Abram Goes to War – Part 2

Abram seemed to have a sense of purpose while Lot just seemed to go along with whatever happened to him.

Abram exuded a kind of peace that surrounded all who were with him. That stopped when he and Lot went their own ways.

Sodom was a wild and wooly place to live. The life they shared with Abram was safer and more secure. Kenan wondered if all of that had anything to do with Abram’s God. Lot had no god at all. Actually he had lots of them, but they didn’t seem to help him any.

He made a small fire to heat some water to make some broth from the dried meat and also to use to wash his wounds. He could hear some animals in the forest as the sun went down so he stoked up the fire to last as long as possible to keep them away.

“I ought to keep my belongings close to me in case of wandering thieves,” Kenan thought to himself, “especially my sword and my knife.”

So while he covered himself up with a blanket as he lay down, he put his knife below his pack with the handle sticking out. He also laid his sword alongside his body just in case he needed it.

Kenan fell asleep wondering about what Abram’s God was like.

He slept fitfully that night as his leg kept throbbing with pain. Sometime during the night as the fire began to die down, he was awoken by a rustling sound in the bushes behind him. Reaching slowly for his knife, Kenan got the handle firmly in his right hand and grabbed his sword by the scabbard with his left and jumped up to face whatever was behind him.

His quick action startled a wild boar that was rooting around for some food and caused the animal to rush at him just narrowly missing his injured leg with its tusks. Once across the clearing the beast turned around and charged him again. Kenan swiftly tucked his knife into belt and drew his sword. As the animal came toward him, Kenan offered a quick prayer. “God of Abram, protect me.” Then he stepped out of the path of the charging boar and drove his sword into the beasts head. The animal ran headlong into a tree with the sword sticking out of his head and then fell over dead. He piled some more wood on the fire and sat down to figure out what to do next when his leg began throbbing again to remind him of his injuries. He had forgotten about them during the excitement. He also remembered the quickly uttered prayer to the God of Abram. He looked up into the night sky at the stars, smiled and said to himself, “Thank you. Maybe there is something to Abram’s God. I think He just answered my prayer.”

Kenan got up, hauled the dead animal down toward the river to get it away from his camp, returned to his makeshift bed, put his weapons back in their places and, worn out from the excitement, fell soundly asleep for the rest of the night.

Abram Goes to War – Part 1

I have been absent for the last few weeks as I considered and reconsidered where to go with my current writing projects. That dilemma is nearly resolved so I want to continue sharing my older stories. It is an adaptation of a Bible story from early 2010 that I wrote to tell the boys in AWANA. I hope you enjoy it.

Abram Goes to War

By: God

Adapted by: S.C. Mathisen

Kenan opened his eyes and was immediately blinded by the sun. Struggling to prop himself up on his elbows he began to look around him. As his blurred vision cleared, all he could see around him were bodies of soldiers and blood, lots of blood. When the smell finally registered in his brain, he began to feel sick to his stomach. It took several minutes to remember who he was, where he was and how he came to find himself the apparent lone survivor of a massacre.

Kenan struggled to his feet only to remember that he himself had lost some of the blood on this battlefield. There was a long cut on his left leg, another gash on his right arm and a bump the size of a pomegranate on the back of his head.

He tried to remember what had happened to Lot and his family and then the sight of them being tied up together and being pulled behind King Kedorlaomer’s conquering army like cattle. That was the last thing Kenan saw before he blacked out from that knock on the head.

Standing alone in the battlefield he thought to himself, “I’ve got to get to Lot’s uncle Abram! He’s rich and powerful and wise. He might be able to help my master.”

Kenan began looking around for anything that might make the trip easier. He figured that it would take at two or three days to get there, longer if he had trouble with his leg (which was still bleeding slightly).  Looking around at the bodies strewn across the field of battle, he found on one body a sword (complete with scabbard), on another a dagger to stick in his belt. He also added a bow, a quiver full of arrows and a couple of half-filled canteens, an equipment pack and bedroll that the soldiers used on their forced marches including  several pouches of rations dried meat, some sort of dried meal cakes and a quantity of dried dates before he was done. He could re-fill the canteens in the river that he must cross on the way toward the hills of Hebron. He felt well equipped for the journey.

Kenan loaded all of his equipment and supplies and began his long journey. Taking a look at the sun and the shadows of the early afternoon, Kenan headed northwest toward the home of Abram. His injured left leg was somewhat swollen from the cut and ached slightly with each step. He planned to wash it thoroughly in the river when he got to it.

At the edge of the field where the battle had taken place he stopped to turn and take one last look at the carnage. His unsettled stomach took another turn for the worse so he turned his back on it and headed into the coolness of the forest determined to find the river, refresh himself in it’s cool waters and find a place that he could cross it.

It was a long, steady climb to get to the river and Kenan reached it as the sun was setting beyond the tops of the hills he was climbing. As he settled down for the night, he began to think about what he had just been through and his life as one of Lot’s men. Things had been very different when they were with Abram.