turned away, muttering curses about demons and storms and missing fingers and the irony of Yahweh giving him the name Shalom when peace never seemed to stay near him.

 

It wasn’t forgiveness.

It wasn’t kindness.

It was a beginning.

A hard, jagged beginning, but a beginning all the same.

 

We continued through the village.

 

I saw the stone wall I had broken. The olive press I once toppled in a rage. The path where I had frightened a group of children so badly they refused to fetch water alone for weeks. Each place carried its own ache, its own memory waiting to be acknowledged. I walked slowly, letting each moment wash over me. Not to crush me, but to free me.

 

Then came the hardest part.

 

The tombs lay just beyond the olive grove. I had not planned to go back. But my feet carried me there on their own, as if some part of my soul knew this path must be walked.

 

The air grew cooler. The trees thinned. The ground turned hard and dusty. The caves opened before me like mouths of ancient beasts.

 

My wife was buried in one of the upper tombs.

 

My steps faltered. Medad placed a hand on my back but said nothing. I moved forward until I reached the entrance of her resting place. The scent of stone and earth washed over me. Memories rose slowly, like mist over a river.

 

I knelt.

 

My fingers brushed the cold surface of the tomb. I closed my eyes and whispered ahavah. Grief tightened around my heart, not like a chain now, but like a band of memory. Gentle. Human.

 

I spoke softly. I am sorry. For seeking your voice in places forbidden. For opening my soul to darkness in my longing for you. For not trusting Yahweh with my grief. For becoming something you would not have recognized.

 

Tears warmed my face.

 

Medad knelt beside me. His hand settled over mine. Yahweh has given you back to us, he said quietly. Let her rest. Now you must live.

 

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. When I stood, it felt like rising from a grave.

 

We walked back toward the village in silence. It was not an empty silence, but a healing one. A silence filled with the sound of Yahweh’s mercy resting over my life like a soft cloak.

 

When we returned home, Medad prepared a simple meal. Lentils. Bread. Figs. A small cup of watered wine. We ate slowly. My body felt new and yet ancient, like a restored vessel carrying old stories.

 

As evening settled, neighbors gathered outside the house. Some brought gifts. Bread. Olives. A string of dried fish. A new tunic. They placed them near the door, not entering completely, but showing their acceptance, their cautious welcome, their belief that mercy had found me.

 

I saw hope on their faces. Real hope. And fear fading into wonder.

 

That night, as I lay on my mat and listened to the quiet hum of the village settling into sleep, I realized something that made my breath catch.

 

Restoration is not only what Yahweh does in a moment. It is what He continues to do through days, through people, through memories, through forgiveness that unfolds like dawn.

 

I closed my eyes.

 

Tomorrow, I knew my calling would begin.

 

Tomorrow, I would speak of the One who crossed a storm to bring me home. Tomorrow, I would tell this village and the next and the next that no one is too lost for the mercy of Yahweh to find.

 

And maybe, just maybe, they would believe.