Redeeming-Love-By-Francine-Rivers

Fourteen
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with the
judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and
the measure you give will be the measure you get.
J E S U S, M A T T H E W 7:1
Paul dumped his meager gear and stood on the hillside. He saw Michael
working in the field and cupped his hands to his mouth to shout. Michael
left the shovel to meet him halfway down the hill. They embraced. Paul
almost wept at the feel of those strong, sure arms.
“Oh, I’m glad to see you, Michael,” he said, his voice graveled with
fatigue and emotion. The relief was so great he had to fight back unmanly
tears. He withdrew and rubbed his face self-consciously. He hadn’t shaved in
weeks, and his hair had grown long. He hadn’t changed his clothes in a
month. “I must look—” He gave a bleak laugh. “It was awful.” Hard work
for little or nothing, drinking to forget, women to remember, and fighting
just to stay alive.
Michael put his hand on his shoulder. “You’ll look a lot better after you
clean up and have a good meal.” Paul was too tired to protest when Michael
went up the hill and shouldered his load. “How was it on the Yuba?”
Paul grimaced. “Dismal and cold.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
“If there’s gold in them thar hills, I never saw much of it. What I found
was barely enough to keep body and soul together.” He looked toward his
end of the valley and thought of Tess. The last few days had been filled with
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