The Sword of Ruth: The Story of Jesus' Little Sister
Page 9
The next day, out back of the housing complex next to the garden and the hut used for making pottery and preparing seeds, Ruth cut the papyrus into long strips. It was a time-laden job. Lately, while she worked, her thoughts took her to a future she did not understand, complete with images of items and people she didn't recognize, ones she'd seen in her dreams. As she cut the strips, she cleared her thoughts, the way Yeshua had taught her, and opened to what might come. Her mother said the ideas that came during these times were usually of God, but she needed to be careful not to overlay them with her own desires and misdirect herself.
After the strips were cut, she flattened them with a heavy stone, placed them in a trough and covered them with water. For the next two days she added water as needed to make up for evaporation. When the fibers softened, she lay them side by side, overlapped slightly, until they formed a sheet a foot wide. She cut shorter pieces and placed them across the first layer. Continuing the crisscross pattern, she added layer to layer until she was satisfied the sheet would be thick and durable. She placed it between boards and began squeezing out the water. Next she put heavy rocks on top to speed the drying and flattening process and left it all in the sun. A couple of days later, the paper that emerged was strong and flexible. In this manner she made sheet after sheet. She rolled them up and stored them in the driest part of the house with the others. So far she had ten. She would need a lot more, Yeshua said.
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